Out of the fire and in to the frying pan

So, to Arcosanti, about 70 miles north of Phoenix. This searing desert location seemed a most unlikely one for a research ‘city’ which has existed since the 60’s. The community of people who live here are slowly but surely building the Architect Paolo Soleri’s vision of what a lean city will be like in the future. The population has been as large as 1000, but currently hovers around 100. Compact, light in footprint as opposed to sprawling, (like near by Phoenix) off the grid, logical multi use of building space,  a variety of sized units to suit differing individuals and families needs, and with public spaces for performance and community celebration.  There are places too, dedicated to work and the creation of basic manufactured products, in this case ceramics and bronze wares – seen as the skills acquired through the development of civilization, and those worth keeping. These are used everyday with the production of bells of all sizes, and  tiles, jars and sculptures, which form a part of the income for the project.

The buildings created over the past 30 or 40 years of Arcosanti’s existence have ranged in size and ambition. There are some huge concrete domes and ‘apses’ which provide the main form utilised in spanning large spaces. While there has been an effort to green the space with living things, local fruit and nut trees, tall elegant Cypress even lawn grass, in attempt to make the place more biophilic (contact with nature=good for humans health) I couldn’t help feeling as I came away from the place that more of the fundamental learning that the green and permaculture movements have been putting out over the last forty years could have been adopted to great benefit here. An earth roof for instance might go along way to both absorb the rain that comes at this time of the year heavily almost every afternoon, and slow its destructive path down, whilst also creating extra insulation from the heat of the sun, which permeated the concrete buildings unpleasantly.

While im disappointed in the concrete architecture of Arcosanti, I’m able to see the plain good sense of creating towns which are designed to human scale and are community supporting. Is this really radical?

I like this: