Team

Solearths People

BRIAN O BRIEN, DIRECTOR, ARCHITECT


Brian O Brien is a registered architect and partner at Solearth Architecture.  He is an honours graduate of the Dublin School of Architecture (DIT) and the University of California at Berkeley, where his Masters (under ecological design pioneer Sim Van der Ryn)  focused on sustainability and energy efficiency in architecture. Brian is a Living Building Challenge Accredited Professional LFA. and holds the Grade 3 qualification in architecture conservation from the RIAI. He is currently completing his LEED AP (Accredited Professional) credential.

He has also worked with renowned architects Pliny Fisk III  in the US and Edward Cullinan Architects in London, as well as in Central America.

Brian is the architect for step change green projects like LH1, The Daintree Building, the Emerald Project and The Village in Ireland and believes that science must be the foundation of sustainable design.

He believes that sustainability should enhance living and that, properly designed, our buildings can make being in tune with nature cost effective and delightful. In keeping with this ethos, he introduced the Living Building Challenge to Ireland in 2010 and currently is chair of the Living Building Institute of Ireland. Along with the Energy Research Group UCD he was for many years a lecturer in the professional CPD programme for architects on sustainability.

Brian lectures and has published many articles and papers. He is a regular speaker at conferences on sustainability in the built environment, in Ireland and abroad. He has won awards for his designs, teaching and championing of green design and recently received a prestigious Hero of Living Buildings Award from the Living Futures Institute in the USA.

He represents Solearth on several European Commission funded research project involving many European agencies and universities in developing low energy active window suitable for all of Europes climate zones and SWIP a project researching ways to improve the integration of wind power and architecture in European cities.

 

JIM MURPHY,TECHNOLOGIST

Jim is repsonsible for technical aspects of Solearth projects and consultancy.

He is a technologist with extensive experience in construction and is profficient in BIM and CAD.

 

 

MIKE HASLAM, CONSULTANT, ARCHITECT


Mike was a partner at, and is now a consultant to to Solearth Architecture. He is a graduate of The Universities of Edinburgh and Bath, UK and is registered architect and member of the RIAI, RIBA, AECB, RSUA and Easca.

Mike has extensive experience in the UK, where he worked with prestigious practices; Fielden Clegg Bradley and Edward Cullinan architects, and in Germany where he worked for Boge Lindner-Boge and Urban Projekt.

His projects at Solearth include the holistically designed Castle Espie visitors’ centre in Ulster which has won multiple awards, a green prototype factory in Co. Wicklow, and the transformation of the recently completed Airfield Trust estate in Dublin.

He has published many papers on architecture and green design in Ireland and the UK. He lectures in the Dublin School of Architecture, Dublin Institute of Technology and has been a guest lecturer at University of Bath, University College Dublin, Technische Hochschule Aachen and University of West of England.

Along with the Energy Research Group UCD, he was for many years a lecturer in the professional CPD programme for architects on sustainability and served on the RIAI’s Sustainability Task Force.

His research has included applications of round-wood structure at Rehan Electronics and Hooke Park, development of theory on Slow Architecture and Building Health (bau-biologie),.