Beautiful, Sustainable Building Design
Dick Clarke
Dick Clarke is founding Director of Envirotecture, is an Accredited Building Designer with over 35 years experience, focusing exclusively on ecologically sustainable and culturally appropriate buildings, as well as sustainable design in vehicles and vessels, and has received many Design Awards.
He holds a Master of Sustainable Futures degree (by research at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS), on the topic of the effect of state and local planning instruments on the sustainability of the built environment.
Dick holds Building Designer Accreditation (No. 6029) under the Building Designer Accreditation (NSW) scheme.
He is Director of Sustainability, and Past President of the NSW Chapter, of Building Designers Australia (BDA). He is a Past President and Board Member of the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA).
Dick sat on the Technical Advisory Committee of the Australian Government’s highly acclaimed “Your Home” design guide, as well as having an ongoing role authoring and peer reviewing content. He continues to be involved with various government and non- government bodies on environmental issues and the built environment. He has represented BDA on the NatHERS to AccuRate upgrade (Technical Advisory) committee, and BASIX Reference Group in NSW. He presents seminars and workshops on sustainable design and correct building practice, for industry bodies, corporations and local government.
Dick is a regular judge on various industry design awards, such as the BPN Sustainability Awards, AWA (Australian Window Association) Design Awards amongst others.
He held a builderʻs license from 1979 until 2004, and holds a Qualified Supervisorʼs Certificate (NSW). He has been design director of many hundreds of projects over 35 years, with sustainability as the major driver over that whole period (with the ever-changing understanding of what sustainability is). His work has covered a wide variety of project sizes and types, including:
- 20 design awards, including many specialist ESD awards, HIA Australian Custom Built Home of the Year;
- 300 lot subdivision in western Sydney: master-planning, for solar access and cross-ventilation;
- 60 bed hostel (womenʼs refuge) in Uganda: limited budget, improved sustainability by use of low embodied energy local materials, full water harvesting and reuse, PV renewable energy integrated into the building;
- concept design for 18 storey office tower in Indonesia;
- Bathurst sustainable Demonstration Home for Bathurst Regional Council;
- hundreds of residential projects with improved sustainability through passive design, water management, and renewable energy. These have received numerous design awards, including the Kamerunga Rainforest House, north of Cairns, FNQ;
- design and documentation for Western Sydney’s first sustainable commercial building, the Visy Cares Centre.
- concept to completion on several public buildings for various local governments, including an ongoing program replacing old style public toilets with new generation sustainable ones, with water and energy self-sufficiency, for Fairfield City Council.
