The Greennx Film Festival will feature films on sustainability & innovative design in Vancouver at Vancity Theatre at Vancouver International Film Centre including Waste=Food, Building the Gherkin and Design:e2, on Saturday, October 13, 2007 (9am to 4:30pm). Tickets available at http://www.viff.org/tixSYS/vifc/rental.filmguide/title-synopsis.php. Tickets for each film: $12/$11 students/seniors. Full day pass (for all 3 films): $33/$30 students/seniors.
Sustainable and innovative design by William McDonough, Ken Yeang, Werner Sobek, Steven Holl and others will be featured. It is hoped that the film festival will help to support the advancement of the green building industry.
After each screening session, there will be a discussion on sustainability and innovative design.
Greennx Exhibition, an online exhibition for green buildings and sustainable design hosted at www.buildingtradeshow.com, is now showcasing sustainable and innovative design by Norman Foster, William McDonough, Steven Holl and Ken Yeang who are featured in the films of the Greennx Film Festival.
Opportunity to Showcase Green Building Projects at Greennx Exhibition:
Greennx Exhibition is now inviting submission of green building projects worldwide for free online exhibition purposes. The exhibition will enable sharing of experience among the green building industry, enhance project-based search efficiency, and facilitate efficient information exchange on green buildings worldwide.
To join Norman Foster, William McDonough, Steven Holl, Ken Yeang and others who are currently showcasing their work at Greennx Exhibition, please visit www.buildingtradeshow.com or contact admin@buildingtradeshow.com for project submission details.
The Greennx Film Festival will feature the following films:
1. Waste=Food
see trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaVC9C2fMps
October 13, 2007, 9am
Duration: 50 minutes
BPCPA Film Classification: General: No Advisory
Director: Rob van Hattem
Editors in Chief - Backlight: Doke Romeijn and Frank Wiering
Producer: VPRO Television, The Netherlands
After the screening, there will be a discussion on sustainability and innovative design.
A documentary about the Cradle to Cradle principle: designers and manufacturers should incorporate the recyclability of the materials of which the products are made off. William McDonough, an American designer, and Michael Braungart, a German chemist, aim to re-design every product according to the principle nature uses to grow: Waste = Food. This film shows large companies (Nike, Ford) and smaller companies (Herman Miller, Rohner Textile) that experiment with completely clean and sustainable production methods and products according to the concept that 'Waste = Food'. In China, a model village is being built following this principle as well.
SWITZERLAND: The Rohner textile mill in Switzerland almost had to shut down. The mill was unable to meet the heavy environmental waste regulations. So they called in McDonough and Braungart. They designed a textile that only contained non-toxic materials. A biodegradable textile that could be put underground where it would become soil again. They designed a production method where the waste water coming out of the factory was cleaner then the water entering the factory. Rohner ended up with an economically successful product. The environmental regulating body had nothing to regulate anymore because the textile and its waste became non-toxic, clean and completely biodegradable.
NIKE:
A running shoe is monstrous hybrid. Made of leather tanned with chromium in developing countries where the waste pollutes the water and soil. The rubber soles contain lead and plastics and each time you run fine dust particles are thrown into the atmosphere and the soil. After use the materials are lost in a landfill, useless and obsolete. Darcy Winslow , NIKE's General Manager of Sustainable Business Strategies: "April 13, 1997 is the day my life changed. That day was the day I met Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart……". They taught Darcy Winslow to take another look at shoes: Create a toxin free shoe that can be recycled completely, re-using its valuable material. Do not sell those shoes but sell a service, the service of 'Perfect Walking and Running'. The producer is very keen on taking them back when you are finished with them because it is their new 'production-food'.
HERMAN MILLER:
Herman Miller is one of the world's largest Office Furniture manufacturers. They successfully embraced the design principle of MBDC. Their office chairs are the best in the world. The plastic was designed with the help of Braungart. It can be re-melted about 200 times without loosing any of its original properties. Thus the plastic can be used thousands of years….But not only the plastic was redesigned. Special 'Design for Environment teams' look for non-toxic materials and design chairs that can be disassembled completely. They designed ways to re-use old material and give it a new life.Their complete factory was redesigned by McDonough to make it into an environment and human friendly building.
FORD:
Ford has presented a new type of car. Model U, a concept car fully based on the cradle-to-cradle principle. A hydrogen car with body parts made of soy resin, seats from soy foam and tires made from corn. A car that can be dismantled completely, in order to re-use its materials in new cars. But Ford does not only want their cars to be clean. Inspired by McDonough and Braungart, Tim O'Brien - Vice President Corporate Relations is leading Ford into a new era. Within 20 years the entire giant Ford River Rouge production plant has to be transformed in a total clean production facility. Ford is serious about it and puts 2 billion US dollars apart to make it happen. McDonough is doing the design, trying to work out a new design principle that is unprecedented. They are trying to establish a clean, abundant and profitable world. Trying to say that energy wasting buildings, pollution and useless waste is an old fashioned industrial concept.
CHINA:
Using waste products as valuable nutrients for the biosphere or the techno-sphere. High production, high consumption, economic growth and a clean environment go hand in hand according to this new paradigm. An idea that is not only embraced by some of the world largest companies but also by the fastest developing economy: China. In the next 20 years, China wants to construct houses for 400 million people. These houses can't be made of bricks, as that would take China's entire clay stratum. Moreover, baking those bricks would cost half of China's coal supply. The Chinese have enlisted the help of the originators of the Cradle-to-Cradle principle in order to build this unprecedented number of houses in a sustainable way. In the village of Huangbaiyu we see a demonstration project of this building principle designed by Baumgart and McDonough.
2. Building the Gherkin
see trailer and more info at www.buildingthegherkin.com
October 13, 2007, 10:45am
Duration: 89 minutes
BPCPA Film Classification: Parental Guidance: Coarse Language
Director and Executive Producer: Mirjam von Arx
Produced by Condor Communications in co-production with ican films, Switzerland.
After the screening, there will be a discussion on sustainability and innovative design.
This film features London’s first ecological tall building, 30 St Mary Axe, by Foster and Partners for Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurance companies. Norman Foster called his design for this 41-storeys gherkin shaped steel and glass building “radical...-technically, architecturally, socially, spatially” while city officials called it the friendly skyscraper.
3. Design: e2
see trailer and more info at www.designe2.com.
October 13, 2007, 1:45pm
Duration: 135 minutes total for all 5 episodes
BPCPA Film Classification: General: No Advisory
Executive Producers: Karena Albers and Tad Fettig
Produced by kontent real, USA
After the screening, there will be a discussion on sustainability and innovative design.
This is a documentary TV film series narrated by Brad Pitt. The following 5 episodes will be screened together: - Green for All - The Green Machine - Gray to Green- China: from Red to Green- Deeper Shades of Green Green for All Duration: 27 minutesBPCPA Film Classification: General: No AdvisoryThis film features architect and activist Sergio Palleroni’s work in East Austin, Texas and in Mexico, where he and his students helped threatened communities build thousands of homes while teaching residents to be resourceful in cutting costs and using local materials.The Green Machine Duration: 27 minutes BPCPA Film Classification: General: No AdvisoryChicago's Mayer, Richard Daley, takes viewers on a tour through Chicago, and showcases his mission to make it “the greenest city in America.” Gray to Green Duration: 27 minutes BPCPA Film Classification: General: No AdvisoryThis film looks at innovative ways of recycling the massive waste from public works project. Waste from the “Big Dig” of Boston is used in building a new home. The success of this project sparked plans to create an office complex in Massachusetts from the same recycled material. China: from Red to Green Duration: 27 minutes BPCPA Film Classification: General: No AdvisoryThis film explores green design solutions in China including Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid project in Beijing with the largest residential geothermal heating/cooling and greywater recycling system in the world. William McDonough’s plans to make China a sustainable country are also featured. Deeper Shades of Green Duration: 27 minutes BPCPA Film Classification: General: No AdvisoryThis film focuses on the remarkable thinkers and designers Ken Yeang, Werner Sobek and William McDonough who challenge society and environmental design philosophically, psychologically, technically, aesthetically, politically and culturally.
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