Arcosanti

S p a c e / NThis paper reviews the prospect of a radical redefinition of the relationship between society, technology, and Nature as posited within Paolo Soleri’s Arcology theory, and anticipates a transformative social order and environmental setting in support of sustainability as demonstrated within the urban laboratory Arcosanti. It locates the roots of Soleri's eco- logical architecture within a rejection of urban sprawl emerging from his early apprenticship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West in Arizona, and argues that his own theoretical model, in presenting a fusion of architecture and ecology, prefigures a utopia of transcendence and offers a more rational planned response to the challenges of our age, while offering environmental movements a vision of what a sustainable urban future might look like. The paper argues that the positive utopian tendencies in Soleri’s work should be reaffirmed and, at the same time, it underlines an urgent need for multi-aspect and multi-disciplinary research, and postgraduate education, to be undertaken at Arcosanti, to test the parameters of micro- and macro-structures within alternative models of ecological design. In concluding the paper gives acknowledgement to the ongoing work of the Cosanti Foundation’s Board of Directors and its new Strategic Plan Steering Committee, and their commitment to attract renewed levels of financial and human resource in support of the urban laboratory’s unfinished business.

A Juan Antonio Ramírez, in memoriam "Entre las especulaciones arquitectónicas de los sesenta debemos concentrar una cierta preeminencia a las de Paolo Soleri. Imagina que la única salvación humana consiste en concentrar el hábitat, racionalizando el espacio permitiendo que una nueva con-ciencia colectiva armónica surja como suma integrada de muchas conciencias individuales. La ciudad, por tanto, debe ser compacta, tridimensional y vertical: un sólido, no una superficie" 1. Resumen: determinó su concepción arquitectónica hacia una investigación del hombre y su entorno a partir de ciudades meta-ciudad ideal y laboratorio urbano, fruto de sus investigaciones, cuyos principios están determinados por la sosteni-bilidad y el respeto medioambiental. Palabras clave:-L a implosión de la filosofía de la sostenibilidad y su masiva presencia en los panoramas contemporáneos ha modificado las disciplinas de creación productivas del diseño y la ar-quitectura. Si nos referimos a una historia de la arquitectura alejada del planteamiento he-gemónico, podemos establecer una narración crítica más allá de las lecturas de la innovación. En este sentido, fueron determinantes las cualidades de regeneración de los materiales sobre los que se articulaban los productos de consumo. Richard Buckminster Fuller fue pionero en plantear un diseño realizado con materiales económicos y reciclables, que iniciaba, a partir de los años cincuenta, una crítica a la estética funcionalista y a planteamientos alternativos posteriores como 1. J. A. Ramírez, "Prospectiva y ciencia-ficción (ciudades y edificios del futuro)", Construcciones ilusorias. Arqui-tecturas descritas, arquitecturas pintadas, Madrid, 1983, pp. 217-247.

Created in 2011 as part of DesignPhiladelphia’s and the University of the Arts annual design festival, the "Before and After Utopia" exhibit featured photographs of four utopian-dystopian sites: Arcosanti (Arizona), Ordos (China), Masdar (UAE), and “Abandoned America” (photos of ruins in the USA). Published by the exhibit as a small booklet, my 7500-word essay theorized the connection between the four sites and their philosophical and technological relevance for cities of the 21st century.

The exhibit was curated by Olivia Antsis.

Paolo Soleri's utopian roots have long been debated. He did not entirely enjoy the label. My thesis shows to what degree a utopian dream and his personal vision were tied to those who imagined a better world. Appendix includes utopian literature he was familiar with and had read. Although he generally rejected the utopian association, Arcosanti was shaped in its image. As a graduate student, I lived as a member of his utopian 'village' in the early 1970s, both as an apprentice at Cosanti and at Arcosanti, I was in a unique position to see how his vision was coming into a concrete existence. A section of my M.A. humanities thesis was first published in England in the "Teilhard Review." This upload is the first time it has been publicly available in his entirety.

Thesis committee members
Table of Contents
Premise
Chapters
Appendix
Bio sketch

David Grierson worked on La Loggia and Energy Apron with Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti in 1987. La Loggia is designed as a residential space for both short and long term occupancy providing immediate access to the Energy Apron with food and energy production features offering a unique living experience for residents with expansive views of the surrounding desert.

The Energy Apron creates microclimatic conditions for diversified horticulture, including grey water collection and recycling systems. A natural shading system, using planted vines, moderates the harsh sunlight while allowing for warm air harvesting on a large scale. In the winter this air will be directed into La Loggia and other buildings above to provide heating.

An Arcology (architecture + ecology) takes the place of the natural landscape by constituting a new kind of topography. It :-
•is a complex, miniaturized, multi-level configuration.
•recognises the need for the radical re-organisation of urban sprawl into dense, integrated, compact three-dimensional urban structures.
•contains all the elements that make the physical life of the city possible.
•pre-figures the possibility of the energy city by promoting material recycling, waste reduction and the use of renewable energy sources as viable components in a coherent sustainable strategy aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the entire urban system.

Paolo Soleri (Torino 1919, Paradise Valley 2013) was an architect, philosopher, experimenter. In 1947 until 1948 he worked at Taliesin Fellowship in Taliesin West, AZ.  From 1955  he have experimented in the Arizonian Desert his idea of Arcology (architecture and ecology). The text explore the two case studies of Cosanti and Arcosanti in relation with American metropolis.

This ethnographic study attempts to understand how former members of experimental communities may act as agents of cultural change after returning to mainstream life in the United
States. Members of experimental communities intentionally create new cultural practices as they experiment with proposed solutions to social and ecological problems. Experimental
communities are commonly perceived as places people go into to escape social problems, but they also attract short-term residents who come to learn and develop skills. An estimated two thousand people have lived in Twin Oaks, Virginia and Arcosanti, Arizona, the two communities explored in this study.
Through interviews and surveys of thirty-four former residents of Arcosanti and Twin Oaks, the study explores practices, perceptions, and attitudes of individual participants before,
during and after community residency. Findings suggest that although former community members now living in the mainstream experience difficulty continuing practices they learned and developed within experimental communities, immersion in experimental communities can be a personally transformative experience that inspires people to create new practices.

The conference presentation discussed the theoretical and physical evolution of Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri's urban laboratory in Arizona, USA, from the first sketches in the 1950s until today. It argued that some of the fundamental concepts and physical principles which have shaped Arcosanti's evolution have a wider relevance within the sustainable city discourse.

The New York Pulse Bridge is a project within the Pulse Bridge Series undertaken by David Grierson while working with Paolo Soleri at Arcosanti in 1987.

The NAU Art Museum and the Cosanti Foundation presented an exhibition of rendering's and models created over the forty-year career of architect Paolo Soleri.

The presentation critically reviewed the Arcology theory and the Arcosanti urban laboratory within the context of the discourse on sustainability. Since the energy crisis of the 1970s efforts at Arcosanti have been directed towards the definition and testing of various architectural effects on a community-wide scale that could offer a response to many of today's environmental challenges.

This ethnographic study attempts to understand how former members of experimental communities may act as agents of cultural change after returning to mainstream life in the United States. Members of experimental communities intentionally create new cultural practices as they experiment with proposed solutions to social and ecological problems. Experimental communities are commonly perceived as places people go into to escape social problems, but they also attract short-term residents who come to learn and develop skills. An estimated two thousand people have lived in Twin Oaks, Virginia and Arcosanti, Arizona, the two communities explored in this study. Through interviews and surveys of thirty-four former residents of Arcosanti and Twin Oaks, the study explores practices, perceptions, and attitudes of individual participants before, during and after community residency. Findings suggest that although former community members now living in the mainstream experience difficulty continuing practices they learned and developed within experimental communities, immersion in experimental communities can be a personally transformative experience that inspires people to create new practices.