Arcosanti: Paolo Soleri on his futuristic utopian city in the desert
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
- Visionary architect Paolo Soleri began building Arcosanti, his utopian city in the desert, in 1970 and continued to work on this “arcology” (“architecture + “ecology”) until his death at 93 in 2013. When I interviewed Soleri in 2000, he described the experimental city as a reaction to the scattering of people across the US landscape, what he called a “planetary hermitage”.
In 2000, I interviewed the Begin-Tollas family, who as planning manager (Nadia Begin) and construction manager (David Tollas) were hoping to help build a different future for their 3-year-old son Tristan (“the first child to grow up in an arcology”).
In 2014 I returned to this desert oasis, a year after Soleri died, where residents, like planning manager Rawaf al Rawaf, were trying to determine the future of this “urban laboratory”. The Begin-Tollas family still continues to help build this “prototype” arcology (Tristan is now 18).
arcosanti.org
On *faircompanies: faircompanies.com/videos/arco... - Навчання та стиль
Looking back 1974 I hitched rides from Ventura Ca. Arrived and the next 3 mo. I worked building walkways with rock and mud and helped attach formed cubicles to existing structures. My life changed and I am so grateful having been accepted on site. Appreciation for interaction in culture and guided education thru nature and spirit. True to one's heart the future is bright. Thank You, Love Teddy
This strikes a cord with something deep in my brain. I think we are supposed to live like this
Even though this kind of community is not for everybody, watching this is profoundly invigorating. It's as if my very existence is enriched by their passion and their commitment to make all this work. Plus, they're so eloquent. Thank you for sharing this.
I live in Hong Kong where everything is cramped and compartmentalised. The architecture protrudes against what "environment" we have. Very little of it is truly nourishing to the soul. I wish we had something like this or at least that this concept would carry over especially in metropolitan cities.
Interesting. I grew up in Phoenix and learned to despise the unmitigated sprawl, with just a few tokens of untouched land and overused parks. When I went to Hong Kong I thought it the perfect balance, I was blown away by the access to nature right outside the mega-tower I was staying in. I would run, what I think was called the dragons back. I found it very nourishing, and thought they got the density to untouched 'nature' right. I felt the same in Kobe. But I was just a visitor to these places so my view limited. I like hearing your different pov. Cheers.
@@ehlava I am pleased to hear that your experience (albeit short) was pleasant. I've lived in Hong Kong for over 20 years and have loved this city with all its idiosyncrasies. While urban planning does try to make sure that small patches of nature is accessible even in the urban areas, these come in curated parks and small alcoves which can feel contrived and frankly, sad. Still, curated greenery is better than none.
I was lucky enough that my family tended to live outside the city centre in the New Territories where there is definitely more nature. Right now, I live on an island. But most people live in the densely populated area and so what little "nature" they have readily accessible is to be shared by too many people. Just a small factoid, being able to see green or blue is factored into the cost of housing. Mountains, seas, and nature - these cost money.
The Globalists want the entire world to be like China. I'm heading to ARCOSANTI!!!
In the 70s and beyond, I would look over the landscape eagerly to see Arcosanti, as I traveled by. I drove in a couple times and there were few people but many scattered buildings. It is still a wonderful place and idea. It has a magical feeling much like the old native dwellings in the region.
That is a sincere compliment to this community. 🌸💙🐌
Reading about Arcosanti in the late 1970's nudged my lifelong interest in architecture. Someday I will have to repay that gift, perhaps a visit would be a good start. My work in retirement touches on developing affordable residential housing. As urban land becomes ever more expensive I've begun looking to rural clustered development models informed by Arcosanti, though I believe the model must evolve to address todays new digital social reality.
I'm retired in some measure because I stumbled into designing computer control systems and writing software in 1978. This was just very good luck to find something I enjoyed working at and believed would change the world in mostly wonderful ways. The Arcosanti residents seem to have found their inspired work too. Computer & networking technology (smart phones etc) have not always had humane effects on society, but digital life is the new reality which the single leader administered Arcosanti seems to have been unable to integrate into the decades earlier vision of Soleri.
Digital technology may also have bypassed the Frank Lloyd Wright/Paolo Soleri/Corbusier/Bauhaus architecture focused physical design solution set they hoped could be used to address human social issues in positive ways. Communication technology of a generation ago was primarily one-to-many only - a single top down network. Today however, we connect in digitally linked communities that Paolo Soleri did not envision when he developed his architecture centric solutions framework as a young architect. This is not a criticism of Soleri or Arcosanti. Generation after generation technology by humans drives changes in ways positive and negative that previous generations (FLW, Soleri, Boomers like myself) could not have anticipated.
Modern civilization's digital community technology brings people together and solves problems across classes for urbanites and rural farmers in Ethiopia alike (where I have done volunteer work). Soleri and my hero Walter Gropius saw physical architecture as foundational to enable a better quality of life. Today the solution set is broader and I think should include both new digital community building tools AND traditional face to face human scale interaction aided by good architecture. If Arcosanti can find and explore a way to integrate these approaches it will make yet another strong and evolving contribution to society. If it remains welded to the vision of an earlier generation the strength of it's relevance will fade and that would be quite unfortunate.
Arcosanti might consider a more clustered (with common courtyards?) but distributed model of residential, public social and work space development aided by communally owned electric shuttle vehicles recharged by the abundant sunlight at their location even in winter. Just because polluting gas engine private vehicle infrastructure has proven problematic in urban/suburban communities, doesn't mean clean renewable small scale quiet mobility provided by EVs shouldn't be adopted in a modestly clustered development model. This should allow a wider range of new Arcosanti residents with diverse personal mobility challenges to fully participate. Feedback is welcome. What are your thoughts ?
Amazing video the jump forward 15 years was really cool
this place seems to be empty. The concept is fantastic, I myself wish to find a self sustaining community to move to.
Only 80 people actually live there
Did you find a place?
I'm glad to see a return to this place it was an architectural dream a functional sculpture.
What a magnificent documentary. Thank you, Kirsten.
What a beautiful concept, redefining a way of living, in symbiosis with the environment.
Thank you for this film! It is such a gift to see and hear old friends, especially Shirlee. I connected with her immediately upon my arrival in 2005. The people that come through Arcosanti is what makes it great. I formed life-long friendships and this place shaped me in my young adulthood.
Love this! I lived in a housing co-operative for years. The architecture has a wonderful relationship with the land. Thanks for bringing it to us :)
One of the most favorite documentaries you made :) Thank you
Thank you! I appreciate your work.
it's so cult-like, very interesting concept. looks straight out of a sci-fi book
"Cult-like" LOL.
thanks for creativng this content. amazing arch and urban "prototype". going to visit it next month!
Again great video on amazing channel.
I found that tech most practical and durable, respect! :)
That place looks amazing!
Early days in the Kirsten Dirksen wanderings
Always interesting
All the years of going past the house on the hill as a child growing up I wouldn't have ever thought there was a utopia on the other side. I always enjoyed the way the place looked but never knew
love this!
Kirsten
Thanks for all you do, you channel should be on P.B.S. Have you ever though about reaching out to therm?
My husband and I were just out in that neck of the woods recently and no matter how much everyone around me discussed the beauty of the desert landscape, I just couldn't appreciate it, and there are communities out there that have to actually go and buy water and have the water truck place it in a cistern. It's good to get out and see how people live in different climates around the country, but I really realized that I need trees, big leafy trees to feel at home.
I do like the idea of being able to walk everywhere because things are close.... That I could definitely embrace..... In another part of the country.
With the small population, maybe they aren't draining their well, but they probably are.
Kirsten, have you checked out the complex in Venus Florida that Jacque Fresco has built?
Thank you for this very interesting video. I first heard about Arcosanti after reading Piere Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man" and finding out that de Chardin's thinking had influenced Paolo Soleri into creating the concept of the Arcology and, with it, Arcosanti.
I would love to visit it and do a couple of workshops, maybe stay there for a month or so. It's story is fascinating, the long term implications almost cosmic in their reach. I'm surprised this project hasn't ben talked about, or researched, by the folks who run The Long Now foundation. This is a long term thinking project.
Soleri's work is being practiced in modern forms all over the Gulf States. Not his architecture of course, but arcology borrowing on his multiplicity of principals. I would love to see his heavy industry "vein" cities emerge somewhere.
I went to Judson School in Scottsdale in 1979. A few of my instructors worked out there during the summers. About what I expected.
So viel Platz und Natur!!!! Liebe Grüße Aus Germany! Walter
Pretty cool, I want to live there.
This was Arco in it's prime. I lived right around the time of this video. I think I arrived just after this video.
For a visit or you live there now?
I'm wondering why they make ugly bells, but no concert quality bells.
@@nomore1980 you could always get a job in the foundry and find out. They do manage to pull in the $ from bells.
@@spacetrucker2196 They don't want an introvert like me. Odds are they have no space available. AndI wouldn't want to live in such an ugly sad place, lacking beautiful women.
Wow!
Thank you Kirsten, for opening our eyes more than most as usual 😆 I think they could use a bit more permaculture to turn this arid Arizona "compound" into a lush, beautiful, self sustaining, futuristic utopia... My twin pennies worth anyways 😊
This was fascinating, stumbled across this video and am intrigued, would love to come and spend some time with this community to learn some skills. Whom may I contact to find out more?
What was the name of the quick-growing trees the gardener gent was referring to?
Thanks for sharing. This is great architecture. In a sustaining way this system makes the most of the environment and resources. But where is modern technology such as PV solar panels and machines to replace manual labour?
Jeff Harmed They would love both, but simply don’t have the money.
I'm curious as to the cost of living at this place.
What is the economy?
Is this mostly communal?
Is there any exportation or importation?
Is the water local sourced or piped in?
What is the status of electrical?
Is it major grid, local grid, remote grid[solar panels come from the grid], or absent?
Is there methane recovery?
How much room is still unoccupied?
What is the population cap?
What kind of skills are still needed?
What is the spiritual culture?
What is the legal culture?
What are the communication systems?
bring in cryptocurrency, these new technologies will change everything in places like these
When I lived there (84-88) I got minimum wage but the 10% co-use fee (rent and utilities) left me plenty of disposable income for a comfortable life, frugal but very lively and satisfying. It's a beautiful location to live. It's obviously different now, but I didn't hear severe complaints about money when I was there in Dec 2009.
People are employees of Cosanti Foundation or it's various operations: bronze foundry, ceramics, landscape/agriculture, tours & 'public relations', maintenance & construction.
It''s a self-selecting population that edges into being a self-aware community, but it isn't 'communal' in the way folks commonly conceive that term. You live, work, play with the same, but everchanging group of 30-100 people. It's hard sometimes but makes you grow, because you deal and hang out with them all the time, so 'stuff' has to be confronted. There's a couple community kitchens for the large fraction of apartments w/out private kitchens.
Exports: Foundry and ceramics products, ideas, experiences, some agricultural produce. Imports: Most food, electrical energy, all building materials, money for ops and building.
Water is from wells, with minimal rain capture. Main aquifer charged by the Agua Fria River. Great swimming pool! Sewage treatment pond on site.
Electric is from major grid. Minimal energy from solar, but buildings are designed and situated to take advantage of solar heat and shading, heat from foundry, berming, etc.
No Methane recovery as yet. Couple greenhouses and active composting.
All livable spaces are utilized; more housing is most always a priority.
To now, infrastructure exists for not many more than 100 or so full time residents. Design iterations vary between 3500-7500 population, if and when it ever gets to full-scale.
At this point it's a pretty rough and unfinished sort of place, although there are many charming, very livable spaces. It's a construction site in theme if not always in practice, seasonally muddy and cold, hot and dusty, a couple steps above camping or squatting on the comfort scale, but again, satisfying to the small-group primate/human soul that loves creativity, community, connection to nature and serving a higher purpose: building a living, ecologically sensitive container for the development of healthy human societies and fostering cultural expressions.
Useful skills are building trades, tech, tour leading & retail, farming/gardening, administration, self-management and self-care, rural living, making home-made music, art and fun.
@@feedigli Thank you for this info. Now I understand why it's so empty. Not putting enough money into building housing. Also guessing, the ugly bells aren't selling as well as something beautiful, shiny, and heavily polished.
awesome
I'd love to live out there.
Wow the colours of the Arizona Desert is similar to the South African Great Karoo, my favorite place on Earth
I read his Arcosanti: Paolo Soleri Arcology books in 1993, in the Uni Libary, it was like manga/akira architecture neo tokyo dialed to over 9000+. I love it. The down fall however is without a type of anon tech they systems will fail and be too hard to get to to repair or upkeen burried dep with in the substructure of the arcology. Maybe you would have to rebuild a new one very 30 years or so and mine the last on for materials.
Outside was dope
i understand, and agree with building up instead of out. the reality in cities like portland, oregon, is that people do drive cars, and they must have a place to park them when not in use. many builders do not make parking within the buildings, and cars are forced into the surround/existing neighborhoods. i fully support building up, when it includes parking. portland is struggling with deciding whether or not to extend its urban growth boundary so as not to sprawl like los angeles, for example. 20 years ago, i left portland for acreage outside the city, but now i drive 25 miles into town for work...adding to traffic, and burning fossil fuels as a higher rate than when i lived in-town. living out affords me opportunities to grow my own food, have animals, and a freed landscape which i am preserving. in turn, the land is saving me, from the daily grind. it seems to be a give-and-take relationship. i'm trying to find balance. truth be know, i'm adding to the planetary hermitage by escaping those around me, and trying to get away from them outside the 9 to 5 timeframe, and much of what it holds.
Thanks for the honest share; you're contributing more for humanity's survival than most for my #TwoSense hero. I completely empathize with your requirements for sanctuary from the insane #RodentDerby (rat race ;-)‼
Human society, including what 'work' constitutes and so much more needs to evolve to eliminate commutes such as you're currently exasperated with.
The city of the future won't have cars...
If this group of individuals enjoys this type of living it's wonderful and the reason this works so well is because everyone participating wants this, embraces this ideal and pose no threat to one another. A controlled community enviorment with it's people navigating on similiar levels.
This is very nice but we're not all the same. There can never be just one way to live.
Humans are meant to create in a variety of ways.
Well penned.
I lived at Arcosnati for 4 years, there were a very wide spectrum of different people with different ideas living there.
While there was some friction from time to time, just like anywhere there are people, there was a community council set up to help be able to air issues, and like anywhere you can just choose not to interact with folks you don't get along with.
+The Ineffable Homestead Can people still join? If so, how?
Oie de Etudiant Yes they still are doing the 5 week workshops (which is a required step to live there) You can get more info at their website here arcosanti.org/workshops
It is a great program, and you meet people of all different ages and backgrounds from all over the world there.
After taking the workshop if you want to stay and keep working there you can find a dept who wants you to join and become a resident. Or if you have a life to go back to leave and have a wonderful experience to tell others.
Good luck and hope you have fun there.
I didn't hear anyone say we are all the same. There is much to learn and be inspired by here. We have a lot to learn about living in a way that miniimizes harm to our environment. "This type of living" means you can see nature, but certainly there are people who prefer to spend their days surrounded by strip malls and big box stores with all of the giant concrete parking lots that radiate heat all night long in the summer.
Wow
Nice
pretty cool! how long have u been on youtube kirsten?
I've always wanted to use one section of this place to get my military rp going
Was this part of the Dharma Initiative ? I saw something similar in the documentary series "Lost"
I believe this was a re-upload?
Interesting
I was thinking great Idea, then realize they're trying to build a city in a desert...
A Mediterranean city artificially in the desert of Arizona. The actual architecture and urban planning is interesting, but the enterprise is just replicating the Neolithic era. I was so confused to see these people put so much energy into this project, but thankfully they seem to derive gratification from it.
Looks like a nice place to Test a NLRBE ... ;]
"not giving up, freeing up" ; a great way to look at it. We don't need all this crap they need us to need.
Interesting Soleri picked the middle of nowhere. Hard to build on a dream without capital and a way to generate it? Maybe if he had started this outside SF decades ago I think it might have been built out. It seems hasn't changed much in decades, I was last there in the early 90's, maybe a bit bigger. Still appreciate it though. Maybe some change will come along that will allow it greater vitality. Maybe the world will catch up. Or maybe it is fine just the way it is... seems that way.
I have to add to make your living concept more standout...white wash the entire buildings ala the Isle Of Capri....a place I fell in love with back in the 1960's...it would be very dramatic...
*****
I have no idea what your reply means....I just don't like dirty looking cement....and where he has built his utopia there are no city codes.....
***** I didn't mean to insult at all....I have rehab and done many house/slave quarters and carriage house from the French Quarter out to Tulane.....also Key West Fl. they have to leave the front of the house as is....but they can gut those beautiful old homes.....and the paint color always are approved by someone that doesn't know the first thing about color...as far as the cement look....I have always found that to be a colder look...but you are right about code....the homes I have lived in and rehab in River Oaks, Houston Texas...you should see the codes for that place....nice replying to you...
Their goal us to harvest heat, and white doesn't do that well. It gets cold in the desert.
I wonder what they work or how they finance it and whether you can visit them :)
They produce bronze and pottery bells it seems. Small ones for wind chimes. That what keeps the place funded somehow.
It seems all these commune places have at least one thing to sell over the internet.
We had similar idea in Israel..kibbutz communes..but sadly they failed. It seems few would share the work load equally...and human nature prevails where people seem to want more or better than everyone else has by doing less work than his fellow....a few did 90% of the hard work while most found every excuse not to toil in the sun since they considered themselves "artists" or "intellectuals"...lol.שלום
There as some good ideas here but where are the families and regular folks it seems to be only one type of person moving there (architecture students) where are the farmers, artisans, shop owners etc.
Shop owners for residents that have no extra cash? They would need to up their tourism to have shops that make money.
After sixteen years in a city, I'm ready to return to the country and isolate myself. The concept and philosophy of this desert city and its people are not for me.
No better or worse than the communes of the 60's. Everyone wants to get away from it all, and yet fall right back into the same routine.
savage
The point was to get into the same routine- to not leave the city but to re invent it.
I always wanted to build a new world with a bunch of friends, and at Arcosanti I got to do that. It wasn't just a lot of talk, it was concrete, literally. So the day-to-day issues we had to deal with were the usual real ones that follow a person wherever they go, because we're humans. Are we going to make this thing work for everyone in this world of limitations?
Good idea but for me, after a few years it would be like a prison.
That fast-growing hardwood tree...how is it spelled? Polonia?
Polownia. Beautiful blossoms. Asian native tree.
@@smudgey1kenobey T'anks. I may have to look into growing a stand or two of them in my yard. :)
Solar panel generating station ...where power is used on site and sold to grid...mfg panels and inverters batteries there as well instead of Asia...Texas and Israel are building huge solar array in desert areas...maybe this is the key to sustainability for such remote desert communities ..a positive solution...שלום
Nice ...but where do are all the inhabitants going to work? And what about the poor or handi capped? Is this community affordable ? Or is it just for the wealthy or who are fortunate enough who seek to escape the ghetto? I am an architect in NYC and studied about this community and was intrigued back in the 1980s...The challenge is to make a community such as this for everyone...and provide employment within this village...not to have parkways and highways to commute to work...not another "Levittown,NY"...where cars and parking lots dominate. שלום
Perhaps a combination of jobs that always need doing (cooking, cleaning, food shops, construction, reception, etc) and things that don't have to be on site (anything that involves a computer)? Plus the foundry I guess.
Building stuff in the desert is usually not easy. If you are familiar with the Southwest, you've probably seen a few of the countless abandoned homes scattered across the desert. The fact that this has survived for as long as it has would seem to indicate to me that it's worthwhile...
I've been there once. It's a long, long way from Soleri's vision of a place on a scale comparable to the old WTC (based on his illustrations form the 70s). But it does seem as if they've stuck to principles of sustainability, as far as I can tell.
We need more of this. Cities need to be expanded by going vertically instead of spreading out laterally. This is the antithesis of urban sprawl. Leave more land for animals, cultivation and nature, by concentrating the shelter, industry, business, commerce, civic and worship centers in an integrated way that minimizes the impact of man upon the planet. Quit developing little houses made of tacky tacky and monstrous apartment blocks that separate people like hermits.
No way just bells payed for allllll that!..
Well, they got 30,000-45,000 paid tour admissions a year, before Coronavirus. Other than that, yeah, actually it is mostly bells- 75-80%+ - that paid for allllll that! You also have to realize it's being built by people for people, not by money for money; there's a lot of dedication beyond compensation that goes on. What a lot of cynics delight in calling "exploitation", I saw as work given from inspiration. And it's not like anybody's being forced to stay there; it would be the second-hardest "cult" to stay in that I know of.
@@feedigli whats the first hardest?
Didnt lsrael invent a irrigationsystem for dry land. l read they help other countries with that system now as well. Same climate?
Concrete would be much nicer with a natural earthly colour.
Somehow it reminds me a bit of the Barcelona architect video.
Planting but missing the weeds
not trying to be rude but so this is just a small city where everyone is in close proximity and tried to be as energy efficient as possible...yes ? no ? anything else I am missing ?
It can be said the slums can be very efficient as necessity takes the path of least resistance, its a shame that poverty and crime coexist in these systems. This takes the core ethos of slums and adds a planned approach that makes conscience choices instead of one mandated by circumstance that includes connecting structures with the resources they consume and taking a more managed approach to growth. This idea could work in a more modular approach as units could be connected via short paths. Also the core assumption is the people would need to change their idea of urban culture and its to fit the land scape. I think with a little effort this type or urban living could have a chance if cynicism is not allowed to prevail
I am not sure we are watching the same video , the coexistence with nature was a key to this places design ethos, I think there is more nature in this town then most modern cities. Sustainable structures need to play the long game and this place on site nature integration for use of shade in and public places seem pretty common and the concrete construction can use pretty domestic resources and is the most common material for large scale sustainable systems for is heat retention properties . The point of this place compared to other communities featured here is its target pop is 5000 instead of 200, I don't forsee a way to have more nature in a community that large that doesn't waste too much water and doesn't sprawl so much as to necessitate wheeled transport .
+sman5612
I, like you, choose to see the positives vs the immature cynicism displayed by others here; the evocation of "slum" above speaks volumes of their angry closed minded, contrarian perspectives.
I share your enlightened take on this community's effort to foster urban change that benefits humanity vs the utterly inefficient selfishness so typically prioritized in cityscape designs and architecture. (I'm also a 20 year fan of the #EarthSHIP / #TinyHouseTribe movement for reasons similarly aligned to many of this community's goals.)
Or if you selectively only let in people who are willing to work and orient towards a common goal which is efficiency and cooperation, it wont turn into a shit hole. Don't let in any people looking for a hand out. Only hard working people and it wont happen. Keep out the filth and it will prosper.
+DudGuyver agreed
that's a village not a city
Building up creates a whole new set of engineering problems..not so simple..
can you skateboard or scooter through there or are they off limits
This Videos seems weirdly out of focus, great video tho
+Dave Bowman yes, I noticed that, But even the new footage, the new guy talking about following the original vision, (wich I assume is new because I don't remember seeing him before) seemed out of focus and dated
One good thing is no police.
I'm sure if there's an issue they call the county police. Police shouldn't be an issue for anyone, providing they don't drive faster than everyone else.
Perfect scenario to grow marijuana.
This place is an introvert's nightmare.
I lived there for four years. We definitely had a few introverts who hid up in the Arcology most of the time.
what was it like, since you're not there anymore?
@@slomnim William signed an NDA))
The dream is over as soon as their water pumps fail or run out of gas.
With new and outside schools of thought, like permaculture, Arcosonti can last well into the future.
The place doesn't seem so bad with the amount of people currently there. However, I wouldn't want to live on top of 5,000 people in that situation. Even the surrounding land would be full of these people when they want to escape this bubble. It reminds me of a factory farm for people.
Arcosanti is an interesting experiment, and you can view it as part Etruscan hill town and part commune, but Soleri was a true student of Frank Lloyd Wright in not having a clue about cities and what makes them work. There's usually a good, economic reason for why cities are where they are -- beyond cheap land. The only thing that site has going for it, ironically, is that it's adjacent to an interstate. Soleri himself was what kept the place energized.
Also, that site is likely to experience desertification in coming years which will make it even more impossible than it already is.
You can't transcend the social context you are born into. Ideally, I would love to see a permaculture urban community spring up which could support itself from within, but unless you are able to transform the social relations to the means of production for society as a whole, this will turn into a glorified retirement community. You need to create your own wealth, your own sustenance, trade, etc. What I see as a positive, is that people are disillusioned with our existing socio-economic relations, and tired of the unfettered growth of our urban centers destroying the natural environment in the name of progress.
True Arcology would require Earthship type structures that build into the earth using recycled materials. Concrete is not and never will be a ecological building material. All our modern concrete begins to turn to dust after a hundred years or so and has to be replaced.They are still building mudbrick houses up to ten stories in Yemen that will last 450 years with a simple re-plastering every 50 years or so.. Even simple Cob house can last for 500 years or longer if maintained. Michael Reynold's designs from the Taos Earthship community is a much more promising and cheaper way to improve civilization. They are akin to Cob on steroids. The Idea that you can sustain year-round agriculture on flood plains is not viable for the long term. Much better to build on on the sides of south facing hills with a small garden indoors and a larger terraced agricultural area below being fertilized by the output of the septic system. We see this system was used in ancient Inca ruins in the Andes mountains.The water is collected above and requires no pump to water or fertilize the fields below. Earthship type greenhouses would extend the growing season and conserve water which can be captured within the system and recycled to lower level greenhouses before finally being released back into the environment with no further treatment. Earthships are off grid so they are not dependent on expensive power transmission lines and power companies to keep the lights and the refrigerators running. They don't need any outside source of power except most now use propane to cook with. Natural gas is easy to make using a bio-gas generator and a regulated LNG compressor. All organic waste can be fed into the digester and cooking/heating gas comes out of the collection bell instead of being released into the environment. Frank Loyd Wright was a architect that could make things look good and impressive, But Michael Reynolds does the same thing while also making them inexpensive,sustainable,and independent from outside forces.
Exactly! The Romans knew how to make it last and we don't. That is why 75% of our concrete bridges are desperately in need of replacement.
corn cobs?...bugs love to eat corn you know
The architecture itself is beautiful however it could never replace anything we have today because it is simply outdated technologically and ideologically, unsustainable compared to modern cities and towns and ultimately a ripe ground for an animal farm type social situation to eventually develop. Movies like Logans Run or the more recent The Lobster immediately come to mind when I look at this way of living.
All these arguments about commuting 3h to work or not being able to grow food or using too much energy would be valid maybe 60 years ago but with internet, electric cars, modern carbon based materials, modern hydroponics, geothermal/wind/solar energy and so on we can each have an energy neutral house in an otherwise massive subburb or whatever you want to call it and connect to everyone immediately and get to work without any commute whatsoever if we only choose to or commute for sensible amounts of time using green transport, grow our own food using minimal space and have nature around us.
This project polemises with a fictional vision of our future which never came to be and thus to me it offers no answers to any remaining technological or social questions at the moment - it is just an aesthetically beautifull, flawed dream of a very specific generation of people whose world moved on without them.
I think these kind of videos will be of great fascination to future generations when trying to understand the follies and dreams of the 20th century rather than how to achieve a sustainable society.
"animal farm type social situation"
Wow mate, that is crazy. These are people, not savages. In small groups democracy and communism works very well without resorting to authoritarian police state protection like in the wider US society. It's almost ironic that you look at those hippies and think they are too stupid to organise themselves, when you are absolutely unable to organise yourself and just accept the order imposed upon you from above.
Diversity is a virtue in itself. If a group of people live differently and successfully, even if not perfectly or whatever, that in itself is valuable. Monoculture has great weaknesses.
I am in full favour of diversity but what does this video have to do with diversity?
Also please quote properly, what I wrote was "ultimately a ripe ground for an animal farm type social situation to eventually develop".
I did not discuss savages, hippies, police state, US, diversity, monoculture nor really touched upon anything you addressed - you did not read my comment with adult comprehension nor apparently have any idea what Logans Run or The Lobster is about. Animal Farm is not really about a police state - police state is just one of the many *late* themes in it - if you would take the time to read and think about it rather than just refresh your memory with wikipedia you would probably understand what I wrote about.
Diversity isn't mostly about race or sexual orientation. It's about freedom to live differently. To live out of the norm, of what others think is the right way to live. As our weapons become more and more powerful, diversity is a rational imperative for species survival - it will be the last step of our evolution. Either extinction or survival.
And by the way, climate change, if we don't do something, will lead to +8°C and the extinction of the human race. There is nothing you can do about it. Better prediction rely on the inventing on truly remarcable technology on a unprecedented scale of sequestering billions of carbon per year. Their "polemic" is right on the money.
And you started your comment with extreme aggression towards very normal people and continued to drag up misanthropic cliches of why we need authoritarianism and a police state. You didn't need to spell it out, merely implying that people can't take care of themselves without the proper authorities in place is propaganda. Meanwhile the authorities endeavor to commit genocide.
So RE Logan's Run, life in bunkers with a closed environment and extremely limited resources is what humanity is headed for. Only for the super rich.
But THESE people are the misguided sheep. Yeah.
As I see it, the number one problem with this form of tiny town is all the concrete used. Communal earthships in a desert environment are a better idea. Working to turn the desert green, without the use a well water is a great idea, but that's not what they are doing.
It's all just silly, a big amphitheater for not even a gross of people.
The desert sun and heat destroys every thing. Even concrte made with cheap, inferior material will become diseased and decompose as any vistitor here can see. It must be a very dusty place.
Concrete without the freeze thaw cycle and tree roots making it unstable last longer than you think in those conditions. This is providing it was cured correctly.
As I watched I liked many things they have done, but I see problems. Seniors with mobility problems will have issues with all the small steps you see constantly. Access to medical seems to be a problem as well, I did not see any of those services.
Fire, Police/Security service, might be considered all volunteer but none were pointed out really in the video. Forms of leadership seem vague, Government seems neither appointed or elected.
This seem less Utopian and more like a potential mess.
I like the Amphitheater design and the small shops near it, the foundry was very nice. I liked the forest they have planted and the fields, very good work. I liked the living spaces and common areas, reminded me of some Roman architecture I have seen in books before.
What would handicapped people do with all those stairs? Otherwise, it's very interesting.
A utopia doesn't include the disabled.
you need wd-40 on those doors though jesus christ
If people can become their selves, why are there no nudists? Or are there nudists?
Also are there introverts? The ones that being that social at all times is an overload to them.
why isn't his noted: "In October 2010, Daniela Soleri - Paolo Soleri's daughter - resigned from the Cosanti Foundation board, citing abuse by her father. She stated that some of Soleri’s inner circle had been told decades earlier, but nothing had been done about it at the time. After the resignation, Soleri stepped down as chairman, but the board made no public statement on the reasons"
so sad to see this fail.
It hasn't failed. To Paolo Soleri, the concepts and principles of arcology if realized on a global scale are more critical then Arcosonti itself. With human population reaching 9 billion by 2050 and the advent of 3D printing, the world will HAVE to realize this as a solution in order for our basic survival.
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Creepy place
spoiled boy ruined it for me. stopped at 832
It isn't that this is sustainable or not. It's the idea that in the future we all may be living in similar spaces due to collapse. The further we stray from nature the further we stray from God
Why did they have to put ugly plastic chairs everywhere. it ruins the architecture
To sit in.
One 6.0 earth quake and this thing will go back too nature
why do intelligent people build in deserts? Seems dumb to me.
some may wanna do it else where but its too expensive ?
Once again, a hippie effort where they constantly talk about the efficiency, low-cost building, conservation of resources; meanwhile only rich people who don't have to work can afford to live there. It's always the same complete disconnect from reality with these people. The only reason hippies existed in the 60s is because their parents worked hard and gave them everything.
I believe the majority work there. There's always lots needing to be done, and an economy of paying a low rent and selling bells and produce, keeps people getting paid to keep the cycle going.
Such a wonderful crap hole.
culty
just another Waco Texas incident waiting to happen!