We mourn the loss of mate and comrade Dr Chris Reardon

It saddens me to announce the death of my close friend and colleague Dr Chris Reardon, who passed away at his keyboard on Monday 17 November 2014.

Chris and I had shared many adventures in the struggle to make the world a more sustainable place for humanity and the other species we share it with. He was, in short, a legend in the sustainability community.

To my knowledge, the only recipient of TWO Bankisa Awards, the principal author of the acclaimed Your Home Technical manual and associated series of publications (for which he won his first Banksia, with Caitlin McGee and the Institute for Sustainable Futures), author, columnist, raconteur, lover of good red wine, and lately one of the two powerhouses of the whirlwind of change that is storming through the residential real estate industry in the form of the Liveability project (with LJ Hooker’s magnificent Cecille Weldon, with whom last week he shared his second Banksia Award).

He and I shared the sustainability portfolio for Building Designers Australia, and Chris had created and delivered many wonderful training packages for those of us who design and build things. Together we delivered the HIA’s Greensmart training in its early years, before running away with agenda (that is, keeping it up to date). We didn’t get asked back, which we wore as a badge of honour. The list of things we did together is less than half as long as the things he did on his own – he was always up to something new.

He contributed a wonderful chapter and a case study to my recently published How to Rethink Building Materials. We co-wrote (with much squabbling!) an article in the latest issue of Sanctuary magazine on designing for heat waves. And after an absence of several years while following up on his high profile academic career, he recently returned to his core craft of building design, the completion of which projects some of us will have to step up to help with as an honourable ‘in memorium’ work.

We will miss him, even in his more rambunctious moments, and certainly in his times of incisive wisdom. I will miss him as a mate, collaborator, colleague and co-conspirator. Big shoes for the rest of us to fill.

Dick Clarke