After 12 years of being part of the Hockerton Housing Project, Nick White & Trudi Macagnino and their three girls; Rebecca, Francesca and Freya are preparing to leave.
A personal note from Nick White
In 1996 my family had the opportunity of joining the Hockerton Housing Project… Within months we had sold up, moved into a caravan, and started to build our own zero-heated, ultra low energy homes with four other families. Since moving in 1998, our earth-sheltered home has used less than £10 on space heating, whilst never going below 18degrees C. Overall we only use 10% of the energy we used in our previous cottage, and most of that we meet with wind and solar power….a huge testimony to the insight of designers!
I would like to acknowledge the wealth of knowledge and experience gained over the twelve years from being part of the HHP; living in the ultra low energy homes, installing renewable energy systems, being part of an eco-community and developing an eco business supporting others to achieve greater levels of sustainability.
The unusual nature of HHP means that your fellow Directors are first your neighbours and friends and second your business colleagues. So a huge gratitude goes to Simon, Helena, Pete, Nick, Sandy, Bill, Louise and Tina for their; support, tolerance, strength, drive and kindness as our young family has matured within the Hockerton fold.
I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity of joining the HHP and going on a very real and practical journey of creating the ultimate in low energy living. I hope that our experience shared with thousands of visitors and others that have read or seen HHP on the numerous broadcasts, has played a part in turning the tide towards greater awareness of mans environmental impact and brought about significant change to reduce this.
Looking back I have to pinch myself to realise how far we have come, turning stapled information packs to a publication available from Amazon, from tours of a muddy building site to full day technical workshops, from student dissertations to GCSE curriculum material. However the HHP people haven’t changed very much – Whether you are a politician, royal, businessman, architect, student, environmentalist or even Laurence Llewellyn Bowen or the many others that have walked through our homes – you have all been asked to take off your shoes and share the experiences or normal people trying to do things differently.