Move over HGTV, here comes GBTV 3

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1. 

   caniscandida Posted 6:10 pm
   08 May 2006

   "This Old House"I never liked this PBS show, but it has evolved over the years into something more hopeful and thoughtful, so I have started leaving the TV on after Nature.  The recent bunch of episodes, up to a few weeks ago, in which they were involved with a restoration of a rowhouse in Washington, DC, in conjunction with an organization -- with a very tight budget -- that prepares derelict houses for homeless people, was actually very engaging.  And since they are trying to work into each episode some sort of solid piece on real architecture, old and new, they did an interesting report on an exhibition on the Mall of green-friendly, energy-efficient homes built by teams from different universities.
   Right now they are back in Cambridge, MA, perhaps the most expensive city in the country, working of course on a very up-scale project.  So that is rather depressing.  At least there are regular well-done architectural-historical forays that cutey-pie Kevin makes in the vicinity.  (E.g., to the Walter Gropius house, the first Bauhaus-design house in NA; and to the house of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which had been George Washington's headquarters for a few months.)
   I love the garden guy, with a Massachusetts accent as thick as good chowder.  But I was very surprised that as he was observing the spraying with pesticide of a row of tall junipers, the spray being shot from a huge gun high up, by a valiant powerful woman wearing a helmet, breastplate and gauntlets, he made not a comment about environmental damage.
   And so, let us hope that "This Old House" continues to evolve, and that this new show, "Building Green," will do some important things better.

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2. 

   greenlagirl Posted 5:42 am
   09 May 2006

   I saw the pilotI saw the pilot for Building Green at the Silverlake Film Festival. My main critique: The house being built is a really, really big, standalone one-family house out in the middle of nowhere -- which I'm afraid gives the impression that building green is a quirky luxury for the type of people that own a big piece of land and can afford (and desire) really, really big houses --
   Then again, maybe the house will somehow be constructed to be off-the-grid. The pilot didn't get to the energy part. Overall, I'm glad a show like this will be on PBS -- I mean, I can't expect the first show of its kind to cover everything --
   
   http://greenlagirl.com/

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3. 

   JPGunshinan Posted 7:26 am
   09 May 2006

   PBS Green Building ShowMy coworkers and I are also interested in seeing the new show. I work for a magazine that covers energy efficient, healthy, and affordable home building (Home Energy). The dialogue among those in the home performance field over how to deal with the size of a home is pretty much over. A big home is not a green home. The very hopefully soon-to-be mainstream rating system for homes, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes, sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, is putting that principle into practice.
   I hope PBS goes by the measure of total material use/energy use/environmental impact rather than total material use/energy use/environmental impact per square foot to decide if a home is green, at least in future.
   
   Jim

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