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External insulation examined: the reasons why placing insulation outside makes most sense, with six example projects

Renovated agricultural barn marries its traditional look with modern green features

Closed-panel timber frame home in Wicklow with impressive thermal performance and airtightness

Sorry for the slow stream of blog posts recently, I've been out of the office a lot. I spent yesterday looking at some innovative home systems for dealing with wastewater in Dundalk, and I'll try to blog about that soon. But for now, here's a bumper bunch of links.

Interesting profile of a small Welsh town designed in 1925 with some green principles in mind: Sustainable Cities Collective

Vapour profiles help predict whether a wall can dry: Green Building Advisor

The pyramid of energy efficiency — is this a useful tool for approach energy upgrades? Treehugger

How Britain's homes could make cost free emissions cuts: Guardian

Insightful interview with renowned green architect William McDonough on "cradle-to-cradle" design: Forbes

Improving the energy efficiency of buildings — IIEA conference in Dublin, Sept 3. IIEA

London's new "green" Strata tower named ugliest building in Britain: Treehugger

If the grid didn't exist, would there still be a need to invent it? Infrastructurist

Top 20 urban planning successes of all time: Public Servant Blog

Some vertical farms could actually get built says the SSC. George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, thinks it's an absurd idea.

RIAI course on designing low energy retrofit in association with Joseph Little Architects: RIAI

Profile of a pay-as-you-save scheme in the UK: Guardian

 

 

The best green buildings of the last 30 years: Architect Magazine

Stunning eco apartments in Switzerland: Treehugger

Is it acceptable to allow some air infiltration through a building structure as a means of ventilation? Green Building Advisor

Renowned green architect Michelle Kaufmann blogs about a discussion with architect and passive house expert Walter Unterrainer: Michell Kaufmann Studio

China's incredible "car straddling" bus: Infrastructurist 

Architecture's ten biggest failures of the past 25 years: Infrastructurist

Can heat be stored in the sand beneath a house? Green Building Advisor

Interesting post on the challenges of selling a new passive house in a tough US property market: Green Building Advisor

 

Frank Gehry's Novartis building in Switzerland (at centre). Photo by Brad P .

Renowned architect Frank Gehry appears to know more about green building and architecture than he originally let on. Back in May, Gehry criticised the cost of green building as well as Leed, the US's environmental rating system for buildings. I covered his comments at the time and was quite critical writing: "Gehry has designed some of the most iconic buildings of our times, but I think his comments are reflective of a wider lack of understating among many architects when it comes to green building and architecture."

Thankfully, Gehry has now given an interview with US broadcaster PBS in which it becomes quite clear that he knows a lot more than his initial comments let on. He's actually quite insightful. Some highlights are below, but I'd highly recommend reading the full interview - Gehry goes on to speak about green materials, minimising construction waste and using stationary bicycles to provide energy in one of his projects, among various other topics.

Some choice quotes from Gehry: 

A lot of our clients don’t apply for the LEED certification because it’s complicated and in their view, they simply don’t need it.

There are other ways to encourage green building. For example, we did the Novartis building in Switzerland.

They don’t use the LEED program over there, the government just says this is what you can and can’t do, and things have to be built in a sustainable way. So really it’s a political thing: People taking responsibility on an individual level combined with government programs that give mandates that say “this is how we’re going to require people to build.” Our federal government is trying to take steps in that direction. I just met with someone from the Obama administration, they are trying to enact tougher standards, but they’re having some trouble.

...The Swiss government said the Novartis building couldn’t be air-conditioned. So we had to come up with another way to regulate the temperature. We built it entirely out of glass and cooled it with a geothermal system. The roof panels were made with photovoltaic glass that generates energy. And there is an opening at the top that lets hot air out — like a teepee. In the end, there’s no one way to do it, you have to be creative.

...Maybe you need the point system to energize this type of building, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.  The best way would be a political initiative that requires people to address these issues in order to get a building permit. Then the government can incentivize sustainable building through subsidies and various other things. But this is a global issue, so you need programs that not only we agree on but also that the Russians and the Chinese agree on.

...On certain projects, on big public projects, people definitely are interested in making them greener, but on smaller projects with tight budgets it can be harder. People don’t feel like they’re making enough of a dent for it to be worth it.

 

 

 

The new issue of CI hits the shelves this week. Here's a round up of some interesting stories that have broken while we've been away from the blog, working on the latest issue.

Irish green tech firm Solar Print to create 80 jobs: Irish Times

Major BBC investigation suggests the global asbestos industry is targeting developing nations: AFP

British homeowners to pay higher stamp duty for energy inefficient homes? Daily Mail (yes I know it's the Daily Mail - unfortunately they were the only news outlet I could find who weren't running this story behind a paywall)

Isover launches Irish energy efficiency awards: Silicon Republic

How SEAI's Accelerated Capital Allowances scheme has helped one Irish firm reduce the running costs of its data centre by 30%: Silicon Republic

European Commission publishes voluntary green public procurement for product categories including thermal insulation, CHP, street lighting and floor coverings: Envirocentre.ie

Bord Na Mona grows its renewable energy portfolio: Silicon Republic

Worldwide PV market to double in 2010: Wordofrenewables.com

Empire state building to get $20m green retrofit: Guardian

Is this the US's first passive house retrofit project? Jetson Green

Up to ten energy management interns are being recruited in Louth: SEAI

Brief profile of the new apartments at Arsenal FC's former ground Highbury, which have earned a BREEAM 'very good' rating: Building Design News

Green-minded architects and builders are familiar with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies timber as sustainable. It's attracted its fair share of criticism, as a quick look at the blog FSC Watch indicates (the blog even has a section devoted to certification in Ireland). Still, FSC certification is one of the few ways specifiers have of knowing how well a forest is managed when they're choosing timber.

Now another certification scheme, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), is getting up and running on these shores. In an email to Construct Ireland, PEFC Ireland 's William Merivale wrote:

There are two distinct areas of our work.  Firstly we are involved with drafting an Irish forest management certification standard which we expect to be ready for submission to PEFC International for endorsement by late summer/early autumn, and once endorsed both State and private forest owners will be able to apply to have their forests certified by PEFC.  (You may be aware that in the UK the Forestry Commission and a significant area of  private forest managed by Scottish Woodlands/Tilhill have recently opted for dual certification to both FSC and PEFC and we are confident this will happen here as well.)  Secondly we promote chain of custody certification to as wide a range of businesses involved in the manufacture/supply chain of wood-based products, and to their consumers.

Hopefully the arrival of PEFC will improve awareness of forest certification further - I've been surprised once or two recently, talking to people who work in various parts of the timber industry, at their lack of awareness of these certification schemes. Saying that, one architect I spoke to made the valid point that certification marks like FSC or PEFC discourage specifiers from doing detailed research on where timber comes from and deciding based on that - he argued they encourage laziness in timber selection, essentially. It's a reasonable point, but he also acknowledged - rightly - that the likes of FSC and PEFC are necessary for the many specifiers who want a green product but don't have the time or motivation to do serious research.

You may remember the Solar Decathlon, a US competition that challenged university teams to design the best solar-powered house. We previously profiled the competition in a lengthy photographic feature.

The sliding metal shutter shades of the Lumenhaus can be used to protect the house from glare and overheating, or pulled back to let sunlight in fully

For the first time this year a separate Solar Decathlon was held in Europe - Madrid specifically - and Virginia Tech's Lumenhaus (above), which also entered the US competition, emerged victorious. Green Building Advisor has more on the Lumenahus, and the official website has lots of information on all the houses (just click on the boxes). Team Finland won the architecture award at the competition (more info on the house here), and there's loads of info on the University of Florida's traditional-looking but ultra-modern house here. There's also an in-depth profile of the University of Nottingham's house in current issue of Construct Ireland.

Sorry for the brevity here on a subject that deserves much more attention - we're getting down to the heavy work on the July issue of the mag, so updates to the blog and news section might be sparse over the next week or two. But we've got an exciting issue coming up, with profiles of a couple of stick-built timber frame houses (including one that is staggeringly air tight), a piece on the most sustainable way of dealing with ghost estates and an opinion piece by Bord Gais CEO John Mullins on the company's green plans.