Case Studies

Jason Walsh visited the Green Building, a pioneering sustainable development built in Dublin's Temple Bar in 1994, to find out how one of Ireland’s most ground breaking eco designs has been performing over the last decade.

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If achieving eco buildings is challenging for new build, it is doubly so for renovation projects. Philip & Delphine Geoghegan of iCon Architecture & Uban Design describe a low impact renovation that balances these apparent tensions with great success.

Imaginosity, the new children's museum building in Sandyford's Beacon South Quarter development, is getting the Austrian eco-house treatment, combining low energy, modular construction with a plethora of low carbon energy technologies. Jason Walsh visited the site to take a look.

A recent study undertaken by Dublin City Council could serve to shatter many commonly held misconceptions about how existing buildings can perform when compared to new build, even simply just in terms of running costs.

The building is the first all timber office complex in Ireland. It covers almost 2,300m2 of floor space and provides accommodation for almost 100 staff working in a wide range of forestry related disciplines.

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

Ron and Collette Wardle started suffering ill health almost immediately after a sloppy energy upgrade. But reading a copy of Construct Ireland started a chain of events that led to the couple getting a brand new ventilation system — and seeing a marked improvement in their health.

The groundbreaking Gaelscoil an Eiscir Riada, Tullamore, Co. Offaly was the first project to comprehensively draw from the Department of Education & Science’s DART (Design Awareness Research and Technology) programme, delivering a sustainable research project on school design.

Adding to the list of developers aiming to deliver energy efficient housing, Cronan Nagle Construction are currently on site with 188 highly insulated, airtight homes in Ennis, co. Clare. The development, which also incorporates heat recovery ventilation and condensing gas boilers is surpassing the thermal requirements of Building Regulations by up to 45%, as John Hearne discovers.

It is hoped that the lessons learned from the construction and monitoring of these buildings will assist in reducing the energy usage of future school designs.