From the Construct Ireland archives

Cork city split level timber frame house with passive solar design, rainwater harvesting, renewables & green material

In the first installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at five innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.

The emergence of climate change as a serious concern has helped create a burgeoning market for a vast range of eco technologies. All too often, however, the basic principles of sustainable design are ignored or misunderstood. Chris Croly of mechanical and electrical engineers Building Design Partnership describes the detail of a building which reveals a no-nonsense attention to sustainability.

Intended as a landmark not only architecturally, Áras Chill Dara sets an example for large scale sustainable building, as Construct Ireland’s Jason Walsh found out.

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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In this adapted extract from his new book Natural Building: A Guide to Materials and Techniques, seminal eco architect Professor Tom Woolley outlines some of the reasons why natural building is necessary.

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

An increasing number of sustainable homes are being built in Ireland but many of them are in rural areas, and yet, Ireland is an increasingly urban society. Jason Walsh looks at one recent attempt to renovate a small terraced house in inner-city Dublin, bringing it up to modern environmental and energy efficiency standards.

Feasta Economist Richard Douthwaite on Greenhouse Emissions and the Oil Peak

A new public park on the northside of Dublin combines wind power and sustainable water management with environmentally sound materials and strategies to boost biodiversity, making it a standard-bearer in urban design. Lenny Antonelli visited the site