Questions about Greensburg, Kansas, answered in the words of the people who did the work. The engagement itself is on its own page.
How many manufacturers took part in the Greensburg build?
Dozens of manufacturers and vendors, with DuPont as the lead sponsor. And it was not only building products. You are rebuilding a town, so it reached well past construction: automotive, clothing, food trucks and food stands. The town had been wiped out and the cameras were there, so a lot of vendors wanted to attach themselves for the press. That is part of why one sponsor per category mattered. It kept the build organized around what the homes needed, not around who wanted to be on camera.
Which donated product nearly failed the fit test with the surrounding design?
DuPont gave us hurricane glass, exterior railings of pure windproof glass, really contemporary. Technically it made sense, since they had just had a tornado. In practice it was kind of ridiculous, because it had no place in Kansas and you could not easily work it into the design aesthetic there. We really had to push to use it on the commercial buildings.
How did sponsors treat the final application of their products?
Sponsors did not really care that much how it ended up. They were in it to show the product, and they valued the donation by its impressions on the show. Some of it never got used, and that did not concern them as long as the impressions were there.
Did the high-performance standard hold up after the rebuild?
Honestly, it is tough to say, and we would rather be straight about it. A lot of the rebuild was never completed. Some of the common spaces were. The homes were harder. The work lost its footing when payment broke down. After about a year and a half we turned the homes we had started over to the general contractor and left the project. It did not end the way we wanted. The lesson we took is that a high-performance standard is only as strong as the payment structure behind it.
How were manufacturers brought into the program?
We pitched the cameras. The manufacturers wanted their materials on camera: wrap a house in Tyvek and every house on the block says Tyvek on national TV. For them it was ad placement on the shows.
Who controlled the visibility manufacturers were promised?
That part did not run through us. It was camera placement, and Discovery Channel and the associated shows did a very good job with that, so it really was not a factor for us. It was pretty obvious. That was the deal.
How were products coordinated with the other sponsors and the construction teams?
One sponsor per category did a lot of the organizing on its own, since no two companies were ever after the same spot in a house. Every product still showed up on its maker's schedule and spec, and each one had to be made to work inside one design and go in at the stage the crews were filming.