Thursday, July 9, 2009
Location: Flagstaff, Arizona

Spent the last couple of weeks touring around Arizona with Liz and I have some blogs to catch up on and some pics to post. I'll get to it asap.

Dropped Liz at the Phoenix airport this past Tuesday and then slept in Agua Fria National Monument before heading into Arcosanti the following day. Arcosanti is the life's work of Paolo Soleri. You can read more about it on their site but here is an except from their website explaining the overall concept.

"Arcology is Paolo Soleri's concept of cities which embody the fusion of architecture with ecology. The arcology concept proposes a highly integrated and compact three-dimensional urban form that is the opposite of urban sprawl with its inherently wasteful consumption of land, energy and time, tending to isolate people from each other and the community. The complexification and miniaturization of the city enables radical conservation of land, energy and resources.

An arcology would need about two percent as much land as a typical city of similar population. Today’s typical city devotes more than sixty percent of its land to roads and automobile services. Arcology eliminates the automobile from within the city. The multi-use nature of arcology design would put living, working and public spaces within easy reach of each other and walking would be the main form of transportation within the city.

An arcology’s direct proximity to uninhabited wilderness would provide the city dweller with constant immediate and low-impact access to rural space as well as allowing agriculture to be situated near the city, maximizing the logistical efficiency of food distribution systems. Arcology would use passive solar architectural techniques such as the apse effect, greenhouse architecture and garment architecture to reduce the energy usage of the city, especially in terms of heating, lighting and cooling. Overall, arcology seeks to embody a “Lean Alternative” to hyper consumption and wastefulness through more frugal, efficient and intelligent city design.

Arcology theory holds that this leanness is obtainable only via the miniaturization intrinsic to the Urban Effect, the complex interaction between diverse entities and organisms which mark healthy systems both in the natural world and in every successful and culturally significant city in history."

My first impressions of Arcosanti leaves me with one word... beautiful. This entire place exudes a sense of being art... being a place made up of process, thoughtfulness, patience, and beautiful craftsmanship.

I met with Erin Jefferies Arcosanti's PR person who did an on-camera dialog with me and gave me a tour of the site itself. I then left and headed back into Agua Fria to wait out the midday heat before returning to Arcosanti for an afternoon School of Thought discussion with Paolo Soleri himself.

I filmed the discussion which contained some great content for the film regarding the power of the human imagination, endless human sprawl, and the capacity of the universe for reformulation.

In the heat of Arizona I almost didn't go back to the site to hear Paolo talk, but in the end I'm glad I did. I have another interview in Phoenix next week and I'll likely be back to spend more time with a man whose vision resonates with me deeply.

peace,d