David Warner
Co-Founder and President
David Warner is the founder and owner of Redhorse Constructors (1981-present). For the past four decades he has been working on new urban formations around sustainable and resilient infrastructure and construction systems, serving as an advisor to startups that are creating new materials and systems for this new urban design intent. For instance, Redhorse has been selected to be the constructor for Ecoblock, an urban sustainability project whose partners include NASA and the California Energy Commission (CEC). This will be the first-of-its-kind block to demonstrate neighborhood-scale solutions to urban resilience, including energy and water efficiency, a communal solar-powered microgrid, and shared electric transportation. The project, led by UC Berkeley, will run from 2020 to 2023, with efficiency retrofits and microgrid construction planned for 2021-22.
David is the co-founder of Human Needs Project (2010-present) with Connie Nielsen, a collaboration of academic and industry leaders who are in partnership with local communities to address the lack of basic services common in underserved urban populations. HNP’s project in Kenya, the Kibera Town Center, provides basic services (water, toilets, showers, laundry) and empowerment services (business skills training, microcredit, WiFi, health kiosk, green marketplace) to over 800 people per day, demonstrating that clean, local energy can empower vibrant and sustainable community centers. HNP has deployed energy systems with the Rockefeller Foundation. With grant monies, HNP’s market based poverty solution concept will be reviewed by Johns Hopkins University for scale up potential (2021).
As a result of David’s interest with new technologies, materials and concern for the environment, he has acted as technical advisor on a number of projects, including Sir David Adjaye’s submittal for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and Sir Richard Branson’s project for island development and sustainability focusing on low cement concrete recipes. In 2006, David co-founded Above Board Technologies, which built a pilot factory in Canada to prove that waste wheat could be used to compose a structurally rated panel to compete with plywood. In 2007 his efforts in sustainable construction and the implementation of green technologies in residential projects earned him the title Builder of the Year by the NAHB (USA region).
