Bonny in Clyde

How do you solve a problem like decarbonising social housing, and do so rapidly, en masse, in a manner that lifts vulnerable people out of fuel poverty while delivering warm, healthy homes? River Clyde Homes may be about to pull off the seemingly impossible.

Seal of office

While the passive house standard has had a lasting impact on the design and construction of new homes in Ireland, progress has been slower in commercial property. With the business world under increasing pressure to take meaningful climate action while providing better working conditions for staff, one new office building in the southeast may be a sign of things to come – and a beacon for a UN-affiliated project.

Key industry events at Energy Show 2024

Businesses involved in the supply chain for low energy building or retrofit in Ireland take note: there are a number of must see events at the Energy Show in Dublin.

From small screen to deep green

The new Oxfordshire studio of Charlie Luxton Design, the practice of the well-known TV presenter and architectural designer, is deeply impressive for its exhaustive attention to sustainability across every facet of the project, from energy use and embodied carbon to the reuse of materials and the ecological restoration of the three-and-a-half-acre site. It’s a gorgeous building, too.

Licence to skill

The ever-tightening ambitions to integrate sustainability throughout Ireland’s new and existing buildings won’t be realised unless we can find smart, flexible ways to upskill the industry. Lis O’Brien of Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) explains how Digital Academy for Sustainable Built Environment (DASBE) has it cracked.

Bedding sustainability into British buildings: Bioregional’s BedZed

Shortlisted for the Stirling Prize in 2003, BedZed was a prominent example of architecture starting to pay attention to sustainability. But how well did it work? In the latest part of his series on the history of low energy architecture, Dr. Marc O Riain looks back at a landmark project.

Is shared equity a bridge too far?

In the face of an affordability crisis, first time buyers of new homes are being offered a cocktail of incentives to help them get on the property ladder, including the government’s Help to Buy and First Home schemes. Mel Reynolds asks: are these the solution to the affordability crisis?