about us

Troy Michael Daniels is a native of California, USA, and is a multimedia web designer by trade. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, but decided engineering was not his passion. Ten years later, he found a passion in computer graphics and photography at the Academy of Arts College San Francisco, and completed a Multimedia Studies certification, and dove into the "dot.com world" of visual software design. Spending the majority of his years in Northern California working in photography and visual software design, he became dissatisfied with the IT computer profession, and recently obtained a Professional Green Building Certificate from the Sonoma State University California, expanding his interests in architectural sustainability.

From August 2005, he and Graham spent 18 months volunteering on straw bale building projects traveling in California, Arizona and New Mexico in an Airstream trailer, and they also travelled to Pakistan to build straw bale structures for earthquake relief.

After a trip to Australia in 2006, he and Graham decided Franklin, Tasmania would be a great place to build an environmentally-friendly residence from the experience gained in their travels. He enjoys bridging his technical expertise with art, photography, nature and design. A fan of vintage cars, dogs and old world charm, "getting back to basics" is one his mottos and a driving reason for his pursuit into green building and environmental sustainability.

Born in Perth, Western Australia, Graham Richmond has spent more than half his life living overseas. After graduating in Civil Engineering from the then WA Institute of Technology (now Curtin University), he worked 3 years for the government railways in Kalgoorlie before taking an 18-month engineering contract in Papua New Guinea as a way to experience life outside Australia. The "short" PNG experience eventually spanned 16 years, interspersed with a 1-year stint in England completing an MSc in Third World Development at the University of Bath, and many months traveling extensively throughout the Pacific Islands, North America, Asia, and Europe.

Whilst in PNG, Graham changed careers into IT management and in 1992 moved to the United States. There he initially settled in San Francisco working in software implementation for a large construction company, then moved into business consulting with a major international consulting firm, and settled in Seattle in 1997.

In early 2005, Graham decided it was time for another career change, and during a 6-month sabbatical came to the conclusion that green building and environmental sustainability were his next "calling". Around the same time, a desire to return home to Australia began to take hold, and during a trip to Tasmania with Troy in 2006, he and Troy decided to try a new life there and build a straw bale home on a rural block in the town of Franklin. In 2009, Graham completed his certification in Residential Building Design. And so a new adventure begins, chronicled on this website.