From the Construct Ireland archives

Kirk Shanks, Senior Researcher at the Sustainability Research Development Group, the Focas Institute, DIT describes the development of this new sustainable generation.

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.

A marked lack of adequate central government action to promote sustainable house building in Ireland has been recently counteracted by planning authorities such as Fingal County Council taking action into their own hands, and setting standards geared to protect their constituents in an oil and gas scarce future. However, as sustainable building consultant Will Woodrow discovered from surveying planning authorities around the country, local government willingness is not always met with a full grasp of the issues needed to make sustainable housing happen.

Construct Ireland’s John Hearne discovers a low energy, low carbon house being built in Galway which is achieving sustainable results whilst not jarring with aesthetic conventions.

Since establishing UCD’s Energy Research Group in 1975, the career of Professor J Owen Lewis has taken in the role of principal at the UCD College of Engineering, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, a Bord na Móna R&D directorship and expert roles advising EU research, national energy policy and building regulations. Appointed CEO of SEAI last year, Professor Lewis has been a champion of sustainable building since before the term existed. His selection combines a proto-green Alvar Aalto design, the reimagined Reichstag and an unusual academic building with two new cutting edge sustainable buildings.

Richard Douthwaite explains why the bailout may turn out to be a gift to Ireland, and offers some advice for dealing with a default.

With the publication earlier this year of three reports on drinking water quality, urban waste water discharges, and implementation of the phosphorous regulations, the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement(OEE) has presented an overview of water management by local authorities in Ireland. Presented as a package of reports, they paint a picture of how local authorities are doing in relation to the management of water resources in the country. Construct Ireland’s Jeff Colley speaks to Doctor Matt Crowe, Programme Manager of the OEE on the state of national water quality.

Any building, no matter how cold and draughty, no matter how remote, can be improved to world-class energy performance, as an upgraded and extended Donegal cottage dating back to the 1800s proves.

Part of the Mater Hospital redevelopment, the recently completed Mater Orchard building is a first class example of how to integrate sustainable building strategies into a substantial building whilst keeping extra cost to a minimum.

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