Green Stories works on community projects.
Green Stories is a Montclair-based company that handles various architecture projects. Currently, Green Stories has a few projects on the drawing board, according to owner Thomas Reynolds. “We are designing a veteran village,” said Reynolds. “[It will] help veterans transition from leaving the military and going back into society. Additionally, it will offer counseling, help, training, community building and emergency housing for homeless veterans.”
Reynolds has been working together in Green Stories alongside his two friends, one who specializes in chemical engineering and another in graphic design. Reynolds’ background is in architecture.
Reynolds got started with Green Stories after traveling to an African Caribbean Business Council Meeting in 2012, where he was able to hear people discuss opportunities where they were looking for American expertise to deal with construction and development issues going on in their countries. “I met with people from the meeting,” said Reynolds. “They were great, but there were no architects at the meeting. A few of us got together and I decided to do something different than I had been doing.”
For the next half year, Reynolds spent time figuring out what he enjoyed doing, which was design and doing things that mattered to the community and have a social impact. Reynolds teamed up with his friends, a chemical engineer and graphic designer. Their goal was to produce high quality design or things that made a public impact, which included all areas of design that they were all able to produce. Some of the projects that Green Stories has worked on include digital design, marketing pieces and website design.
More recently, Green Stories has focused on architecture projects, especially for the election. According to Reynolds, they have also done residential rehabilitation in Newark for affordable housing, as well as some church designs.
Reynolds is happy to work with people he has known his entire life, as his two co-workers have been his friends since high school. “We were all raised in Montclair,” said Reynolds. “We all went to Montclair public schools and got involved in different organizations here. It just makes sense for us to be here.”
One important aspect of Green Stories’ is that the work they do has more of an impact than if someone just wants to make their house bigger. According to Reynolds, “it’s something that will stay with the community and mean something.”
Green Stories is located at 65 North Willow Street in Montclair.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login