From the Construct Ireland archives

High energy prices and growing public eco awareness is leading to a situation where people are giving existing homes energy upgrades on an unprecedented scale. Two recently renovated houses in Dublin are at the extremes of how even the most difficult existing dwellings can be made greener, as Jason Walsh reveals.

A typical Irish bungalow built in the early 1990s has been transformed with a green-tinted extension built in the spirit of modernism. Jason Walsh visited Enniskerry, County Wicklow to see how the old and the new were integrated

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

Intended as a landmark not only architecturally, Áras Chill Dara sets an example for large scale sustainable building, as Construct Ireland’s Jason Walsh found out.

A new extension to the EPA's headquarters in Wexford lives up to the organisation's aim of environmental protection, boasting passive ventilation and lighting, a host of green technologies and a sustainable approach to landscaping.

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

The rendering industry in Ireland is in a process of change and thus has been the centre of much heated debate between renderers, the meat industry, Irish livestock farmers and the Department of Agriculture and Food.

The Orchard, a new building on the campus of Stranmillis College, a teacher training college in Belfast, has become the first winner of a sustainable planning award organised by the Royal Town Planning Institute alongside a host of other awards. Jason Walsh visited the new building to find out about its green credentials.

In this special feature, Construct Ireland draws from the views, hopes and concerns of four people ideally poised to comment on the implications this directive will have on how we design, construct, renovate, manage and think about buildings in Ireland.

There’s rather more to designing a sustainable building than specifying low-embodied energy materials and making sure it will require little energy and maintenance in use. Low water demand and the ability to get the nutrients discharged in the sewage back to the land are important too.