From the Construct Ireland archives

Upgrading and extending a semi-detached house on a tight site in Limerick required ingenuity from architect Patti O’Neill.

Green architect Minka McInerney profiles six unique green buildings including a cardboard school building, a globe-trotting recycled museum & the tallest timber building in the world

While the principles of low energy building apply equally for new build and upgrades, the reality is that htting passive levels becomes much trickier when retrofitting. The Passive House Institute have taken this on board and created a retrofit standard that is ambitious but achievable.

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.

RICHARD DOUTHWAITE proposes measures including energy upgrade of the housing stock  which could help to avoid economic meltdown, and JAY STUART outlines some energy saving measures which could be rolled out.

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.

Innovative low energy construction is rarely recognised on a European scale. The Isover Energy Efficiency Awards are one exception — here are nominations from across the continent that were celebrated at the European awards ceremony in Barcelona on 2 June

Sustainable architect Simon McGuinness describes a project in Dublin which is set to surpass the onerous standard using structural insulated panels.

Much hope has been pinned on the development of new technologies for sinking carbon and generating low impact energy. Richard Douthwaite reveals the major contribution that could be offered by something very old; a soil type that has been in use for 6,000 years.