From the Construct Ireland archives

Ramon Arratia, sustainability director for InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa & India

A new development at Grange Lough, Rosslare, reveals that passive houses can be made Irish – both in terms of what they’re built with, and how they look.

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

In this adapted extract from his new book Natural Building: A Guide to Materials and Techniques, seminal eco architect Professor Tom Woolley outlines some of the reasons why natural building is necessary.

Solearth partner & Éasca board member Mike Haslam profiles five inspiring English and US projects that share a similarly considered green design approach.

Four years ago the construction industry was focused on building big and fast — but at the same time, a small team was carefully and ecologically retrofitting a terraced Dublin house on a tight budget according to passive house principles.

When Construct Ireland asked Vivienne Brophy of the UCD Energy Research Group to select projects for this feature she suggested that the second year UCD Architecture students make the selection, using UCD’s sustainable building rating system tool to verify their choice

The Department of Education has made its commitment to energy efficiency and CO2 reduction clear in developing and bringing into practice targets for primary school design that aim for less than half of the accepted good practice in the field. Project coordinator John Dolan, Senior Engineer with the Department of Education explains how this approach works within normal Departmental budgetary limits to create school buildings that show the way ahead for building designers.

If achieving eco buildings is challenging for new build, it is doubly so for renovation projects. Philip & Delphine Geoghegan of iCon Architecture & Uban Design describe a low impact renovation that balances these apparent tensions with great success.

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.