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So What are YOU doing blog-ette?



Well I'm glad you asked. The question should really be what are we doing. We, the design team; we, the environmentalists; we, the students; we, the community; and we, the pioneers.

To bring about change you can listen to the inspirational quotes about how one person can make a difference, or how it is the efforts of only a few that change the world, yadda yadda yadda. Well, the problem is that those quotes don't mention scale. Because while the 'Environmental' building field is still considered small, I know that there are over 20,000 LEED certified buildings in the USA alone. Which means there are probably and equal number of projects that just couldn't afford to go through with the LEED certification process. And there are surely a few thousand buildings already living and communing off-grid.

Then to think, when we had our last design team charette here at Willow, we hosted almost 40 people to work through design, production, philosophical, curriculum and other issues that we are facing before even breaking ground. And if there are 50,000 other projects in the United States, each with at least 40 people on their teams- that's 2 million people talking about and living the 'green building movement'.

The problem with all of those inspirational quotes is that quite frankly, they're not true.

Not to burst the optimism bubble- because in this field,
a LOT relies on hope- but for something that requires a shift in the way our entire society thinks, a select few cannot work alone. We have to be so omnipresent that all the LEED, regenerative design, integrative design, passive solar concepts, and other mumbo jumbo you hear us 'building hippies' talking about just becomes business as usual. My goal for working in this field is not to be the best and foremost green designer- but to be the most excellent designer, and oh hey this building will have no electric bill and have runoff water that feeds my gardens so I don't have to water anything.

It's a different design for a futuristic home because it actually relies on something so much simpler: nature. But think about it; anything made by nature grows, serves a purpose, creates no trash during its lifetime, then dies and rejuvenates it's environment by adding nutrients to the soil. Why can't human homes follow those same ideals?

Here at the Willow Site, none of the design plans are top secret- because they want their model to eventually be replicable in public schools. It inspires me to think that a girl like me, growing up in middle-class suburbia and attending only public schools could one day be guaranteed a healthy, safe education from my own school like the children at Willow get to thrive in for most of their school careers.

Right now, our building site is recovering farmland. It has huge crates full of stones that were saved from previous projects. There are some young, poision-ivy suffocated trees and US Route 206 in the views. So now we know what we'd like to accomplish. We have seen some of the terrible things we have done. But now-



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