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!
Long-caricatured as resource destroying monsters clad in steel and glass, the skyscraper is rarely viewed as an environmentally sound form of architecture. Construct Ireland’s Jason Walsh looks at efforts underway to change that perception.
Construct Ireland tracked down the busy director of Limerick Civil Trust to talk about the sterling work already done, current projects and to ponder the implications of recent FAS cutbacks.
In this fifth & final article in the series, Joseph Little compares simulations of several internal insulation options on common wall types, with worrying conclusions
While the principles of low energy building apply equally for new build and upgrades, the reality is that htting passive levels becomes much trickier when retrofitting. The Passive House Institute have taken this on board and created a retrofit standard that is ambitious but achievable.
Archie O’Donnell, projects coordinator for Éasca and the Irish Passive House Association
An advocate of sustainable building long before it was fashionable, Bill Quigley of NuTech Renewables has subsequently seen the mainstreaming of sustainability at first hand, having input into substantial projects for Leahy Bros, MKN and GEDA Construction amongst others. In their latest project, NuTech are working with Wicklow County Council on a social housing scheme with impressively high energy performance targets to meet, as Quigley explains.
Upgrading and extending a semi-detached house on a tight site in Limerick required ingenuity from architect Patti O’Neill.
The government is aiming to energy upgrade one million buildings by 2020, but huge investment will be needed to reach that goal as finance expert Jack O’Keeffe of Larchmont Consulting explains
Sustainable Dundalk housing project designed to prolong the independence of older residents
Is it possible to ditch fossil fuels and run a 1970s Irish bungalow on solar energy? Norman McMillan’s renovated A1-rated bungalow in Carlow proves it is.