To continue our report from 4/24/09, concrete was poured into the staircase form at the upper part of the new Visitors Entrance ramp. As the concrete is hardening, the crew uses water and a hard brush on the surface, to bring out the texture of the aggregate.

Here we see the newly completed staircase with the Ceramics Apse and Vaults in the background. The top level of the staircase connects with the corner of ramp level four and five. Workshop participant Laurence Chave.

The formwork has been removed and work continues on the formwork of the lower staircase.

This years concert season started with the annual VIVALDI EVENT, last Saturday April 25, 2009.
The delicious dinner menu was Roasted Tomato Soup, Savory Butter-Cream Chicken, Savory Roasted Tempeh, Agave-Glazed Carrots, Fresh Salad and Chocolate Moose for dessert.
Arizona Vivaldi Festival have been held at Arcosanti annually since 1998.
This years participants were soprano Eileen Mager and the dynamic dancers from “Terpsicore Dance Company” and “Aaron McGloin Dance” with brilliant performances.
Terpsicore Dance Company are a contemporary ballet company who recognizes and incorporates modern influence. Terpsicore Dance Company is working to bridge the gap between the two forms of movement (ballet and "modern") to create a fusion of innovative and forward thinking performances.

Aaron McGloin Dance is a young and enthusiastic group dedicated to bringing high-quality dance to people of all demographics in an effort to raise awareness and support for the arts. Under the direction of Aaron McGloin, one of Arizona's most sought-after young artists, the group is composed entirely of dancers/choreographers who have either earned or are working towards a degree in dance and are deeply invested in advancing this unique art. They have performed at Tempe Center for the Arts, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Herberger Theater, Arizona State University, and the Phoenix Art Museum.


The event was also graced with the presence of painter Jim Convarrubius, who painted this gorgeous piece during the performance. The painting was raffled of at the end of the event to a very lucky person.

Today, we report on the concrete pour of a staircase for Arcosanti's new Visitor's pathway. In this photo, you see the process of mixing concrete. Buckets are filled with sand, gravel and cement, and the final ingredient, water, is sprayed directly in the concrete mixer.

Afterwards, the concrete is transported with wheel-barrows to the formwork (see report from April 22. 2009). Shovels are used for spreading the thick mixture.

These photos show some of the finishing details for this pour. In the upper images, Construction crew-member, Andrew Woodard, is showing a workshop-participant how to vibrate the concrete for pushing the air-bubbles out, and how to use a trowel for smoothing out the surface.
The bottom left picture shows screeding and leveling the slab of the staircase. In the last photo, you see the staircase connecting to the existing pathway.

Today we continue with a report from the construction of the new Arcosanti Visitor's Entrance pathway.
Next step of the project will be the making of 8' wide staircases.
In this photo, you see the beginning stage of the formwork for the lower set of stairs. In the background, the crew is focusing effort on the upper level staircase.

These are more photos of the formwork. In the top images, Andrew Chesley and
Andrew Woodard are leveling the ground, measuring the height of risers, and tying together the reinforcing pieces of rebar. In the lower left image, Dan Weeden is connecting the pieces of wood that will form the risers of the bottom staircase. The lower right image is from the upper level formwork.

This last photo shows the new pathway in use, and you can see the formworks for the new staircases partially finished.

We last reported on April 1. 2009 about the AOT Visitors Center ramp. Work has continued on the guardrails on the lower two levels of the ramp.
All of the protective metal mesh has been installed and round bar has been welded to the upper vertical points of the mesh. Here, graphics intern Stefano Massa welds round bar to the lower vertical edges of the guardrail.

Landscape coordinator Ron Chandler is cutting and cleaning angled steel holders. Landscaping staff Brian Fritz connects the individual holders that hold the metal mesh to the railing posts.

Workshop participant Erica Snowlake paints the rails with a weather proof metal primer.

Professional photographer from Japan, Yozo Takada is visiting points of interest in the United states for one year.
His first stop was Tucson, where he worked at UA University of Arizona and explored places like Biosphere 2 in Oracle, close to Tucson.
Jozo joined the March 2009 workshop for four weeks and spent two of those weeks in the Soleri Archives.

During that time he photographed some of the more difficult material, like a whole series of aluminum foil patterns, that Paolo Soleri engraved around 1956.
Paolo Soleri used the patterns to print on very fine tissue paper and Jozo photographed almost all of this very fragile material.
The archives crew thanks Jozo for all of his work and for teaching us some subtle intricacies of photography set-up.

During his time at Arcosanti, Jozo took a lot of photos all over the site and especially of interiors of many of the residences.
He has returned to Tucson and gave a slideshow of his Arcosanti photos at the University.

Welcome to the April 2009 workshop-participants!
Front from left to right are: Maryah Smith-Overman,
Rick Peterson, Daniel Anderson, and Julie-Anne Ketchum.
Middle from left to right are: Gen Yamamura,
Laurence Chave,
Myeonghak Sung,
Marco Tilocca, Edward Cassan, Aliya Kulenova, and
Alison Gross.
Back from left to right are: Dongock Park,
Frédérick Michaud,
Zhiger Kulenov, and John Bondi-Ernoehaz.
Seven different countries are represented in this workshop.

During his workshop, Dan Weeden worked with the Construction crew on the interior finishing of apartments in the East Crescent.
Here, he has just completed setting in glass blocks in the bathroom wall of Unit 10.

Next, he is installing a light fixture. Afterward, a mirror and sink will be placed too.

In this photo, Dan is setting tile on the window seals of Unit 9. Dan is staying on at Arcosanti and will be joining our Maintenance crew.

Participants of the
March 4. 2009 workshop graduated.

Congratulations to:
[from left] Justin Harris, Erica Snowlake and Daniel Weeden.

The new renderings of the CRITICAL MASS of Arcosanti 5000, posted here on 4/3 and 4/6/2009, made their public debut at the 2-day Centennial Conference on Urban Sustainability in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel . They were part of a key-note presentation by Jeff Stein.
Arcosanti alumnus Jeff Stein is Dean of the BOSTON ARCHITECTURAL COLLEGE and also heads the Board of Directors of the COSANTI FOUNDATION.
[PHOTOS: 800 people showed up at the Tel Aviv Centennial Conference and were treated to a discussion about Arcosanti.
At the Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Conference on Urban Sustain ability a panel of experts gets ready to respond to Jeff Stein's presentation on Arcosanti.]

[PHOTO: Architecture student projects from around the world were laser-printed on fabric cones that were held-up by air at the Tel Aviv conference].

[PHOTO: Here's Tel Aviv; much of what is pictured dates from the 1930's, the "white city" of jewish architects originally trained at the Bauhaus]. 

Jeff reports:

2009,
Tel Aviv's Centennial year,
a city just 100 years old (modern Israel is just 60).

And somehow, I'm invited to be a keynote speaker at the 2-day Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Conference on Urban Sustainability that starts the entire celebration, April 1 and 2. That somehow, I learn, is because I am to represent Arcosanti, a project the Israelis know something about, and like. Ok, then.
I'm not the only keynote speaker. Others, who introduce major topics and whose speeches are then responded to by panels of experts, include architect Shigeru Ban, famous for making refugee housing out of treated paper; Jacob van Rijs, Dutch architect with MVROV; UNESCO conservator Lodovico Folin Calabi; conflict studies at Colgate Prof. Daniel Bertrand Monk; UK Secretary of State for Communities Fiyaz Mughal; president of Eco-Cities, (and old Arcosanti hand) Richard Register; a couple others. Each of us is responded to by a panel of 4 or 5 experts from the region, there is a dinner, a big exhibition of student work, outdoors; and in the middle of the whole thing, speeches by the mayors of 15 European cities, who are there for both days of the conference. I meet a few of them...! Shimon Perez, too.
Oh, and besides all those, some 800 people from all over have signed up to attend the conference, and they do attend, too. It is held in the opera theatre of the new Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center. It's sunny and 70 each day.
Richard Register and I are given accommodations in the same hotel, same floor, just across the hall from each other, at the Sheraton Moriah, on the beach of the Mediterranean. Richard has arrived on Monday, I get there on Tuesday morning, 5AM fresh from an overnight flight. We are both to speak on Wednesday, the first day of the conference, me at 1PM, Richard at 3. On Wednesday morning a car is supposed to pick us up at 8AM so we can get to the conference early and download our powerpoint slides onto their av system. At 9AM, we call, "No car." we say. The transportation coordinator is in tears, she doesn't know what has happened. "Quickly, take a taxi!" she advises. We do and are there by 9:20AM. "Oh, good you are here!" says the conference coordinator. The mayor of Tel Aviv speaks at 9:30AM, then introduces you, Jeff. You're the first speaker of the conference." "I though I was on at 1..." I offer. "No, no the schedule changed, see here in the program."
So, I'm ushered backstage while the mayor warms up the crowd (!), I download slides off Richard's thumb drive (both he and I were up all night working on our respective presentations on his Macintosh). I'm given a bottle of water, and then, watching from the wings, I hear that I'm being introduced. I have pretty high energy at this point... and energy is what I'm to speak about. Big applause, I walk out onstage, everyone settles down, and I begin.
"Thank you. Good morning. Before we go further, I must apologize for speaking to you only in English this morning. But I know we have simultaneous translators; I have seen them hard at work in their soundproof box, just backstage. I thank them now for their good work. I bring you the best wishes of my colleagues at Arcosanti, the urban laboratory under construction in central Arizona; and from the Cosanti Foundation, its parent organization, and from Paolo Soleri, its President. Shalom.
My short talk to you this morning is supposed to be about energy and its related systems; energy in cities. Human, electrical, fossil-fueled, alternative, energy. How we have thought about it for a generation at Arcosanti; how you might think about it now in Tel Aviv-Yafo's centennial year. Here's how I want to start:
"Energy is not an issue separate from everything else that will be discussed here in the next two days. Especially for me, an architect, it is not separate from building form. It cannot be separated from urban form. And the time to understand this is short.
"So I am telling you, the work of all of us in this room, the work of this generation in terms of energy, is not to continue scattering boxes around in the sand, not to continue to try to link them together with time and energy and land-wasting roads and streets and parking lots and more automobile-related media. That was for the last generations, our parents and grandparents. We know more now about the rules of life on earth.
"It is also not this generation's work to merely reform the way we use energy in this city, in its buildings and transportation systems; it is not our work to merely meet Israeli government standards that mandate we only burn 3/4 as much energy in the future as we do now, so that perhaps our built environment will be only 3/4 as unhealthy for our children as it is for us today.
"Your work - our work - going forward is to reformulate how we imagine the design of cities, to reformulate the architecture of this great experiment, Tel Aviv, to integrate it and us into the living ecology of this place, into the living ecology of the planet.
"Architecture and ecology must begin now to be thought of as a single, whole entity."
I go on like this for about 20 minutes, talking about Tel Aviv's history (its early history is remarkably like Arcosanti's, seems to me), about Arcosanti's specifics, showing slides including the brand new 3d renderings of Arcosanti Critical Mass emailed me by Sue Anaya and Scott Riley. Then I end. More great applause, the panel convenes, etc., etc. Later speakers quote some of my talk, which seems good; and in the afternoon Richard Register is especially eloquent about Arcosanti and sustainability.
People come up to me throughout the day to talk about Arcosanti; students, architects, regular folks. I have brought about 70 workshop brochures, and a group of Quaderni, too. By late afternoon all the brochures are gone, the Quaderni are still displayed on a big table, and by Thursday I have given them to key participants.
Richard Register and I hang out together for a day, prowling around Tel Aviv; we have dinner in a restaurant that Richard has been frequenting while here; the owner recognizes us, talks to us about how very few Americans are travelling here these days, business is bad; and then he sends us drinks on the house. Several. They're good! After that, Richard goes to Jerusalem for an extra day, and I catch my flight home.
11 hours later, I'm in New York; a few hours after that I'm home, not on the flight I was meant to travel on, but, home nonetheless. I think I have done some good for the project in this week away. Interesting how welcome the idea of Arcosanti is among European/mid-easterners. And interesting how every presentor in the Mayor's Symposium talks about density and mass transit and every single one says they are trying to tax or ban cars from their cities.These are mayors of Paris, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Milano, Budapest, Vienna, Bonn, etc.
That's the news from Tel Aviv.
Cheers.
Jeff

Energy Apron:
The 3D model of the energy apron greenhouses is based on the 1991 plans developed by Tomiaki Tamura and Jeff Zucker. The 10m x 10m modules of this design relate to the La Loggia building parameters. Energy from the greenhouses will help heat the Critical Mass buildings. Currently the Planning Department is working with Roger Tomalty and David Tollas on scenarios for building test modules of the greenhouse.

Teilhard de Chardin Cloister:
Plans for the future home of the Cosanti Foundation Archives were brought into the 3D model by Young Soo Kim. Work continues on the final design of the Arcomedia wings of this building.

La Loggia East and West:
The 3D model of La Loggia is based on the design of alumni-architect Jeff Zucker. Nadia Begin is working with Jeff on the use of new energy efficient construction techniques for these buildings. When completed, the La Loggia structures will serve as housing for residents and students.

CRITICAL MASS
is the first 'major phase' of development of Arcosanti. It is planned to be a town of 500 to 600 people who will live and work, study, and/or visit. This will be the staging ground for the subsequent larger development of Paolo Soleri's most recent design for Arcosanti, Arcosanti 5000.

The Planning department is developing renderings of the Arcosanti Critical Mass buildings. The work is based on a new 3D model of the entire site. The design team includes Tomiaki Tamura, Scott Riley, Alfonso Elia, Young Soo Kim, and Nadia Begin. Young Soo Kim, recently graduated from the University of Arizona, developed the 3D model utilizing topographic maps and individual building plans.
This work was generated on a new 3D workstation purchased for the Planning Department. The Arcosanti 3D Model project (A3DM) was promoted by Habitat Coordinator Scott Riley.

PIZZA PIAZZA.
Alfonso Elia created a 3D model of the Pizza Piazza based on the 1987 hand-drafted drawings of Tomiaki Tamura. The design was then imported into the Arcosanti 3D Model. The Pizza Piazza building is intended to be new quarters for a foundry and ceramics factory as well as galleries, a visitor’s center, housing, and public piazza.

WEST CRESCENT.
Young Soo Kim created a new 3D model of the West Crescent, which will likely house a conference center, hotel, and residences. Currently the Planning Department team is developing a detailed program for the design of this building.
We continue this report with more renderings on Monday, April 6. 2009.

Work on the guardrails along the new Visitor's Entrance path continues.
Meanwhile, the Construction and Landscaping crew put together drains along the pathway. In the left-side photo, you can see the water permeable cloth material used for lining the trenches along the slabs. This cloth, filled with gravel, would keep silt away while allowing for water to flow freely.

All workshop-participants helped with this project as part of their hands-on building experience. As raw materials are brought in and layered, bigger rocks are broken down with the help of a power drill.

Planter beds are formed with retaining rock walls and fresh soil.
The Construction and Landscaping crew continue working on the new Visitor's Entrance, and we will resume the reports on this project on Wednesday, April. 8.