The Greening of Southie follows the contruction of the Macallen Building in South Boston. It was designed to be a green building and to achieve a gold rating on the LEED scale that measures such things. They described how each of the needed 37 LEED points were earned, using local concrete, recycled steel, rainwater collection, cotton insulation, cabinet particle board made of wheat, floor glue without certain chemicals, plants on the roof, etc. A lot is made about the dual flush toilets that have a button for using less water for umm, lighter loads.
It covers construction from pouring the concrete through people moving in, and has interviews with the architects and the construction workers and one tenant. I have friends into sustainable design so many of the concepts were familiar to me, but I was surprised how all these things were brand new to the construction workers and how many of them were doubtful. Some of those doubts are proven as some of the newer materials have problems. The wheat board expands and the floor glue buckles. The roof is filled with plants which should reduce the heat generated from a black top roof but it's very costly and the plants need to be replanted. Also it was odd that points were allocated for using local concrete and steel to cut down on transportation costs, but floor boards and other things were shipped from China and South America. One architect says that the transportation of building supplies uses more energy than the building will through its entire lifetime.
I thought the film meandered a little but was very interesting. The interviews with the workers sold it. They said they could never afford to live in this building (condos from $500,000 to $2,000,000) but if these techniques and materials go mainstream, the price will come down and perhaps all buildings will be green. Good stuff.
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