User:Adam Hardy
Name/Nationality/Ethnicity - Adam Hardy, Australian
Location - Melbourne, Australia.
Contact Information – mrsquish@optusnet.com.au (home), adam.hardy@corum.com.au (work). Skype (mrsquish)
Why are you interested in collaborating with us? I've had an interest in appropriate and affordable housing and sustainable living for quite some time now. Having grown up in the country in a mudbrick home that my parents built, with chickens and a vegetable patch, I'm very much at home with the ideas of living off the land. Now with climate change making a significant impact on our environment I see the need for change and want to draw attention to ways in which it can happen with insignificant cost. As an example of the possibilities of the CEB Press alone. Victoria (where I live) in 2009 faced the worst bushfires the world has ever seen. 2,030 houses were lost to fire, with the rebuilding costs running into the millions it strikes me that if the affected communities were able to re-build their own housing from the very land they still possess then they wouldn't still be living in site huts over a year later waiting for insurance companies or government funding. Not to mention that if houses were built from CEB (using dome construction) a good number of them would not have been lost in the first place. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see how the ideas of Open Source Ecology can change communities. Even if the adoption of those ideas only results in the ability to build comfortable, affordable housing using appropriate building materials (earth) then that is a step in the right direction. We have the ability to make these changes, it just takes some strong passionate few to show the many of the possibilities. I am one of those few.
Are you interested in teaching about the GVCS? I'm interested in spreading the word about GVCS, I have already done so and will continue to tell any and all the will listen. Teaching? I'm not sure.
Are you interested in economic relocalization possibilities arising from the GVCS? Yes definitely, especially when it comes to housing and sustainable energy as that is my passion. Do you want to use the GVCS technologies yourself? Do you want to build them yourself? Yes and Yes. I'm currently very interested in building the LifeTrac and CEB Press and using them to build examples of houses using CEB dome construction.
Are you interested in having the GVCS technologies fabricated by your local custom fabricator? I'd prefer to build them myself. If however after building them myself there were requests for those technologies then maybe I would consider working with a local fabricator to meet that need.
Are you interested in applying the GVCS to third world development? To redevelopment of crisis areas? To development of derelict areas in the developed world? Third world, probably not. Redevelopment of crisis areas, definitely. Especially when it comes to bushfire affected areas in my surrounding communities.
Are you interested in building renewable energy production facilities based on open hardware (solar concentrator electric, wind, biomass power) Yes, I'm interested in any and all renewable energy production.
Computer Support I'm a computer programmer with predominantly Microsoft experience. That said I have used Linux in the past and have interests in the open source software community. I have undertaken web design and used php in past. I'm a fast learner and have friends I can lean on for help.
Home Economics I can cook, and have done catering in the past for up to 50 people. I'm not sure how helpful this will be in the short term though, considering I live in Australia.
Design I have in the past done 3D computer modelling and animation as a hobby. I haven't used Blender but I'm sure I could pick it up.
Building I have no formal qualifications in building. However I picked up quite a bit of construction experience when I was in the Army (Engineers) along with other experience such as chainsaw operation and safety (including felling trees). I'm hands on and have single handedly renovated my house and enjoy woodworking as a hobby. I intend in the coming months to learn how to weld.
HOW can you help? Due to my Australian location, I'm not going to be able to commit to any hands on kind of work. I am willing to bring myself up to speed with any software so that I can contribute with drawings and or modelling. I'm now a True Fan and would like to build and use the technologies of the GVCS, of particular interest is the Liberator.
