From the Construct Ireland archives

Designing a low-energy public building with passive ventilation and lighting in mind is one thing – making it fit seamlessly into a rural wetland environment is quite another. Lenny Antonelli visited the award-winning Ballybay Wetlands Centre in County Monaghan - a closed-panel timber frame structure designed to sit softly on the surrounding landscape.

Iain Douglas, President of the Irish Planning Institute reveals his views on the state of planning in Ireland, and the factors which could not only damage the environment in Ireland, but also cause social segregation, and aid unsustainable development across Ireland

Designing a low energy building when you've got unlimited space is one thing – but what if you need to make your walls thin to maximise space on a small site in an architectural conservation area? Lenny Antonelli visited a new St Vincent De Paul sheltered housing project that fit a lot of sustainable features on to a small plot in Dublin's north inner city.

In the last decade timber has come to be seen one of the leading sustainable building materials, primarily through the growth of the timber frame market. Jason Walsh visited County Wexford to look at a growing use for the material – solid timber construction

Landowners & Cement Producers Gain, Homebuyers & Taxpayers Suffer. By Richard Douthwaite

With great attention to energy, materials and water, ABK Architects’ new civic precinct shows that smart green design can show no sign of compromise

Inside the Lewis Glucksman Eco Gallery, with John Burgess of Arup Consulting

Ireland ’s reliance on fossil fuel sources for electricity generation places the whole country on unstable ground as these limited resources dwindle

An indepth look at the forthcoming Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings by Jeff Colley.

Richard Douthwaite proposes a new bank-free, debt-free way of financing property purchase and development to get the market working again and clear up the mess left by the bubble.