Arcosanti Habitat Coordinator Scott Riley and Cosanti President Jeff Stein met Monday morning with engineers Halleh Landon and Ali Ardebili of ESD/Energy Systems Design in Scottsdale. ESD is an electrical and mechanical engineering firm at the cutting edge of sustainable design, recommended to us by Arcosanti alum and City of Scottsdale Sustainability Director Anthony Floyd.

Scott and Jeff are seeking proposals for heating and cooling Arcosanti’s bakery upgrade/renovation on the third floor mezzanine of the Crafts III building. Solutions for this small but complex space will be a test for larger systems (including how to use greenhouse air) throughout Arcosanti.

The work is meant to continue to support the reason we are here: BECAUSE of our location in central Arizona, not in spite of it. ESD will research ways to meet codes and comfort requirements while still allowing folks at Arcosanti to feel connected to sun and seasons and place.

ESD’s own LEED-certified offices overlook the Soleri pedestrian bridge and plaza and themselves take advantage of serious and elegant (as in ‘mathematically elegant’) energy-saving mechanical and electrical designs/devices. More to come…

[photos: Halleh Landon and Ali Ardebili,engineers at ESD, Scott Riley at EDS with low-flow A/C vents as wainscote]

ARCOSANTI IN SANTA FE.

Cosanti Foundation President Jeff Stein has returned from a speaking trip to the Santa Fe Institute, America's center for theoretical physics and research into complex adaptive systems. (Santa Fe, of course, is also home to one of Paolo Soleri’s first large architectural commissions, the Paolo Soleri Amphitheatre, still standing.) Invited there for research collaboration by Institute Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West, Stein’s presentation described the following:

“Abstract: Cities, and over half the world’s population living in and around them, are now clearly an integral part of earth’s ecology. Arcosanti, the urban experiment founded 40 years ago by architect Paolo Soleri in the Arizona desert, would place cities at the very center of that ecology, at the very center of the web of life on earth.

[photo: the seminar room at SFI]

“While those who can afford it continue to trade nature for buildings and their energy needs, Soleri and his Cosanti Foundation have been investigating something very different for more than a generation. That exploration – and its accompanying construction work – continues to promote and develop an urban form (Arcology: Architecture and Ecology) that could foster interdependence and social and ecological well-being through density, frugality and a profound awareness of place. Meant to embody a holistic understanding of the city as a scalable organism, Arcosanti’s intent is to focus the twin evolutionary forces of miniaturization and complexity on the problem of urban design.”

At the Santa Fe Institute Stein engaged in discussions with SFI President Jerry Sabloff, spent time with West’s team of post-doctoral fellows working on the physics of the growth of cities – “Cities, Scaling, and Sustainability” - and spoke with Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-mann, discoverer of the Quark, who participated in the Arcosanti Minds for History conference back in 1989.

Several architects from the Santa Fe area also attended Stein’s seminar, including Ed Mazria, executive director of Architecture 2030, the global organization working toward reducing fossil fuel use in new buildings to carbon neutrality by 2030.

[photos: Murray Gell-Mann's famous book and Jeff Stein]

We are delighted to announce the Cosanti Press publication of LEAN LINEAR CITY: ARTERIAL ARCOLOGY.

This compact book (7" x 7", 196 pages, fully illustrated in color) is the first full-length publication to present architect Paolo Soleri’s Lean Linear City concept, a “traveling” city that aims to optimize logistics to the extent feasible, in part by being fully integrated with its vital transportation corridor. Soleri, who is known for his theory of “arcology” (architecture + ecology), proposes this “arterial” arcology on analogy with how arteries support the essential life-functions in an organism.

The book can be purchased on our website with the following link LEAN LINEAR CITY: ARTERIAL ARCOLOGY.

Lean Linear City features pedestrian-based communities oriented around linear local and regional transportation systems, fostering quality of life through urban mobility and access, while minimizing consumption of land and material resources of all kinds, including energy resources.

Lean Linear City: Arterial Arcology outlines Soleri’s comprehensive approach to defining and controlling growth patterns of existing and future cities to produce more sustainable, equitable, and robust urban forms. The book graphically illustrates how Lean Linear’s logistics are designed to cohere, enhancing the urban experience, minimizing waste, taking advantage of passive energy opportunities, and defining “smart” boundaries in relation to surrounding agricultural and natural lands.

As urban planners face the key issues of the twenty-first century—ever expanding populations, rapid urbanization, limited global resources, increased demand for food production, and protection of a fragile environment—Soleri proposes that logistically defined “arterial” cities may prove to be a viable option for sustainable urban development.
[from introduction in the book]

Welcome to an important exploration of architectural and cultural thinking and design. Based on the pioneering work of Paolo Soleri, what you are about to read unfolds a collaborative new investigation of Soleri's idea for a Lean Linear City. In these pages architecture and ecology confront the vastness of the North American continent to create a complex and immanent solution for the future of the city. And this book, besides examining the design and methodology for creating an event of such enormous complexity, also describes why we must do it.

Humans want to connect: to each other, to goods, services, ideas. It is why most of us alive on the planet now live in cities: the city is the best instrument we have devised to make these connections. But we also want need to connect to nature, to the earth itself and to that bit of the earth‚s ecology we do not control. And we need to design ways to do that without overwhelming what remains of the earth‚s natural systems, habitats and landscapes.

This book describes a new parameter for design: leanness. It is based on a clear understanding of how life on earth functions. As the authors point out, because of our population numbers, because of the attitude we have taken until now about how to design and grow our cities, we are in some difficulty as a species. And we have placed every other species on the earth into some difficulty, too. A reformulated, lean design, the kind described in these pages, could very well be how we get out of it.

Architecture historian Christian Norburg Schulz points out that humans are wanderers by nature, always on the way. On the other hand, when we do settle and identify with a certain place, the result is architecture. ARTERIAL ARCOLOGY shows how we can reconcile this dichotomy of human life on earth, the dialectic of departure and return ˆ path and goal ˆ that describes our place in the world. While our current urban culture has been able to provide the civilizing comforts of buildings, possessions and literacy, it has yet to integrate these static comforts with the nomad in us, the part that is in love with movement.

To relate architecture and cities to their citizens, to an audience in motion, designers must make architecture work harder, designing buildings ˆ and cities - to be leaner, more like living things, integral parts of a living landscape, able to engage human senses beyond the mere visual. This emphasis on lean urban performance while carrying forth a new understanding of urban form characterizes the work of ARTERIAL ARCOLOGY.

This book comes to us at a watershed moment, when the very basis of culture and economy, and thus our relationship with each other and the cosmos, is being re-thought and requires re-thinking. A Japanese term for this is Hashi: the end of one thing and beginning of another. Hashi can be a bridge, chopsticks, or a book like this.

ARTERIAL ARCOLOGY, in this Hashi moment, presents some of the most important designs yet made for understanding the coming relationship of people, place and planet. I hope its publication will spark action among its readers, so that we can take our rightful place as humans on the earth, a species among many others, truly extra-ordinary in what we are becoming.

Welcome to the real work of the next generation, and to the lean, linear blueprint for how we can go about that work.

Jeff Stein AIA,
President, Cosanti Foundation

On Friday, January 13. 2012, I met with John Meunier's 6th year ASU architecture students at Cosanti foundation to introduce that place to them in terms of architectural "intricacy".

The photos were taken during a photographic field workshop with students from Kansas City Art Institute in the west fork of Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona Arizona, Jan. 10, 2012.

The students are visiting Arcosanti for a two week intensive program in art and science.

Charles Ferguson, a field geologist with USGS gave spontaneous lectures on the Geology of the Canyon.

The exercise was to take no more than 36 photographs (equivalent of one roll of film- prior to the digital era).

Aimee Madsen, photographer and film maker at Cosanti, put together the idea for this field photo exercise in Oak Creek Canyon.

Each photo was to be carefully selected and framed, paying special attention to the changing and often challenging lighting conditions.

Alumnus Russel Ferguson, now Director of School of the Foundation Year at KCAI, KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE.

We return to our report from 1/13/12 about road construction at the Cordes Junction Interchange.

Paolo Soleri returned to the site of one of his designs on the first bridge support. The bridge is being constructed little over a mile from the Arcosanti site.
This meeting took place on a very cold morning on Thursday, 1/12/12.

ADOT landscape project manager Joel Salazar and Paolo Soleri looked at specific color swatches to make a final decision on the actual color shades.

We last reported on road construction at the Cordes Junction Interchange on 8/12, 8/15, 9/26, 10/10 and 10/24, 11/30 and a segment of Paolo Soleri's visit with ADOT, posted on November 4. 2011.
During that visit Paolo Soleri viewed a full size mock-up of one of his designs for the abutments of a new bridge over Highway 17, very close to the Arcosanti site.
The photos were taken last Thursday, January 5. 2012.

Paolo Soleri was invited by ADOT and the joint-venture highway construction company VASTCO-SUNDT to view one of his designs on the first massive bridge support.
This relief is still missing intended coloration.

It was a somewhat festive event with an entourage of photographers and reporters, as well as ADOT representatives and heads of the road construction company.

ADOT landscape project manager Joel Salazar shows selected colors to Paolo Soleri. In the background is Cosanti Foundation president Jeff Stein.

Another visit was scheduled for January 12. 2012 to decide on the actual shade of colors for the design. We will report on that visit on Monday, Martin Luther Kings holiday, January 16. 2012.

A lot of work is happening on Highway 17, the sides of the freeway and the median. Photo updates coming soon.

This continues our report from 1/6/12 about a group of students from KCAI, KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE, visiting Arcosanti for a two week intensive program in art and science.

The group is lead by Professor Russel Ferguson, who is an Arcosanti alumnus and now Director of School of the Foundation Year at KCAI, KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE.

Participants are:

Sandra Bojanic, Illustration junior;
Oliver Clark, Sculpture sophomore;
Trent Coffin, Animation junior;
Maylynda Eshleman, Photography senior;
Kendell Harbin, Printmaking senior;
Mavet Miller, Ceramics junior;
Andrew Ordonez, Painting junior;
Andrew Ozier, Illustration junior;
Joey Watson, Ceramics sophomore;
Issey Howe, Sculpture sophomore;
Max Newman, Sculpture sophomore;
Molly Ryan, Ceramics sophomore;
Kahil Irving, Ceramics sophomore;
Frederick Voder Bruegge, Painting junior;
Shane Lutsk, Ceramics sophomore;
Will Meipu, Painting junior;
Jules Itzoff, Illustration junior.

The two-week visit is packed with lectures, work sessions and tours.

Activities include:

Daily work sessions, drawing the Ceramics Apse, the Vaults, the East Crescent complex and the Foundry.

'History of siltcasting and construction at Arcosanti from 1970 until 1974' with Cosanti Foundation instructor Roger Tomalty.

Riparian tour of the Agua Fria riverbed with Roger Tomalty.

Also included are:

Three sessions in the Soleri Archives to view original materials and scroll drawings. Here is the group with Soleri Archive photographer David DeGomez, who is explaining his set-up and method.

'Greenhouse research' presentation with Roger Tomalty.

A day trip to Oak Creek Canyon.

Several meetings with Paolo Soleri.

Participation in an Erosion Control workshop.

A talk with new Cosanti Foundation President Jeff Stein.

Tour and supper and a lecture at Taliesin West.

Tour of the Dome House.

Visit to Cosanti.

This report continues.

AGUA FRIA WATERSHED EROSION CONTROL WORKSHOP

Free hands-on training along the Agua Fria River at Arcosanti

Friday, January 13, 2012
9 am to 1 pm
with lunch provided

Arcosanti, Arizona

The Cosanti Foundation and the Arcosanti Project, supported by an ADEQ Water Quality Improvement Grant, are hosting this educational “hands on” training in low cost, effective, best management practices to reduce erosion. Learn techniques like rock dams and rock and brush structures to deal with head cuts, stream bank stabilization and other run-off issues.

Protect your property and reduce sediment to streams and rivers. Partners include the Upper Agua Fria Watershed Partnership, Friends of the Agua Fria National Monument, Sonoran Audubon and National Audubon’s Together Green Grant, NRCS.

Technical support is provided by Natural Channel Design of Flagstaff.

For more information and to reserve a spot contact: Mary Hoadley, 928-632-6212 or maryhoadley@arcosanti.org

Alumnus Russel Ferguson, now Director of School of the Foundation Year at KCAI, KANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE, arrived at the beginning of the week with a group of 17 students.

The students will spend two weeks of intensive sessions in art and science.

Yesterday was the first meeting with Paolo Soleri.

We will continue this report with more of the students activities.

We are happy to announce a new book about Paolo Soleri, to be available at the beginning of April, published by

PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS
publishing Fine Books since 1981

CONVERSATIONS WITH PAOLO SOLERI
by Lissa McCullough

ISBN 9781616890551
Publication date 4/12/2012
5.5 x 8 inches (14.0 x 20.3 cm), Paperback
96 pages, 30 b/w illustrations

Not Yet Published, order now for first shipment on or about 4/6/2012

$19.95     Pre-order this title
(no credit card charge until the book ships)

Conversations with Paolo Soleri, the newest volume in our popular Conversations series, offers timely thinking in response to our global environmental crisis.
Drawn from the visionary architect's personal notebooks and sketchbooks, Soleri's most recently (2004-2009) documented ideas respond to contemporary issues such as climate change, oil dependence, suburban sprawl, and overconsumption.
Soleri outlines a detailed proposal for urban reformulation and renewal, appealing to architects, urban planners, environmentalists, urban historians, philosophers, ethicists, and anthropologists.
Two essays and a new interview covering the breadth of Soleri's career round out this accessible introduction, making Soleri's work available for the first time.

This publication was put together by Lissa McCullough, Paolo Soleri' editor.
Here is Lissa with Soleri in November 2011.

The book joins a series that include:
Rem Koolhaas,
Ian McHarg,
Le Corbusier Talks with Students,
A Conversation with Frei Otto,
and Paul Rand.

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

This is an Aerial view of Arcosanti in 1972.
The South Vault was the first structure built. West of the Vault we can see the scaffolding for the shell of the Ceramics Apse, below that are the footings for the Foundry Apse.