Welcome to the archive of Construct Ireland, the award-winning Irish green building magazine which spawned Passive House Plus.
The feature articles in these archives span from 2003 to 2011, including case studies on hundreds of Irish sustainable buildings and dozens of investigative pieces on everything from green design and building methods, to the economic arguments for low energy construction.
While these articles appeared in an Irish publication, the vast majority of the content is relevant to our new audience in the UK and further afield. That said, readers from some regions should take care when reading some of the design advice - lots of south facing glazing in New Zealand may not be the wisest choice, for instance.
Dip in, and enjoy!
Closed-panel timber frame home in Wicklow with impressive thermal performance and airtightness
Ramon Arratia, sustainability director for InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa & India
Mixing excellent thermal performance with renewable heating, efforts to boost biodiversity and plans for micro-generation, a new timber frame house in rural Cork shows that both appealing design and low environmental impact can be achieved with one-off rural housing.
In the hands of the right architect, meeting the passive house standard needn’t involve compromising on design. Construct Ireland visited a recently certified passive house which shows that a seamless low energy architecture is possible
A new house in west Cork offers a green vision for the future of Irish home building: not only is it A-rated, airtight and highly energy efficient, it’s built with ecological materials that are manufactured in Ireland too.
When the two worlds of heritage and development collide opinions frequently become polarised and fraught with difficulty. There are few more vexed issues, as Tim Carey, Heritage Officer with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council reveals
Brian Dowd, ESB’s products and services manager, talks about the company’s new energy strategy and the launch of the next phase of their Halo programme.
In an increasingly risky property market Richard Douthwaite looks at what developers can do to protect their investment.