From the Construct Ireland archives

Hotels typically take a heavy toll on the environment, with large amounts of energy used for heating, hot water, lighting, air conditioning and laundry, and huge amounts of waste being landfilled each year. John Hearne visited the Westport Woods Hotel and discovered a highly successful approach to reducing environmental impact that is also yielding substantial dividends in terms of cost savings and positive publicity

Do termites apply building science better than humans? Award winning architect Sean Harrington takes a characteristically left-of-brain approach to our international feature, leading to some humbling lessons.

In the aftermath of our recent awareness raising, Construct Ireland began to research what measures the Irish government was taking to prepare for the Energy directive, and how this compared with views from other EU member states, an investigation that is revealing startling results. Jeff Colley reports.

Jason Walsh spoke to David Smith of O'Mahony Pike Architects about the practice's uniquely-designed show apartments for this year's Myhome.ie Spring House and Garden exhibition.

Building a visitor centre at such an evocative site as the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s greatest tourist attractions must have been something of a challenge. By attempting to cater for visitors, the centre could so easily have ruined the rugged, barren landscape which makes people visit in the first place. John Hearne visited the new interpretive centre to discover a building which addresses this problem by becoming part of the landscape, whilst using eco technologies to reduce the building’s strain on the broader environment.

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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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

Martin Murray, chairman of the Passive House Association of Ireland and founder of Martin Murray Architects, explains why the world’s leading energy efficiency standard is on the up in Ireland

A new timber frame house in the Wicklow hills is arguably the most airtight building ever built in Ireland, boasting wood fibre external insulation and an obsessive attention to sealing

Energy Directive
Construct Ireland and Century Homes present the need for Energy Labels before the Joint Oireachtas Committee