John is a freelance journalist and also currently contributes to a number of publications, including: Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Irish Times, Sunday Business Post, You and Your Money, Businessplus magazine and Technology Ireland magazine
Mass appeal
An architect’s four-year quest to build his family home on a Dublin laneway demonstrates how mass timber can maximize space and character in the tightest urban sites – with award-winning results, and fascinating performance insights.
Additional reporting by Jeff Colley
History repeating
Through passion, patience, and architectural expertise, a 16th century Carmel-ite friar’s cottage in Kinsale, owned by Passive House Plus columnist Dr Marc Ó Riain, has achieved what many thought impossible— an A1 energy rating for a Tudor-era building. But not without challenges.
Storm breaker
Five years ago, a fabric first trailblazer took a dose of his own medicine – and delivered a family home that combines climate action, comfort, cost-effectiveness and resilience in the face of a record-breaking storm.
Big picture - Passive towers protect vulnerable Bronx seniors
Banking on sustainability
Last year Irish banking behemoth AIB launched discounted development finance for homes certified to the Irish Green Building Council’s rating system, the Home Performance Index. But what was behind the move, how is it being received and does this indicate the finance industry is getting serious about green homes?
Additional words by Jeff Colley
Visionary vernacular
Can a low energy building be truly sustainable if it doesn’t fully consider its occupants needs? The latest offering from one of Scotland’s leading green designers uses passive house knowhow to signal the way to pragmatic, modest, occupant-centric architecture.
Northern comfort
In trickier housing markets, the instincts of house builders have often tended towards building to the worst legal standards required – or worse. One award-winning new project in Belfast’s suburbs is showing that it doesn’t have to be this way – and that developers can thrive by pitching homes designed to ensure comfort and low bills at increasingly energy-conscious consumers.
Block buster
With emphasis in sustainable building shifting towards reducing embodied carbon, an obvious question comes into focus: is this an existential threat to the concrete industry? One passive house in Claregalway shows that – with a little help from Passive House Plus – concrete product manufacturers can make meaningful moves in the right direction.
Mass timber masterwork
This home on the edge of the Cotswolds, built with cross-laminated timber, now holds the distinction of being the UK’s most airtight home, with the client even doing a significant chunk of the airtightness taping himself. What’s more, it demonstrates how passive homes that generate their own renewable power may escape the worst of the energy price crisis.
Form and function
Run-down terraces are an all-too-common sight in towns and villages across Ireland, but an ambitious deep retrofit project in Tralee provides an inspiring blueprint for regeneration, taking a cold 19th century terraced office and turning it into a beautifully designed space with tiny energy bills, fit for the 21st century.