New Award Puts High Prize on Sustainable Housing
Written by Dan Harding
The Hanley Award for Vision and Leadership in Sustainable Housing is a collaboration between the Hanley Foundation and EcoHome magazine (run by Hanley Wood Business Media). The award is an individual honor based on "deep, long-standing, and influential commitments to sustainability, and significant and lasting contributions to the widespread implementation of environmental building concepts, techniques, and innovations in advancing sustainable housing in the United States."
Eighteen individuals have been nominated for the award by a committee of industry leaders. This is the inaugural year for the award. Nominees include builders, architects, developers, researchers, building scientists, policy advisers, non-profit and affordable housing innovators, educators, and renowned green building authors. The winner will receive $50,000 -- the largest award in the industry dedicated to environmental building. Among the nominees are:
Dennis Creech, Executive Director
Southface Energy Institute - Atlanta, Georgia
Dennis Creech founded the nation's leading non-profit focused on energy and sustainable housing in 1978, training tens of thousands of building professionals since then. To say he has experience in the green building field would be an understatement. Creech and Southface have excelled in coordinating collaborations between home builders, green building organizations, local government, and environmental groups in order to further the concept and understanding of green building principles.
Pliny Fisk/Gail Vittori, Co-Directors
Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems - Austin, Texas
This pair of researchers and educators have had a huge impact on providing Austin the green reputation it now holds proudly. Founded in 1975, the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems has been a key leader in sustainability. Its co-directors played a large part in developing the Austin Energy Green Building program -- the first of its kind in the world. Fisk and Vittori's research focuses on global sustainability with a special focus on residential housing. They have received multiple awards from such organizations as USGBC, American Solar Energy Society, and the United Nations Earth Summit.
Reuben Hechanova, Director of New Projects (Housing)
Mission Housing Development Corp. - San Francisco, California
Hechanova might be called an architect for the people. He is an architect, developer, and property manager, as well as community activist. His work has a rare and challenging focus on low-income urban multifamily housing. He also holds Spanish/English community educational programs on reducing personal carbon footprint. Hechanova is a major proponent of building a green home and economy from the bottom up -- including all citizens and communities.
John Wesley Miller, Founder
John Wesley Miller Companies - Tucson, Arizona
He has been a builder since 1953, a literal pioneer in green building. Miller has consulted on several pioneering projects, including Biosphere 2, and was an early adopter of DOE's Building America and Builders Challenge programs. He is currently expanding on the largest community of zero-energy homes (Amory Park del Sol), which includes two Net-Zero homes.
Richard Halpin, Founder CEO
American YouthWorks - Austin, Texas
In 1976 Halpin founded the American Institute for Learning, which eventually became American YouthWorks. It is a training and education outlet for low-income, at-risk youths; teaching them how to build sustainable homes in the inner city. One labor training program, Casa Verde, has built 90 sustainable homes so far. Halpin has been honored at all levels from his own city to the Oval Office.
For more information on these and the entire list of Hanley Award nominees, Meet the Nominees.
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You can't beat adobe for a sustainable building material, that's why my money is on John Wesley Miller to take the prize. That and his decades of experience!