Bark is a product of nature and what is certified is how humans interact with it. Watch the video and hear what Bill McDonough has to say about Bark House brand shingles.
William McDonough’s lecture last month in Charlotte NC included a reference to the life of trees, and how a house can aspire to mimic the perfection of this design. He showed a technical interpretation of this futuristic idea as well as Highland Craftsmen’s Bark House brand shingle siding, which is produced today.
Bill graciously invited me to dinner with the Charlotte Center City Planning Group. The conversation was broad reaching as one would imagine. Everything you have read about his intellectual capacity and relationships with very important people became fully animated as he captivated the room with story after story. With all this, the question that struck me was, this is all so big, what about the little things?
Bill’s design for life states that we must act in consideration of every species’ children for all time. No little thing. His challenge has impacted countries such as Holland and China, states such as California and companies such as Wal-mart. There is no denying that we must act “fiercely” as he puts it because we are at an un-deniable tipping point in our history. This work is our legacy.
Bill made several references to Thomas Jefferson and his pure love of design. In fact, Bill had the honor of living in a Jefferson house with permission to use Monticello one time a year for his personal guests. Jefferson’s life was huge. But as Bill points out, it is what he designed, not his jobs that he wished to be remembered for, for all time. The inscription on his headstone states, “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.” Jefferson also noted that every generation must create its design and live its legacy.
In order to move a design or intention forward we must reach a critical capacity. Is that capacity created working with the leaders of nations or is it built organically addressing one logger, for example at a time? The answer is both. If you are William McDonough, you work with nations. If you don’t have a key to that door, you work with those that you have the capacity to impact. This brings us back to trees. What would one tree be without a continuous forest? What would a continuous forest be without one tree? Where is the balance of critical capacity?
This planet is made up all sorts of symbiotic relationships. One life forms building upon the next. With all the intricacies, the work to be done is huge. But on this night, William McDonough took the time to relate his long contemplations on an original WNC creation, the Bark House shingle. He acknowledged the perfect design of the bark as the protector for the tree and bridged the gap to the bark protecting the house. The nature of the product is biological nutrients that can be given back to the earth freely, when and here is the key, when handled properly by human manipulation.
This is why it is so important to choose Bark House brand exterior shingles. It is the only bark product that is Cradle to Cradle Gold certified, not because the shingle is all-natural, but because the way Highland Craftsmen handles the shingle in the process of sourcing, manufacturing, installation and end-of-life return to the earth.
It is humbling that one small family owned company can stand in a forest of giants….
I have the honor of giving MBDC “…feedback on V3 Criteria before the document goes out to the public.”
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
