Cape Paterson Eco Village | Modern environmentally positive sustainable design | Victoria's Bass coast near Melbourne | Sustainable design, habitat restoration, water treatment, and the fostering of a cohesive community in a coastal setting | Project by Brendan Condon, Mike O'Mullane, Ross Henry, David Gold, Damien Cook

Brendan Condon,
Director Australian Ecosystems /
Cape Paterson Ecovillage

Brendan has a lifelong commitment to sustainability and believes that designing and building more sustainable housing and communities is important to reduce our exposure to rising energy and water costs, improve our quality of life and tackle the big looming challenges of climate change and peak oil. The Ecovillage project combines Brendan’s keen interest in the important elements of sustainable architecture, clean energy (solar) generation, sustainable water use, ecological restoration and community development. Community food production and active lifestyle are also important considerations.

Apart from the Ecovillage, Brendan is founder and director of a number of successful companies and not for profits working in the sustainability field, including

• Australian Ecosystems, (www.australianecosystems.com.au), Victoria’s largest ecological restoration company. Australian Ecosystems has 70 staff and collects seed, propagates and plants 3 million locally indigenous plants per annum, and restores degraded landscapes.
• Biofilta Stormwater Solutions, (www.biofilta.com.au) a company that designs and builds large, compact, modular, stormwater harvesting systems

Brendan was one of three finalists for the 2010 Banksia Prime Ministers Environmentalist of the Year, and has been visiting Cape Paterson for the past 35 years.

Mike O’Mullane,
Project Director

Mike is the Managing Director of Suburban Management one of Victoria’s oldest mortgage origination companies. Suburban Management has been helping people finance their homes for 30 years and started as a Co-operative Housing Society Group in the early 70′s. Co-operative Housing Societies were supported by Federal and State Governments to assist low to middle income earners achieve home ownership. Mike has always been interested in protecting the environment and is an active supporter of The Wilderness Society and has raised his children with a similar philosophy.

www.suburbanmanagement.com.au

Damien Cook,
Project Botanist

Damien has been a keen naturalist for over 15 years and has a sound knowledge of wetland flora and fauna ecology, identification and habitat requirements and of the environmental factors that effect wetlands including hydrology, geomorphology, geology and soil chemistry. He has conducted training sessions and lectures on these and related themes for Monash University , RMIT, TAFE groups, Greening Australia and the Australian Ecosystems staff.

He has been actively involved in wetland fauna surveys with the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria and has worked with many local conservation groups and government agencies to protect, manage and restore remnant wetland vegetation including Jillpanger Springs Flora Reserve west of Horsham and Barnbam Swamp in Lyndhurst.

Damien is a director of Australian Ecosystems and recently completed a study on the native grasslands, grassy woodlands and grassy wetlands of West Gippsland and has established ongoing research and monitoring projects in natural and constructed wetlands across Victoria.

David Gold,
Project Planner, Planned F.X.

Planned F.X. Pty Ltd is a specialist planning and environmental services consultancy. David brings to the Cape Paterson Ecovillage over 20 years’ experience in a wide range of planning, design, and development projects. These have included master plans, environment effects and impact management studies, environmental management plans and procedures, plans for growth areas and new communities, and for major infrastructure works. These projects have been undertaken for private landholders, community groups, government organisations, industries, and businesses.He has a particular interest in finding innovative and workable solutions, with an emphasis on ecological and social sustainability.

Tosh Szatow,
Energy Consultant

For the last five years Mr Szatow  has worked as a researcher, advocate and consultant in the area of local energy systems, most recently as project leader of the Intelligent Grid Project at CSIRO. After finishing work with CSIRO in June 2011, Tosh Szatow commenced full time work on an independent assessment of the Cape Paterson Ecovillage Zero Carbon Study, funded by Sustainability Victoria. Tosh now consults to the ecovillage and other ambitious projects on how best to achieve integrated sustainability outcomes and best practice local clean energy production.

www.toshszatow.com

Adam Dettrick,
Project Architect

Adam is an experienced architect with a design practice focusing on socially and environmentally sustainable architecture and urban design.  Adam sees good design as crucial to create communities that are not only sustainable and affordable, but are great places to live and work.  Having been brought up in Gippsland, Adam sees the Cape Paterson Eco Village as a great opportunity to help give back something to the region.

Recently Adam has designed an award winning new lifestyle village in Traralgon.  The village won a sustainability award in 2010, and the village’s community building won the Regional Prize in the 2011 Victorian Architecture Awards.  Adam has taught at the University of Melbourne and Deakin University, and is currently working on a range of residential and commercial projects in Melbourne, regional Victoria and interstate.

Peter Reefman,
Sustainable Housing Consultant

Since 1995 Peter has specialised in domestic energy efficiency – first as a builder and designer of sustainable homes, and in 2008 till present as a consultant specialising in Zero Carbon housing. Peter lives in an 8-Star house on Coastal Victoria that requires less energy to heat and cool in a year than most Victorian houses use in a day. Peter contributed to the Cape Paterson Ecovillage by lead-authoring the Sustainable Housing Guidelines 2010, which was produced in consultation with Sustainability Victoria, the ATA, the MBAV, MEFL, and local contractors Beaumont Designs and TS Constructions. Peter remains an enthusiastic and vocal supporter of the Ecovillage.

www.energised.com.au