Clonakilty eco house

A new house in west Cork offers a green vision for the future of Irish home building: not only is it A-rated, airtight and highly energy efficient, it’s built with ecological materials that are manufactured in Ireland too.
Welcome to the archive of Construct Ireland, the award-winning Irish green building magazine which spawned Passive House Plus.
The feature articles in these archives span from 2003 to 2011, including case studies on hundreds of Irish sustainable buildings and dozens of investigative pieces on everything from green design and building methods, to the economic arguments for low energy construction.
While these articles appeared in an Irish publication, the vast majority of the content is relevant to our new audience in the UK and further afield. That said, readers from some regions should take care when reading some of the design advice - lots of south facing glazing in New Zealand may not be the wisest choice, for instance.
Dip in, and enjoy!

A new house in west Cork offers a green vision for the future of Irish home building: not only is it A-rated, airtight and highly energy efficient, it’s built with ecological materials that are manufactured in Ireland too.
Achieving building regulations compliance and a good energy rating is one thing. Delivering a genuinely low energy building is quite another. A new scheme by one of Ireland’s most decorated developers may help show the market a way forward.

Creating the right comfort in buildings for elderly people involves ensuring a warm internal environment, which typically results in high energy consumption. John Hearne visited the new Castle Gardens Retirement Village as it approached completion and found a project that combines complimentary low energy technologies, materials and design to deliver high levels of comfort whilst also keeping running costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions low

Not only does the new OPW-designed district veterinary office in Drumshanbo Co. Leitrim place strong emphasis on natural ventilation and lighting, it rests comfortably in the rural landscape and boats commendable green features too. Lenny Antonelli reports

Staggeringly airtight ecological home in Athenry set to meet the Passive House Institute standard

Upgrading and extending a semi-detached house on a tight site in Limerick required ingenuity from architect Patti O’Neill.
The winner of the sustainability award at the 2011 Irish Architecture awards, Roebuck Castle student residence at UCD’s Belfield campus is also the biggest certified passive house project built to date in Ireland and the UK. Tony Rigg of Kavanagh Tuite Architects explains how such a significant building achieved passive results.

Brian Dowd, ESB’s products and services manager, talks about the company’s new energy strategy and the launch of the next phase of their Halo programme.

In the future, the high cost and scarcity of fossil energy may force a shift towards retaining and modernising old buildings, thereby avoiding the use of huge amounts of energy to manufacture building materials. John Hearne visited the Belvedere Orphanage, a group of 19th century dwellings whose low energy refurbishment may offer a template for development in the future, by using wood pellet district heating and a host of energy saving measures whilst nonetheless paying great attention to preserving the buildings’ heritage value.
