From the Construct Ireland archives

A new development at Grange Lough, Rosslare, reveals that passive houses can be made Irish – both in terms of what they’re built with, and how they look.

Box-like, small windows, primary colour renders - there is a common misconception that building to the passive house standard involves sacrificing design freedom for the sake of thermal performance. Not so, argues passive house guru Tomás O’Leary of MosArt and the Irish Passive House Academy, as his selection of architecturally diverse buildings reveals.

In the hands of the right architect, meeting the passive house standard needn’t involve compromising on design. Construct Ireland visited a recently certified passive house which shows that a seamless low energy architecture is possible

Ireland's largest passive house development to date, Shanganagh Castle, is proof that with proper planning and collaboration, delivering high density housing doesn’t mean compromising on quality or climate action – without increasing costs or causing delays.

Richard Douthwaite explains why the bailout may turn out to be a gift to Ireland, and offers some advice for dealing with a default.

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

Energy efficiency is about more than just U-values – the building envelope must be airtight and virtually cold bridge free. Construct Ireland visited a single-leaf concrete house nearing completion in Moate which combines an excellent envelope with wind, solar and a range of green measures, with the aim of reducing energy and carbon figures to zero in the home’s BER score.

Plans for the first Irish eco-village have been in the works since 1999, but – finally – work is well underway at The Village in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary. Following a site visit in December, Lenny Antonelli gives an overview of the innovative project’s renewable energy district heating system and sustainable planning and community design approach, before profiling four of the first houses to be built.

An energy conscious renovation and extension in south Dublin breathes new life into a typical semi detached home — the house is now wrapped with external insulation and boasts breathable and ecological materials too.

A sustainable energy project in north Tipperary has the potential to create a pioneering green community – buildings are getting energy makeovers, grants are available for renewables and the ecovillage at Cloughjordan is under construction. But getting householders in the area to go green is still proving a hard sell, as Lenny Antonelli reports