Nev(ille) and the Deep Blue Sea

M B G C
10
How Gold Coast surf legend Nev Hyman’s passion for
conservation sparked an affordable housing revolution
WRITER Sam Cleveland PHOTOGRAPHY Lincoln Williams
NEV(ille) AND
THE DEEP
BLUE SEA
10

D R I V E R BEHIND THE WHEEL
11
ABOVE: Crystal cylinder: Hyman
getting barreled at Burleigh Heads
in 2013: “Shaping is instinctive …
it’s about how the board feels under
your feet and how it performs when
you drive through a turn”
(photo credit: Sean Scott)
LEFT: Dune hoon ’77: Hyman
launching his Jeep CJ5 on a
Broadbeach Waters lot behind the
(then-vacant) Pacific Fair site: “They
were just starting to pump the
canals so there was a lot of white
sand around – I couldn’t resist”
t’s morning at Burleigh Heads and some respectable sets are
rolling in around the point; surf industry icon Nev Hyman is looking
skeptical, his foot unwilling to come off the brake.
He’s about to roll the new GLA 250 SUV onto the sand to shoot
the MBGC cover photo, a composition inspired by the poster art for
seminal documentary The Endless Summer, a surf culture touchstone
that turns 50 this year.
The car’s push-button AWD mode is engaged, but Hyman – an
offroader with, understandably, loads of beach-driving experience – is
not convinced.
“I owned one of the first Suzuki 4WDs delivered in Australia and drove
it all around southwest WA [Western Australia] chasing waves,” he says.
His second car was a Jeep CJ5, which he bashed across the Nullarbor in
1977 en route to the Gold Coast, his adoptive home ever since.
“But this soft sand at Burleigh,” he winces, “this beautiful little car is
going to bury itself out there.”
We take the plunge and drive off the carpark concrete. The GLA 250
confidently grips the sand and Hyman, now grinning, carves a joyrider’s
line towards the shore.
“That’s amazing, I never would have picked that,” he says, twisting the
wheel left and right with satisfaction.
Hyman – whose companies Nev Future Shapes and Firewire Surfboards
literally changed the way surfboards are made worldwide – is back in the
news at the head of a bold new enterprise called Nev House.
The company recycles plastic waste to create durable, affordable
flatpack housing, ideal for developing nations or disaster relief (they’re
erected or dismantled in five days).
I

M B G C
12
To Australian sensibilities, the Nev House
looks like a groovy beach cabin, but to the
poor of the developing world, the innovative
structures represent dignity, hygiene and
protection from the elements.
They’re modular too – meaning everything
from homes to community halls can be
assembled from the same components.
And the ball is well and truly rolling, with
the first Nev Houses built in Vanuatu and
advanced negotiations underway with
other key territories.
“Diverting waste from landfill, off the streets
and out of rivers and turning it into houses
for the poor is a very compelling story that’s
captured imaginations,” says Hyman.
Nev House is a remarkable second act in a
career that spans surfing’s growth from cultish
pastime to a multi-billion dollar global concern.
Hyman, one of history’s most influential
surfboard shapers, doggedly championed
computer-aided design and manufacture
of surfboards until an entire industry fell in
line behind him.
Now he’s turned that singular vision towards
recycling and housing innovation.
“I’m old enough now not to care what I say,
so ‘yes’, I am a visionary,” he laughs, “I
wouldn’t have said that years ago.
“I always have my radar on, but I’m useless
with detail, I have a much bigger feel of things,
I see an industry and how it can improve.”
Hyman’s venture into sustainable
housing solutions began when he invested
in a French company that had cracked
a process to simultaneously recycle the
seven ‘codes’ of plastic – hard drink bottles
are one, plastic bags another – into a wood-
replacement material.
“It felt very right,” he says. “I was sick of
seeing the oceans destroyed by plastics.”
Despite the game-changing tech, marketing
the resulting ‘unsexy’ products – bollards,
pallets and outdoor decking – proved tough.
Hyman was later surfing in Bali when
an associate showed him plans for an
affordable housing project under consideration
by the Indonesian government.
Staring at the blueprints, the mind that
revolutionised global surfboard production
started ticking. In place of boring bollards,
BELOW: Cross-sections of Nev House
recycled construction materials. Note
the flecks of coloured electronic cable
sheathing in the compound.

D R I V E R BEHIND THE WHEEL
13
Hyman saw roofing and wall elements rolling off
his recycling line to house the underprivileged.
“I straight away said ‘I can build that’,” he says.
“Now, at the time I didn’t know that I could, but
that moment is reflective of my personality – I
tend to see the vision before the reality and never
give up making it happen.”
He scanned the sustainable housing sector to
ID potential competitors and allies, only to find
himself alone in a niche.
“This whole idea – affordable homes out of
recycled waste – I thought everybody must be
doing it and maybe I can get on a bandwagon
somewhere, but there was nothing.”
Energised, Hyman in 2012 recruited architect and
HASSELL principal Ken McBryde, an expert in
modular and indigenous housing (a surfer too!), to
design the Nev House.
The resulting structures are imbued with
sensitivity to specific cultural needs and certified
to withstand a Category 5 cyclone. They stimulate
community and save lives.
The recycling process was also refined at both
ends – allowing more waste categories into the
supply chain and improving the final product.
“We can now recycle agricultural, commercial
and e-waste into the houses –which before
had all been doomed to landfill,” says Hyman.
“I want to build the next Nev House 90% from
plastic waste – which will reduce the price
dramatically – and we’re evolving our design
towards that goal for 2016.”
Nev House was in negotiations with several
Asian and Pacific governments when, in
March 2015, Cyclone Pam struck Vanuatu,
decimating housing and infrastructure.
Within days, the Nev House team was on
the ground and speaking with government
about making Nev House structures part of
recovery plans.
“We shifted focus to Vanuatu straight away,”
says Hyman, “the need was there.”
The Prime Minister challenged the company
to prove their claims. In response, they
airfreighted components in from around the
world and had a Nev House classroom built in
Port Vila just five days later.
Nev House are now contracted to this
year deliver almost 1,500 classrooms and
community halls throughout the country,
with each to serve double duty as a cyclone
safehouse, and rebuild villages on the hardest-
hit islands of Tanna and Mataso.
“We’re delivering 15 structures right now –
they’re shipped in like an IKEA pack – and
they’ll all be built in about two or three weeks,
connected to their own solar power, sanitation
and desalinated water,” says Hyman.
“And they take about the same time to
dismantle; they’re seismically rated, but there’s
no concrete slab so they leave no footprint.”
Funded by the World Bank and Australia’s
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,
the nationwide rollout will later include Nev
House eco-resorts owned by local villages to
stimulate tourism and employment.
An order for a further 40,000 Nev Houses on
Vanuatu–toserveashomes,schoolsandclinics
– has also been mandated by the government.
With the Vanuatu breakthrough stirring
interest, Nev House is closing in on deals
to rejuvenate the slums of Tacloban in the
Philippines, a city wiped out by 2013’s
Typhoon Haiyan, and build in Papua New
Guinea, Mexico and Fiji.
I was sick
of seeing
the oceans
destroyed
by plastics

M B G C
14
“We’ve always known that from the point when
we deliver the first homes, global interest in Nev
House would grow exponentially,” says Hyman.
Late last year, 11x world champion surfer
Kelly Slater acquired a controlling interest
in Hyman’s Gold Coast-founded Firewire
Surfboards, allowing Hyman to focus his
considerable energy on Nev House.
His innovations at Firewire, the fastest-growing
surf brand in history, include producing the
most environmentally friendly surfboard
on the planet and developing a custom
manufacturing process that eliminates toxic
chemicals and materials.
“To have history’s best surfer – hands down
– recognise what we were doing at Firewire
and want to own our company, well, that
is my proudest achievement in surfing,”
declares Hyman.
Hyman classifies Nev House as a
‘philanthrocapitalist’ venture, a profitable
enterprise with social action and charitable
giving bound within the company’s charter.
They walk the walk by sending 25% of profits
straight to the Nev House Foundation charity.
“Usually companies that make a profit put that
money into shareholders or owners’ pockets,
and maybe those owners then give something
to charity,” he explains.
“TheideawithNevHouseasacompanyisinstead
to just give it [money] away as we make it.”
A key plank of the benevolent Nev House
strategy is the delivery of factories to client
territories to produce even more Nev House
structures for that country, and later for export.
“Anywhere we build a factory, the first priority
is solving the affordable housing problem
locally, then they can export,” says Hyman.
The company is close to a deal with Mexico’s
Puebla City (amid a region struggling to meet
housing needs), as well as Papua New Guinea
and Vanuatu.
The ingenious plan commodifies local ‘post-
consumer waste’ (Hyman’s preferred term
for household rubbish), as plastics and other
recyclables go in one factory door and Nev
House components come out the other.
“We provide jobs, promote export and absorb
waste – the government collect the waste to
feed the factory and house their own people,”
says Hyman.
We arrive at the northern Gold Coast
property where two display Nev Houses have
been built and jump out of the GLA 250.
Hyman gets an idea, snaps a pic of the car on
his phone and sends it to his wife Debbie, a
nurse studying writing and anthropology.
“She loves more compact cars,” he says
cryptically.
A text comes back – Debbie, who’s been looking
for a new car, loves the look and size of the SUV.
Hyman resolves on the spot to buy one for
her and books a time to visit Mercedes-Benz
Gold Coast.
“Now when I get to drive Debbie’s car I’m
going to be pumped,” he laughs.
“I always tend to opt for a good rough-and
ready 4WD [he pulled up this morning in a
well-worn Mitsubishi Triton] but I do love all
the extras in something like this.
“And it’s so quick off the mark!”
The Nev House adventure has taken
Hyman from the corridors of Pacific power
to sprawling rubbish dumps worked by whole
families of scavengers.
“I was on a dump in Jakarta and the conditions
were so putrid I was too scared to lick my lips
because I was worried what was on them,”
he says.
“Families live their whole lives like this, but
they’re recycling and happy – they’re laughing
and joking and welcoming me.”
A day later and he’s shaking hands with
heads of state, global philanthropy figures,
socially conscious A-listers and innovation
thought-leaders.
“But I didn’t start out to get here,” he laughs.
“I just invested in a plastic recycling company
and bit-by-bit it’s evolved into this ‘feel good’
story that’s presented a social, economic and
environmental solution to a problem affecting
everyone on the planet.”
For more information visit
www.nevhouse.com
Hyman and locals on the island of
Mataso in Vanuatu, where rudimentary
shelters have been built after Cyclone
Pam wiped out the village.

Nev(ille) and the Deep Blue Sea

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (11)

Similar to Nev(ille) and the Deep Blue Sea

Similar to Nev(ille) and the Deep Blue Sea (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Nev(ille) and the Deep Blue Sea