Winning streak: Green Residential Building Award 2014!

For the second year in a row Joseph Little Architects has won Ireland's premier sustainability award for housing - The Green Residential Building Award 2014 - this time for 'House for Garden Lovers' on Albany Road, Ranelagh, Dublin.
While new-builds aim for low (or even net zero) energy usage additional to what is already in use, low energy retrofits are able to reduce the existing baseline of Ireland’s annual energy imports. The retained elements of the building may also be considered carbon neutral. Energy-efficient retrofit is, by its very nature, more sustainable than new-build. It's recycling now rather than recyclable in the future! The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan 2009-2020 sets out Ireland’s path to achieve an overall 20% reduction in energy demand by 2020. 44% of this saving is expected to come from the residential sector; the vast majority of this must come from energy-efficient retrofits. By 2050 Irish buildings are to be ‘carbon neutral’: this requires an even greater transformation in energy demands and supply, especially as more than 70% of dwellings existing now will be standing then.
As retrofit throws up unique challenges and as the construction industry is still learning how to do it, example cases of innovative, low carbon, deep retrofit are urgently needed. Our work at 28 Albany Road gives some clues how this can be done in a pre-War house. Read more on the project