From the Construct Ireland archives

A little foresight at the design stage can go a long way in determining a building’s success. If a building’s design fails to take into consideration the needs of any potential occupants and users, the risk of the need for corrective work, often at considerable cost, is greatly increased.
Construct Ireland’s Architecture Correspondent Lauren Kapusta reports

For the first time in several years, 2007 will see a budget deficit in Ireland so the question must be asked: where does this leave state aid for sustainable building? Construct Ireland’s Jeff Colley and Jason Walsh propose a new approach to improving the energy efficiency of existing homes that might even fix a few of the difficulties seen in the last eighteen months

Achieving building regulations compliance and a good energy rating is one thing. Delivering a genuinely low energy building is quite another. A new scheme by one of Ireland’s most decorated developers may help show the market a way forward.

After a long struggle to build their home, Karen and Steve Ward finally got their wish — an energy efficient, timber frame house that boasts a palette of healthy and ecological materials and a fully renewable heating system.

A new development in the historic town of Thomastown, County Kilkenny brings the cutting edge of green innovation into a setting known for its medieval heritage. John Hearne visited the site, where a commitment to the environment is evident in sustainable design combined with everything from airtight detailing to technologies such as factory insulated timber frame, low energy windows, solar thermal, photovoltaic and heat recovery ventilation

Woodspec -First Timber Specifiers Guide Produced in Ireland

The notion that curbing CO2 emissions would damage economic growth has been used as an excuse from developed countries such as the USA not to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. However, as Richard Douthwaite reveals, the people of Austrian town Güssing are discovering firsthand that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The striking Galway Mayo Institute of Technology(GMIT) Learning Resource Centre was recently recognized with the 2005 President’s Award for Innovation in Design presented by the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI) to Varming Mulcahy Reilly Associates Consulting Engineers

No matter how energy efficient a building method is, constructing a house from scratch will always cause some damage to the environment - but what if a building material could absorb more carbon than it causes to be released over its life cycle? Lenny Antonelli visits a hempcrete house in Co. Down that seeks to trial this innovative method of building