From the Construct Ireland archives

The development of Coppinger Court, a high density apartment complex on Popes Quay, Cork City, has been broadly received with a warm response, picking up awards in 2004 including the RIAI Best Sustainable Building award.

Construct Ireland investigates what measures the Irish government is undertaking to actively encourage the homeowner to switch to non-polluting renewable energy sources.

The advent of central heating improved the comfort of life for countless Irish people over the past century, but as energy efficient building grows, some pioneering homeowners think they can live without it. What’s life like for them?

The building is the first all timber office complex in Ireland. It covers almost 2,300m2 of floor space and provides accommodation for almost 100 staff working in a wide range of forestry related disciplines.

A new extension to the EPA's headquarters in Wexford lives up to the organisation's aim of environmental protection, boasting passive ventilation and lighting, a host of green technologies and a sustainable approach to landscaping.

If the Irish construction industry is truly to rapidly embrace the concept of sustainability, leadership from the public sector will be paramount in setting the right example. John Hearne spoke to the design team of the Opus and RIBA award-winning Cork Civic Offices, a development which keeps carbon emissions and fossil energy consumption to a minimum, and once more puts the public sector at the forefront of innovative sustainable design

In the third installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at more innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.

Beauty is only skin deep, or so goes the cliché, but is there more to 'grace' in a building than its exterior? Jason Walsh visited Rathnew, County Wicklow, to see how an ordinary office building was being transformed into a paragon of sustainability and spoke to two of the building's designers and occupants, architect Tomás Ó Leary and engineer Mark O'Brien

Lime-hemp is developing as a bio composite construction material with serious ecological and energy advantages. Patrick Daly, lecturer in Environmental Design at DIT Bolton St. asks if this is the environmental material of the future and explores its mainstreaming potential.

Nowhere demonstrates the need for a high-performance building envelope quite like a coastal site. John Hearne visited a cutting edge timber frame house overlooking Sligo Bay that was designed to achieve a highly insulated, air-tight and low embodied energy envelope whilst making the most of the spectacular vista.