One of our great champions of sustainable design has passed away. Dr Chris Reardon, who was known to many readers of The Fifth Estate, died at his home/office in Goulburn on the evening of 17 November 2014, aged 61.
Chris came from a well-known family in the Goulburn area where he developed a love of the land and climate. He studied architecture for three years, and graduated with a Bachelor of Environmental Design from Canberra CAE in 1979, and immediately started work as a building designer and house builder with a special interest in precast concrete, earth covered and sustainable buildings.
Over 20 years he built a reputation as an iconoclast designer, epitomised in his rambling three-storey home/office/workshop. His forceful proselytising was well known to the Building Designers Association, for whom he acted as office bearer and conference organiser for a number of years.
He started a PhD at the newly formed Institute for Sustainable Futures over a decade ago, and was instrumental in winning the federal government contract for the “Your Home” project, where he acted as editor and wrote much of the original website and technical material, and was involved in the subsequent editions. He also completed his PhD, in language that his younger self would never have recognised.
In recent years he had acted as a consultant to many government departments and NGOs, having never lost a passion to make a more sustainable world. No doubt St Peter is currently getting some advice on how heaven could do with some wind-powered LEDs. His many friends and colleagues will miss the big bear terribly.
Vale Chris Reardon.
Tone Wheeler is principal architect, Environa Studios
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