People have several needs. Food and water. Safety and security. Shelter. Taking a whole-systems approach, green-builders Sean Sands and Pete Matheson strive to integrate these considerations into the homes they build, low-cost dwellings that utilize both natural and waste-stream/reclaimed materials, homes that are designed for efficiency, simplicity and sustainability. Drawing inspiration from the seminal local-eating and local food tome 'The 100 Mile Diet,' a blueprint for '100 Mile Housing' begins to take shape, an approach to housing and lifestyles change that advocates local solutions and local empowerment for those interested not just in experimental building, but in building lives and communities that can be sustained in perpetuity.—Anonymous
'Greening The Cube: 100 - Mile Housing' is a feature length documentary film that follows the efforts of green-builders Pete Matheson and Sean Sands as they strive to imagine and construct homes that are affordable, habitable, ethical, and environmentally responsible- in a word, sustainable.
Tracing the contrasting origins of these two unique builders, the diversity of design and near limitless possibilities for experimental housing is explored through their personal histories and the homes they have created. Taking inspiration from the local-food treatise 'The 100 Mile Diet,' a concept for '100 Mile Housing,' localized solutions for house and home, begins to take shape in the backwoods of Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada.
With appearances made by author JB MacKinnon (co-author of The 100-Mile Diet), Professor William Rees (Ecological Footprint Analysis), and other proponents of sustainable living, a case for experimental building and whole-systems solutions to the sustainability question is taken from the wilderness out...
Combining integrated approaches to food production, meeting energy needs, responsible management of the waste stream, and other considerations pertinent to our homes and lifestyles, the extremes gone to by the featured builders serve as a counterpoint, a challenge to modern western consumerism.
Ultimately, the lifestyle and movement documented poses but one question; what kind of future will you build?
