PITTSFIELD, Mass. —
The house that high-performance plastics helped build was unveiled Monday, a gracious Colonial dwelling with some decidedly 21st-Century, dream house technology tucked behind its facade.
“We are very excited in sharing with you what we feel the future of home ownership is,” Uwe Wascher, vice president of marketing for GE Plastics, said at the opening of the Living Environments Concept House at the division’s headquarters.
General Electric officials were quick to point out that the engineering plastics used in the house have little in common with the stuff of toys or with the highly futuristic, space-age type of plastic housing that has been experimented with during the past 40 years.
About one-third of the light-beige house is plastic. The total cost is estimated at $10 million, but that includes research and model development.
GE Plastics HQ and Concept House Site, Massachusetts
https://clui.org/ludb/site/ge-plastics-hq-and-concept-house-site
GE's Plastics Concept House (aka Living Environments House) opened in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1989 to showcase possible uses of plastic in residential buildings. Featured in this model suburban home were futuristic components such as a centralized computer that ran everything from front door surveillance cameras to the lawn sprinklers, and liquid crystal plastic windows which could change from transparent to opaque at the flick of a switch. Cut away cross sections showed possible plastic construction concepts, including modular plumbing panels and snap-on plastic wall sections. The house used to be open for tours, but by the early 2000s, after being closed and in need of renovations, it was torn down. Pittsfield was home of the headquarters of GE Plastics, for decades one of GE's 12 global businesses, and by far the largest employer in town. In 2007, the division was sold to SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) for $11.6 billion, and renamed SABIC Innovative Plastics. SABIC continued to operate the sprawling industrial complex, including the Polymer Processing Development Center (among the largest plastics engineering R&D centers in the world) until 2015 SABIC announced that it would be moving operations from the Pittsfield site to Houston, and relocating other operations to Selkirk, New York; thus completing its exodus from Pittsfield. Historically, plastic research, development, and production in Massachusetts has been significant, from the American Zylonite Company, which opened in Adams in 1881; to the Dupont Viscoloid Company, which was to become the largest employer in the city of Leominster; to Union Products, the manufacturer of the world famous pink flamingo lawn ornament, also of Leominster.
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