From the Construct Ireland archives

Richard Douthwaite explains how inadequate conventional energy generation is and reveals the potential that combined heat and power & energy service companies can offer.

Atop a hill in New Ross, County Wexford, is a beacon for sustainability in large-scale developments, which draws extensively from across the palette of sustainable building options to achieve a building that is notable not just aesthetically, but also in health, energy and environmental impact terms. Jason Walsh visited the new Solar Croi spa, part of the Brandon House Hotel, Health Club and Spa, to find out more.

More and more businesses are looking to alternative energy sources to light, heat and cool their buildings but few have made a commitment to cutting carbon emissions to match Newbridge Silver, a silverware manufacturer in County Kildare. Jason Walsh visited the factory to find out more.

As fossil fuel prices rise, the need for energy efficiency in achieving both is increasingly leading Irish people to an approach which combines both ventilation and heating,

Much of the housing built around Dublin over the last forty years has been built of single-leaf nine-inch hollow block construction – which are both notoriously energy inefficient and extremely difficult to insulate effectively without causing damp problems. Lenny Antonelli visited a hollow block house which has been ecologically renovated to protect occupant health whilst shooting to the top of the energy rating scale.

In the second installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at four innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.

Heat recovery ventilation, a technology that has become a standard building application in Scandinavian countries, is rapidly gaining recognition in Ireland as a solution to both problems.

As long term readers of Construct Ireland will recall, the mainstreaming in recent years of sustainable design and construction has been exemplified in many innovative local authority offices. John Hearne visited Aras Contae an Chláir, and discovered a building which attempts to holistically minimise environmental impact, with attention paid to more than just energy performance and carbon emissions.

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

Newly elected Green Party Ministers John Gormley & Eamon Ryan talk to Construct Ireland about their vision for a sustainable future.