John Martin Evans was born in the UK in 1944 and educated at St. John's School, Leatherhead. He enrolled on the Architectural Association’s (AA) five-year Diploma course in 1961, on a County Major Scholarship (Surrey). In 1964 Evans took part in an exchange programme between the AA and Kwame Nkruma University of Science and Technology (KNUST), in Kumasi, Ghana, spending the academic year with KNUST and living in Republic Hall, on the Kumasi campus. On his return to the AA in 1965, Evans elected to spend his final Diploma year with the Department of Tropical Studies, where his final thesis was for a shopping centre in Jurong, Singapore. Over the course of his subsequent career John has become an international expert on bioclimatic design, energy efficiency, renewable energy and the natural conditioning of buildings. In the late 1970s he worked at the Bouwcentrum International Education, in Rotterdam, where he was appointed Deputy Dean of Studies. Following the end of the military junta in Argentina, Evans and his partner and fellow expert in the field of sustainable architecture, Silvia de Schiller, settled in Buenos Aires. With the re-establishment of democratic government, curriculum reforms took place at the University of Buenos Aires and Evans and Schiller were invited to organise a new undergraduate course on solar and environmental design, within Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism. Writing in 2016 for a PLEA conference, Evans acknowledges that the course aimed to “incorporate experiences of teaching environmental and energy conscious design from European postgraduate courses such as the [AA] Department of Tropical Studies… and Bouwcentrum International.” Evans and Schiller’s course proved extremely influential, evolving into the Laboratory of Environmental Studies and, more recently, the Research Center Habitat & Energy (CIHE) – Evans serving as Director for both bodies. Evans has published numerous books and articles ranging from an early collaboration with the DTS Director, Otto Koenigsberger, and fellow DTS student, Carl Mahoney ('Climate and House Design', United Nations, 1970), through to the seminal ‘Environmental Design and Solar Architecture,’ written with Silvia de Schiller (1986).
Sources
- Architectural Association Student Register, 1945-71. AA Archives
- Architectural Association Diploma Roll, 1966. AA Archives
- Architectural Association Council Minutes, 18th July 1966
- Architectural Association Membership Register, 1969, 1974
- Evans, J.M., Koenigsberger, O., Mahoney, C. ‘Climate and House Design,’ United Nations, 1970
- Evans, J.M., Schiller, S. de., ‘Bridging the gap between climate and design: A bioclimatic design course for architectural students in Argentina,’ Energy and Buildings, Vol. 15, Issues 1–2, 1990, pp43-50,
- Evans, J.M. ‘Sustainable urban development: design guidelines for warm humid cities,’ Urban Design International 3(4), December 1998, pp165-184
- De Schiller, S.M., Evans, J.M., Figueroa Castrejon, A., Castorena Espinosa, G.M. ‘30 Years of Teaching Bioclimatic Design in Architecture in Graduate and Postgraduate Courses in Mexico City and Buenos Aires’ PLEA2016 Los Angeles - Cities, Buildings, People: Towards Regenerative Environments, 11-13 July, 2016
