Saturday’s Greenable and Greensaw party was amazing. This party was, in a manner of speaking, much more downtown than I am used to. It was interesting to see not just discourse in policies or aesthetic differences in architectural style, but subdivisions within this emergent subculture of sustainability. In the mix – at least the cross section I was privy to – was an assortment of students, fashion designers, programmers, and green industryites. Greenable and Greensaw seem to be the pop culture ingredient of Philadelphian architectural sustainability.
The party’s main attraction was a fashion show featuring outfits from Arcadia Boutique in NoLibs. As advertised, the models were bona fide, superfine catwalkers, and the fashions were wearable – not too avant garde and not too granola.
Greenable’s showroom was like any other retail/design hybrid with sustainable product lines and a vignette or two. What struck me, was not necessarily the caliber of the products - unfortunately, when there are approximately two hundred guests milling around, it is not the time to play twenty esoteric questions with the party hosts - but the sheer variety of stuff that could replace the big box mainstays apples-to-apples. I find this encouraging. On my way home, I thought about the entrepreneurial fingers who will always make a product available and at just the right price, provided that there’s a market, of course. Judging by Greenable’s well stocked shelves, we are well on our way to mainstreaming green design.
Long before I was a noisemaker for rational design, I was trash picking for furniture, soldering in wood shop, and improving my personality with shellac fumes. Greensaw’s workroom was what really did it for me. I’ve been lurking on the Greensaw website for some time. I didn’t have the opportunity to meet Greensaw owner, Brendan Jones, on Saturday, but from what I can tell, if you want to work with a deeply intelligent, down-to-earth, sustainable builder – you should absolutely hire Greensaw.
Shortly before I hit the road, one last set of models took the runway. Still sporting sustainable fashions, albeit with what appeared to be price tags, these models were break dancers in disguise. Each strutted to the dj’s beat (Questlove was unavailable) with slightly different translations, and I so thoroughly enjoyed myself that I actually felt that there was a little cool transference – from Greensaw and Greenable and all the happy party people to me – if only for two hours.
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