Planning permission was rejected for a Metro North station with a large park-and-ride facility at Belinstown last week. While planning permission was approved for the St Stephen’s Green to Swords line the decision to reject planning permission for the Belinstown station has left one of the two final bidders on the project Metro Express considering pulling [...]

Over the next five years Spanish company Lookotels is planning to build 10 prefab hotels throughout Spain and Europe. Each energy-efficient hotel will be prefabricated with up to 100 rooms each of which will have a sofa bed, TV, desk, chair, telephone, bathroom, automatic controls, and wifi. The hotels will be well insulated, controlled with [...]

Earlier this year, Clare County Council granted planning permission to Harbour Flights Ireland Ltd for a seaplane base at Mountshannon. The Mountshannon base formed part of a number of stops for the company along the west of Ireland. However, An Taisce, the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board (Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI)), local anglers and residents appealed [...]

A prefab hospital has been built by the organisation, ‘Doctors Without Borders’ in the town of Léogâne in Haiti.  The prefab hospital was completed in five months and was inaugurated on October 8.  The town of Léogâne  was closest to the epicentre of the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January.  Following the earthquake, Doctors Without [...]

Mayo County Council have refused Hutchison 3G Ireland Limited planning permission to erect a Monopole with antennae, transmission dishes and associated works at Glennacally, Errif, Westport and a 20m monopole with antenna, transmission dishes, equipment fencing, upgrading of access track and ancillary works at Churchfield Upper, Tourmakeady.  These two antennae were to be part of [...]

A German company has come up with this design for a prefab treehouse. The design is a collaborative effort between “an architect, a landscape architect, an arbologist, and a craftsman.” The structure was prefabricated off-site then installed into the tree. While not intended as primary accommodation the idea was to provide an interesting guest room [...]

. . . . Could this be the future of the modular building? An Australian company, Skylifter, are developing a new way to move prefabricated buildings using a 150 meter-wide disc shaped helium balloon. The Skylifter promises a payload of 150 tons and a range of 1240 miles. Its design provides for more stability – [...]

The €1.5 million temple was granted planning permission by Cork County Council earlier this year. It will be Ireland’s first Buddhist Temple.  Architect Giles Oliver said he was pleased that the local authority had approved the plans for ‘this small wildly attractive thing at the end of a long path.’ The temple, which will be situated [...]

We came across this award winning Canadian design for a home office. The rear garden has been laid out as a courtyard with outside meeting areas with the home office being located in the far corner of the garden. This property, which is located in Vancover, has seperate access to the garden which is useful [...]

TCD provost Dr John Hegarty (left), Danielle Ryan from the Cathal Ryan Trust and Edward Kemp, director of Rada, in TCD  for the announcement of plans to set up an academy for dramatic arts at the university. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill A new academy will be established at Trinity College in Dublin. With the involvement [...]

Northern Ireland political leaders, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, announced the redevelopment of the Maze prison, the former top-security prison site. The redevelopment plans for the new facility will promote the success of the peace process. It will also keep the key prison buildings, including those linked to the IRA hunger strike in 1981 with [...]

Construction at the site of the new Children’s Hospital of Ireland will begin by the end of the year. The new pediatric hospital will be expected to open in 2014. The hospital will be a state-of-the-art facility with the voice of children heard in its planning, design and operation, according to Minister of Health Mary [...]

The making of a new National Film School on the site of Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) is confirmed and will begin this summer after the Minster for Education and Science, Batt O’Keeffe TD, sent the project out to tender for building construction. Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan said [...]

Imagine the time, work, care and consideration that went into this modular building project in Sebastopol, California. Each tree in this orchard was painstakingly documented and individually assessed for long-term viability – the driveway, garage and house were all located based on that analysis. Nestled in an apple grove the Orchard House is a rural [...]

The donation of modular buildings by a Dubai firm provide shelter to the people in disaster-hit countries all over the world. The Drydocks World Group, Dubai, the region’s largest ship repair company, donated 30 portable cabins and 60 air conditioning units to the Mohammed Bin Rashid Humanitarian and Charity Establishment on April 26, 2010. They [...]

The use of commercial modular buildings is becoming more popular in Ireland. Aside from business owners, public officials are now becoming aware of the advantages of modular buildings. They can see the savings they will make, financially and in time. Commercial modular buildings can be a great solution for the small business that needs a [...]

When they are piled high on a barge, shipping containers aren’t exactly fertile inspiration for recycled architecture – but creative thinkers have managed to turn these boring rectangular boxes into surprisingly beautiful modular homes, offices, apartments and dorms. Like a giant modular building Lego set, shipping containers can be stacked into all sorts of configurations [...]

Compared to conventional construction, modular buildings are affordable and cost effective due to their factory construction. Builders and consumers find such buildings much better value than their on-site counterparts. This is one of the reasons for the high demand for modular buildings to meet a wide variety of uses. Modular buildings provide long-term temporary or [...]

McDonald’s restaurants use prefabrication technology to build their new outlets, and they recently set their record of a completed outlet being built and open for business within 13 hours of starting construction on prepared ground works. This has considerable commercial implications for businesses and a range of prospective clients, which could be hotels and retail [...]