Sachs Steel President Screens Green Documentary Film

Bob Wolff, owner and president of Sachs Steel, recently screened "The Greening of Southie" for a roomful of architects and contractor-estimators.

"The Greening of Southie" tells the exciting story of the construction the first LEED certified apartment building in Boston, an eleven-story luxury apartment building in the area known as South Boston. "It is a very entertaining, moving and enlightening film, and I wanted to share it with architects and contractors," Wolff said.

Wolff even brought the producer, Ian Cheney, in to talk about the film.

While the film portrays some of the hurdles in that sprung up in the building of this LEED certified project, such as buckling wood floors and reworking cabinets that had expanded, audience members noted that those are typical of the kinds of problems that can occur on any project.

The film also notes that there are environmentalists, who are critical of the LEED rating system. One clip features the director of the Pew Center on Climate Change noting that the bamboo floor was imported from China and saying that no building that expends so much climate changing fuel to import items from far distances can be truly "green."

Cheney, however, said it was the social tensions that surrounded the project that drew him to make the film. Initially, he was asked to take time lapse photography to be used in the marketing of the building. When setting up the cameras, the carpenters, who were building the camera housings, were arguing over whether "green" was a good thing or not. "That's when we thought we might have a film here," Cheney said.

Cheney pointed to the safety meeting that opens the film. "The workers are asking what a "green building" is and the safety director does his best, but he doesn't know to be able to tell them," he said. "That really shows the gulf between the developer and the architect and their vision of what the building should be and the workers who are going to build it. And we thought that was interesting," he said.

Wolff said he will make he movie available for others in St. Louis to see. Just call him at Sachs Steel.

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