Martin Freney

Dr Martin Freney is an industrial designer, building designer and permaculturist with a PhD regarding thermal performance and lifecycle impacts of housing. He is a teacher and researcher at The University of South Australia, and he runs a sustainable design consultancy – Earthship Eco Homes – which is focused on self-sufficient, off-grid, bushfire resistant, low-carbon homes. He has built Australia’s first council approved “Earthship” which has demonstrated that alternative construction materials such as earth filled waste car tyres are a permittable construction system in Australia. His recent article in The Conversation explained how Earthship style homes offer many advantages in bushfire prone areas due to their earth-sheltered, earth-covered, self-sufficient design. He is currently involved with a research project, funded by Tyre Stewardship Australia, which investigates the physical properties of “tyre walls” and will provide new information to architects and engineers regarding the best ways to design and engineer these type of walls into the next generation of climate-change-ready homes.