Comments After the Event

It has been over a month, but I am finally getting around to writing about how the movie and discussion went at Mockingbird back in September (see the previous post). I think it is safe to say the the movie was disappointing. The project was a show house for a major homebuilder, and will be mainly used to burnish their "green" credentials. The savvy Staunton crowd at Mockingbird was not taken in by it, however. The reaction was very critical. The project did not have sustainability at its heart. Instead, it continued a well-worn pattern of excess and pandering under a thin veneer of green.

The discussion after the movie made this opinion clear. Those of us on the panel concurred, and if anything were not as harsh in our evaluations as some in the audience were. The discussion itself went very well. I think we were able to address real issues of sustainability, resources, methods, etc. We tackled questions about being green and dealing with historic structures. We talked about new technologies and new products. Lastly, after the formal talk, a number of people came up to look at the drawings I posted in the previous entry. I think the reaction to all of this was positive.

The thing I took away from this was that there are a lot of smart people in Staunton and the surrounding areas who really "get it" when it comes to sustainable design. This is a hopeful sign for the future. Things are going to get better!