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!
Public private partnership schemes have come to dominate many aspects of Irish infrastructural development, from toll roads to urban regeneration schemes. Jason Walsh asks if they amount to privatisation by stealth and whether they come at too high a social and environmental cost.
Richard Douthwaite explains how inadequate conventional energy generation is and reveals the potential that combined heat and power & energy service companies can offer.
In the third installment of a new feature on international green buildings, Lenny Antonelli takes a look at more innovative, sustainable and striking buildings from around the world.
Newly elected Green Party Ministers John Gormley & Eamon Ryan talk to Construct Ireland about their vision for a sustainable future.
Jeff Colley spoke to Commissioner Piebalgs about key issues affecting Ireland’s energy future and the importance of local initiatives such as Fingal County Council’s groundbreaking introduction of sustainable building requirements
Ernst Posthuma of Solarcon sheds light on a demonstration project in west Cork that combines passive and active solar gains to remarkable effect.
With money leaving local economies across Ireland to service debt and significant drops in local authority revenues, towns such as Dundalk, Ennis and Kilkenny are investigating the possibility of bringing in electronic currencies to keep money circulating locally, as Richard Douthwaite reveals.
The introduction of smart metering later this year presents a great opportunity to engage Irish people en masse into substantially reducing their energy consumption, simply by showing them how much electricity they’re consuming, and how much the cost varies at different times of the day. However, as Richard Douthwaite warns, there is a real risk that smart metering may come in a form that benefits the electricity companies and not the end-user.