Last updated at 21:29, Thursday, 21 April 2011

What a difference a year makes.

NEW HOME: Alan Dawson in his new office in Maryport, with his best technical innovation award

Last year Alan Dawson was forced to close his 20-year-old business and lay off 12 people.

But he has now won a top award, helped in a consortium bid to secure the Derwent Forest development and taken on a new job in Maryport.

Workington businessmman Mr Dawson, renowned for his metal sculptures, was forced to close Alan Dawson Associates but says he is confident he can secure investment for his Adaptahaus eco-home design, which featured on Channel 4’s Grand Designs.

Adaptahaus recently won a best technical innovation award in the LABC Building Excellence Awards in Gateshead – just two days after the Derwent Forest bid that he has been involved with for eight years was successful.

As well as continuing to market the Adaptahaus design, Mr Dawson has now taken on a challenge as a designer for MPM North West in Maryport.

ADA and MPM North West have worked together on projects over the last 15 years, including the Grand Theatre in Blackpool and the House of Lords.

Mr Dawson said: “I am still able to devote time and effort into getting Adaptahaus off the ground as a business. The idea was that ADA would change direction into eco housing, and that potential for the change in direction is still a very real prospect, but unfortunately ADA collapsed.”

Mr Dawson has registered Adaptahaus as a limited company to patent the design and is working on securing investment. This would require funding for a large factory to provide a production line in flat-pack houses for transport all over the world.

He has already had interest from New Zealand where there is a demand for earthquake-proof houses that can be assembled quickly and efficiently and from Canada.

Mr Dawson hopes that the success of the Utropia project at Derwent Forest will make investment in the eco-friendly, energy efficient Adaptahaus system more likely.

He said: “It is now looking more realistic to secure investment to allow us to start to manufacture the Cumbrian kit house.

“The fact that there are so many houses to be built as part of the Utropia scheme hopefully will heighten interest.”

First published at 19:23, Thursday, 21 April 2011
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk