KCAI Students Learn & Work at Arcosanti

About two Januaries ago, students from the Kansas City Art Institute came for a special two week workshop organized by a influential and notable alum of the project Russell Ferguson. Ferguson is director of the “School of the Foundation Year” at KCAI which helps students decide what their passion and specific focus is an artist.

An Alternative View: Gaia – The Planetary Consciousness of the Earth

There was a prophetic writing by Dr Norman Myers that I got from a relative when I was studying alternative ideas in College: The Gaian Atlas of Future Worlds.

One of the key elements of it was that we are learning from nature and the capstone to that was that nature at the highest level was bound together as Gaia: the planetary consciousness of the earth. Conscious in that it was the sum of all the energy of the species and inanimate matter that made up the planet.

Community, Spirit and the Noosephere at Arcosanti

One of the interesting things here at Arcosanti is the continued interest in what it represents. Even though it is not clear to some what all the hoopla is about. My own view is that if we live in the past too much we run the risk of being nostalgic. For an organization that claims to be very concerned with the future of humanity that can be problematic.

Also the idea is why do people stay here? Is it for the views? The social mix of people who come here from all over the world? To build an Arcology as a solution to the problems facing humanity? To document and promote Paolo Soleri’s past glories? Is it for the architecture? Is it because many who stay here fear that they can’t (or possibly a more charitable views is that they don’t want to) survive out there in the real world?

We are a diverse mix of people and so there are many reasons why we are here.

Yet I think the challenge is not to be overcome by the pain of expectation and of what should be.

It has to do with the fact that it is sometimes not clear why Arcosanti is so special to people because we live it everyday and many times struggle with the idea of living amongst a group of people for such a long time without really acknowledging its a community.

Consider that for many years the prevailing “memetic jinjo” coming out of the mouths of Cosanti Foundation operatives was that “Arcosanti is not a community its a construction site.” It was jarring to me every time I heard that I had this vicerial reaction to that kind of thinking. For me it was a denial of the idea that to live well for any period of time among a group of people it cannot be anything other than a community and be graciously acknowledged as such.

Now we seem to have evolved past the need to remind people that the people living and devoting their lives to Arcosanti are not really a community of people. However, there is still lacking a real understanding of the unique conditions here and how to facilitate something meaningful at Arcosanti that improves the quality of life here.

I often say to people that the reason architecture inspires is not so much about the architect itself but about the shared memory of an experience in viewing inspirational architecture. Pierre Teilard de Chardin was a major early influence on Soleri. Chardin expressed some  metaphysical views that were very similar to Carl Jung in relation to the idea that we do have an imprint on our world by developing rings of shared conscious experiences. It is through these experiences that we have intuitions and make what are called telepathic links with one another.

The challenge is of course that we do not really acknowledge this power flow through our lives. The idea is that there are cross-cutting influences in our lives and the power of the consumer culture and its ideological drivers are still great even here at Arcosanti.

Despite this or more precisely because of countervailing influences the Arcosanti metaphysical or metaphysics is denied. The idea of magic in our lives is denied and so the routine takes over to the point where it becomes stifling and even dismal. To acknowledge this reality is problematic because in society we are supposed to say everything is fine or at least OK (which of course is short for okey dokey).

So the problem with keeping an open mind in relation to community development is the premise that you can still have a real community while denying the idea of the role of spirit in creating and sustaining community. I mean something similar to what Jung and Chardin were talking about…That we though our spiritual essence are somehow sharing something important with each other as well as the planet and the universe on a more holistic and unconscious level. To deny this is to deny the very elemental elements of life and at a fundamental level to pretend a very basic life building block is not only unimportant but nonsensical.

So for me those who deny the spiritual essence of all things and our interrelationship with them is denying the very life force that sustains us. It is that we deny this life force that we become depressed, we are cut off from the link to the universe and to our fellow kindred spirits.

The result of the above is hardly surprising. When we are not holistic beings acknowledging on some level the completeness of what we are and what we are a part of in terms of the larger whole, productivity and effectiveness in our lives becomes distant like a mythological vision or dream. We can only wish for it, like we as children wish for Santa Claus to give us presents.

The reality is that without the spirit of community in our lives we descent into a darker world which is driven by shame, denial and pretending. We lie to ourselves and we lie to each other because we often don’t want to face the shame of what we are, what we have become. So we turn to drugs and addictive patterns of behavior to keep us complacent in the dismal and uninspiring realities of our where we are in the moments that we seek to get away from. But each moment is as dismal as the next and so much of our time is spent getting away from the memory of the now and the past and focusing on some unrealistic future vision.

 

“There are other things I want to Accomplish”

Paolo: Going on to do “other things”?

Its been a few months but I’m still musing over the big change here at Arcosanti.

In the Cosanti Foundation Soleri retirement Press Release at Arcosanti’s official website blog (Daily Progress aka Today@Arcosanti) announcing the change in leadership, Soleri supposedly explains that its time for him to “do other things.” What other things are we talking about here? Most recently Paolo Soleri has been focusing his energy on this idea of building a Lean Linear City.

It seems that he might just have a couple of moves up his sleeve. Really though the only other thing he could be talking about is his having more of a focus on Lean Linear City.

I have mixed feelings about the change in that I don’t want him to just fade away but then again it might be a good thing for the project for him to become less involved and let some new blood in to get the project really moving again. However I don’t think there is much worry about his “retirement” as he seems to be pretty much involved as he was in the past but without the title of President.

References/Notes:

1. PR from the Cosanti Foundation website: NEW LEADERSHIP AT COSANTI FOUNDATION  [FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, July 13, 2011] http://www.arcosanti.org/today/2011/07/15/1310744130298.html
2. One documentarian seems interested by Soleri’s retirement http://alifesworkmovie.com/blog/2011/07/paolo-soleri-retires/
3. My report in the Arcology discussion group about the transition: Re: [arcology] Paolo Soleri resigns from Cosanti http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arcology/message/3837
4. The Big Bug News – a local Newspaper reports on Paolo’s retirement: http://www.bigbugnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=443&ArticleID=51462

Are Green Cars just an Example of Paolo Soleri’s: Better Kind of Wrongness?

At Arcosanti, we often use the term Better Kind of Wrongness to refer to technologies that have developed in a way that do not address directly core problems associated with low density suburban development and its reliance on the car, the single family home, the freeway, the power grid, etc. Its really a holistic package of destructive components that when brought together in the form of the American Dream create the wrong kind of synergy in our lives.

Growth of Native American Casinos means that Arizona’s 5 Cs soon to become 6

Well of course this sort of shocked me but hey if you can't see her nipples then its not porn right? And besides its for a worthy cause; the promotion of the one of the 6 Cs of Arizona's economy.

As a Arizonian I have heard ’bout them about Arizona’s 5 Cs but I often have trouble remembering what they are. Now I have to add another one to remember. According to most recent economic statistics… “Arizona’s 5 Cs: Casinos now the 6th ‘C’ industry.”

The fact that casino investments continue to be seen by many as a good thing underlies the flawed thinking and mis-prioritization of values and goals that has led to a crisis in the modern nation-state.

Arcosanti Residents Welcome New President of Cosanti Foundation

The Cosanti Foundation has a new president. Jeffrey Stein a alum of the project, recently took the helm in September. He has a long history with the foundation having lived here for over seven years during the 70s and more recently served as chair of the Cosanti Foundation board of trustee.  In 2011, he left his position as dean of Boston Architectural College to become president of the Cosanti Foundation.

The move is a positive for two main reasons:

1. It is good move for Paolo Soleri to “retire” and let someone take the top leadership role. It shows that he has someone he can trust to run the project after his death
2. One issue we struggle with is that the people running the project have limited experiences and perspectives beyond the Arcosanti bubble/fishbowl. Stein has had to deal with the challenges of being a dean and running a small college that is influential in the architectural community

One of the challenges Stein faces is to build a cohesive effort around the idea Paolo Soleri has tried to popularize by seeking to make Arcosanti into a “Urban Laboratory.” With a limited budget the Cosanti Foundation is engaged in the following areas:

1. Archival efforts of Paolo Soleri’s life work
2. Promoting large scale urban development projects such as Lean Linear City
3. Seeking to initiate various efforts to revitalize the building and development process at Arcosanti.

One challenge for the president is to more clearly articulate to the public as well as people coming to Arcosanti as workshoppers what Arcosanti is, what it aspires to become and how its current priority projects relate to its mission/vision.

EarthShip BioTecture Offers Training on Ecological Design

Gusippena Scuffi – an Arcosanti Resident Volunteer from Italy – is planning on going over to the EarthShip International HQ at Taos NM in June for about a month of training on how to build EarthShips. The program is designed to train people on the basics of EarthShip construction that was initiated by founder Michael Reynolds

Comparisons are made between the two projects as both were started by maverick architects seeing the need for change away from ecologically unsustainable building construction models.

However there are major differences in relation to Arcosanti and EarthShips. For one thing Paolo Soleri founder of Arcosanti waxes endlessly about the evils of Sprawl, Consumerism and Car Culture, while Reynolds seems to side-step many of those issues. At Arcosanti the focus is on higher densities and alternatives to car culture. Taking a different approach, the EarthShip community seems to emphasize the need for getting off the grid and building with local and recycled materials.

It would be interesting to combine the innovative use of recycled materials (such as aluminum cans, bottles and tires) that are associated with EarthShip construction with the idea of a integrated and reasonably densified Arcology themed built environment. The key is seeing that each project has their focus and also their blind spots and that combining the best of the two could make for a rather interesting and in my view could make compelling statement forwarding Ecological Design on a practical level.

Garbage Warriors is a documentary about Michael Reynolds that documents his struggle to realize the EarthShip vision. One interesting aspect of the story apparently is that earlier in the development of his work the state and local authorities tried to shut him down because it did not fit to code. However he was able with the help of someone who knew how to work the political system in Santa Fe to pass a bill in the state legislature to allow the continued construction of EarthShips.

What is Collective IQ and why is it Relevant?

Years back I had a chance to come across the idea of Collective IQ. Many progressives are concerned with the lack of wisdom and foresight in terms of how society or societies make decisions in the modern world. During this time I met Bill Veltrop who came up with a game called The Infinite Game – a game of possibility and potential.

More recently a colleague Mark Roest reminded me of the above by linking me to a post by George Por titled “On the way to conscious humanity: the infinite game of regional metamorphosis.”

Below are some comments I made to the post which reflected my sentiments at the time:

Fusion Architeture’s Garden City Park

Ghana born Kobina Banning (he was cited by the Phoenix New Times as 100 of the most cultural influential people in Phoenix) is founder and lead of Fusion Architecture (FA), an architectural group based in Phoenix.

The Fusion Architecture team has come by Arcosanti several times to look at the place and engage in discussions with some of the staff. Their work is diverse and experimental yet they hope to have a pragmatic impact. Most recently they were featured in a article by the Phoenix New Times regarding their submission to The Netherlands’ Afrika Museum and African Architecture Matters which made the finals of the “Blueprints of Paradise”, competition.

While FA was at Arcosanti, we had a chance to discuss their vision on the future of urban Africa. As their research notes, the challenges are many and includes effectively managing the rapid rise in people living in Ghana as a whole as well as urban areas. Their perspective on this is a human scale, oriented densification process that includes taller buildings, but interspersing that verticalization with more open space and community aspects. A key component to this is helping develop thriving marketplaces for local commerce.

Garden City Park is plan for a 1.7-mile-long, 19-square-acre Linear Park. It is to be located in Banning’s native Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa and “incorporates the area’s Ashanti-established traditions while taking into account the modern hustle and bustle of Ghana’s second-largest city.”

The proposed site, located at an abandoned spot next to a disused railway station, lies adjacent to the Kumasi Central Market, an area that’s so mammoth in size and all-encompassing in products that locals have joked that you can even find human body parts for sale (which is a definitely an urban myth, though niche items, such as vulture heads, are available for purchase). The park would act as a welcome reprieve to the urban chaos of the Central Market.

The forward-thinking design of Garden City Park is bold yet realistic, and also considers overall sustainability while incorporating solar-powered applications in the perpetually warm region. The design includes a public transportation system, an art gallery, a community football (aka soccer) field, and a “Living Kiosk” project that modernizes the street vendors’ shed-like spaces that populate nearly every roadside in Ghana. (FA’s “Living Kiosk” was also submitted to the Afrika Museum competition; it received an honorable mention designation.)