Box Truck Film Travels to Campus!

Tiny house builders Deek Diedricksen and Alex Eaves brought The REUSE! Box Truck to Govs for the world premier screening of Box Truck Film and a day on campus. The duo built the 98-square foot box truck tiny house entirely from reclaimed, reused, repurposed, and upcycled materials!

The box truck itself was a decommissioned UHaul truck. Diedricksen and Eaves created the box truck as a mobile reuse education center, Eaves’ home, and a home to his reused t-shirt business. The truck includes an office area, a bathroom with shower and compostable toilet, a kitchen with a sink made from Eaves’ grandmother's old lobster pot, a bed, and lots of storage for clothes, food, and, of course, t-shirts. One side of the truck has no windows and can be used to screen movies!

Diedricksen describes it as a “mobile dwelling that incorporates quite a bit of salvaged, reused, and repurposed materials found by way of dumpster diving, on the side of the road, and communicating with people who had stuff they wanted to get rid of that was just taking up space.” He says it took about a year to make, but with the changes and additions they made, the total project time was two years.”

Students gathered in Bergmann Theater in the Wilkie Center for the Performing Arts for Convocation at the beginning of the day to watch Box Truck Film. Diedricksen and Eaves partnered with director Jason Kimball to “create a documentary that focuses on the transformation of the box truck into not only a mobile reuse education center, but also an effective and attractive full time living space.” The film follows the journey of converting a 17-foot moving truck into a 98-square foot tiny house for less than $9,000. You can view the trailer for the film here.

Streaming the film followed by the full day of workshops, tours and class visits inspired a lot of students and teachers in our community to be more creative and less wasteful.

With the truck parked behind Kaiser Visual Arts Center for the day, students and several classes were able to visit the box truck for tours and to chat with the creators. Classes that built the box truck’s visit into the curriculum included: Documentary Filmmaking, AP and Intermediate Studio Art, Engineering, Environmental Science, and the two Afternoon Programs: Sustainability and Art in the Afternoon. Struck worked with the Art and Science Departments, Academic Dean Karen Gold, and Diedricksen and Eaves beforehand to shape and integrate the event into our working curriculum.

“Inviting Deek & Alex to screen their documentary Box Truck Film and bring the Box Truck to campus seemed like a natural fit for us as we move toward more Project Based Learning (PBL) at Govs,” said Struck.

She continues, “I love that Deek & Alex's film not only shows the process they went through in problem solving and working with found materials, but also inspiring us to make small choices that have a big impact on our waste stream. Being able to see, touch, and walk around in the truck in person is such a great full-circle way to learn how everyday items can be repurposed and reused.”

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Eaves is a reuse expert and has been leading a passionate “reuse life” since 2008. He is the owner of the green certified reuse apparel brand, STAY VOCAL and also the director of the award winning documentary, REUSE! Because You Can't Recycle The Planet. In 2014, he became a certified Master Reuser by the Reuse Institute. For the past few years, Eaves has been living and traveling in The REUSE! Box Truck.

Diedricksen is a professional tree house and tiny house builder and has been an enthusiast since 1987. He has hosted and designed for numerous TV shows for The DIY Network, The History Channel, Make TV, and was the recent host for HGTV's "Tiny House Builders.” Diedricksen has taught hands-on building workshops worldwide since 2010 and runs the YouTube design channel RelaxshacksDOTcom (with 220,000+ subscribers). He is the author of four books including the bestseller "Microshelters" and has had his art and designs featured in the NY Times, The Boston Globe, The homepage of Yahoo.com, and in Forbes Magazine. His specialty is building with salvaged and repurposed materials, often in creative, colorful, and whimsical ways. Deek is a longtime Stoughton, MA resident and won the 2016 Stoughton Citizen of the Year award for his work with several abandoned storefront reuse art projects.