Key Member ProfilesRETURN TO CONSULTANCY RETURN TO TRADING INDEX Nick Martin, a founding Project member, has a unique experience and knowledge of energy efficient housing. He first became interested in the early 1990’s after acquiring a 25-acre site just outside the village envelope of Hockerton, in rural Nottinghamshire. Combining his interests in renewable energy and low impact developments he set to work on various concepts leading him to the earth-sheltered option. In the meantime he won the tender in 1993 to build the home of Prof. Brenda and Dr. Robert Vale, the UK’s first sustainable town house - an autonomous house with ‘net zero CO2’ emissions, of low embodied energy, deriving power from photovoltaic arrays and passive solar heating. Nick Martin was so convinced by many of the construction principles that he commissioned Dr. Robert Vale to design a rural hamlet of 5 earth sheltered sustainable dwellings, Hockerton Housing Project, to similar energy and environmental performance standards - autonomous and with ‘net zero CO2’ emissions. Nick supervised this self-build project from August 1996 to Sept 1998. Nick now leads the project consultancy work, including new designs that are planned to be launched this year. During the first half of 1999 Nick was one of the speakers for a nationwide series of seminars, ‘Sustainable homes for the 21st century’, run by BRESCU as part of the DETR Energy Efficiency Best Practice programme. Nick is also a Director of the ‘Sherwood Energy Village’ and sits on the local ‘Urban Task Force’ panel. Simon Tilley joined the project four years ago, after a background in Mechanical Engineering. This included spending two years in Namibia, working for Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). His engineering skills have been put to good use in the project, in particular the water systems as well as being involved with more general construction work. His main interests now are further development of energy & water systems. Simon is also an ‘Open University’ tutor for a renewable energy course demonstrating his facilitation skills and appropriate knowledge.
Professor Brenda Vale and Dr. Robert Vale are academics at the University of Auckland, where they are both members of the Sustainable Design Research Centre, of which Brenda is the Director. They studied architecture at the University of Cambridge, and wrote their first book, The Autonomous House, in 1975. Their most recent book is Green Architecture, published in 1991, and still in print. They are UK registered architects, and ran their own practice there, in parallel with their university work, until emigrating to New Zealand in 1996. They have worked on the design of autonomous buildings for over twenty-five years, and completed the first Autonomous House in the United Kingdom in 1993. The Vales won the first Green Building of the Year Award, and have received the Global 500 Award for Environmental Achievement from the United Nations. They also designed by Brenda and Robert Vale, was occupied in 1998, and they have just completed the design guide for the UK’s first Zero CO2 village in Nottinghamshire. (DETR General Information report 53 – Building a sustainable future – Homes for an autonomous community, 1998). The Australian Financial Review called them "Europe's leading Ecologically Sustainable Development experts".
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Nick
White has spent the last three years as a member of the project.
One of Nick’s main roles over the two years has been to set up
the systems to co-ordinate the intense level of interest and publicity
surrounding the project. During this time Nick has developed an extensive
network of contacts in many areas of sustainability (local Government,
business, education, organizations, etc), suppliers and the media. His
main role now is developing and marketing the project’s business
activities so that it can provide a sustainable income for project members.