It is always a little nerve-racking organising a function without being able to speak personally with any of the intended guests. Does anyone want to be a guest? Will anyone turn up? Will you be left standing like a lemon in front of a pile of untouched cakes and cooling cups of coffee? Not this time. Over 400 hundred people turned up. It was magnificent. Young and old were trooping through the doors to see the straw walls, the intelligent climate control system, the solar panels and so on. There was a real buzz in the air. For over four hours council staff took tour after tour of people round the site, explaining how the ecoDepot works and what the various buildings on site are for. Voices got hoarser with every passing hour as fluorescent jackets were donned and York residents set off in animated groups. | "Like any creative work, its existence and its power is directly proportional to the number of people who know about it" | |
Also on site were the York Rotters, the community group based on the St Nicholas Fields site, as were many council officers from the Neighbourhood Services department on hand to explain environment law, composting, how the recycling lorries work, etc. I pay tribute to Ed, the film director, who had worked until two in the morning to finish the three minute film about the ecoDepot in time for the open day, and there he was on Sunday morning, ready to record York residents’ first impressions. As you will know from previous blogs, I think it is vital that the building is properly communicated. Like any creative work, its existence and its power is directly proportional to the number of people who know about it. Its message is defined by all those who come to it. I remember learning at school that Jean Paul Sartre, the French author and playwright, had banned the performance of a play he had written for years because he decided that the audience had misinterpreted it. As a creative artist myself, I know that the bottom line is this: once an artwork is finished it no longer belongs to the artist, it belongs to itself and to all those who read it or listen to it or taste it or touch it …
The ecoDepot now belongs to the city and to each of its residents. The power of the building is the power that each and everyone of us, council staff and resident alike, is prepared to give it. Will it change the city? I think so, but it’s not up to me. It is up to us all to see it for what it is: the opportunity to find confidence about tackling Climate Change. Almost 2000 tonnes of CO2 were saved in the construction of the building. Over a hundred and fifty tonnes of CO2 will be saved every year in reduced energy bills. I cannot tell you how good it feels at council planning meetings over the past couple of months to be able to say to developers, ‘you’re wrong. It can be done. I suggest you speak with our sustainability officer and ask to be shown round the ecoDepot.’ So were there any doubters in attendance yesterday? Yes, a couple. A woman determined to prove that everything about the ecoDepot was a disaster. A man persuaded that the building isn’t environmentally friendly at all because it wasn’t perfect. But such voices were notably isolated. Nothing ever is perfect in the real world. In the real world a compromise is reached between ambition and resources, between what we want to do and what we can afford to do. A building as radical as the ecoDepot has to be tamed and mastered. It takes a few months to find out how it actually performs, how long the heating needs to be on, for example. Computer modelling is great but it is not the real thing. Lastly, an update on blog 14. I am told that the wind turbine is not yet ordered because we have been waiting three months for the Energy Savings Trust to formally approve our application. I can feel another phone call coming on. Cllr Christian Vassie, 26th February 2007 | 
