Lecture by Policy Larry April 12, 1977 College of Architecture, Arizona
State University,
you know where bob is. But I would like to just take a moment. Welcome.
Almost hilarious. A little answer. Renowned architect
throughout the world. Just got back from new york and they speak of you on
your way up. What would you do anywhere else? No, follow the know the work
of our college. No, about horizonte. All right. Our pleasure today for our
program we have all share his experience market of our college.
No, around over the wall. All right, thank you. Okay,
get the lights off.
Right.
There are many slides and I'm going to go fast. Uh huh. At the beginning
there was only some visual material. There is only they're there because
they might be a an opening visual opening to the program. So there
wouldn't be explanations, just visual
impressions
In in the 50s. And I began to be industry in urban questions relate for
these.
This is Rhonda a diagram for some kind of logistical network which would
base uh, which would be based on an automobile. So an attempt to have more
fluidity in circulation within tom let's say In the early 60s, through a
grant, I begin to work on what I call the major city and the difference
between the two is more more inquiries in a number of things included
environmental impact. So in this case there were many features which later
on became small, fashionable the closing of cycles like taking the quality
and then making a quarter which could have got that stick in the back
there. Thank you
thank you.
This is a landscape which would be the outcome of escalating and producing
materials for the construction like aggregate and other materials and then
proceeding on with the process or instead of having a some kind of a scar
on this area, you make a garden out of it, a garden which has its own
geology because it would be the quarrying of this material for
construction. So this was a closing of a cycle of coming in, disturbing
the certain balance and transforming site. They were recycling plants
suggested along the periphery of the community of the city and those will
be the places where materials will be regenerator or transform like
garbage, sewage and other things answer that then you can recirculate
those elements through through industries or farming and so on. In this
scheme there were villages, those around things which were somewhat
clustered around civic centers and in the civic centers. The villages
themselves were depending on the metropolitan system which was made of a
one major network of production and consumption in terms of standard
produce and one smaller one where you had mainly home industries and
crafts and marketing of them. There was a learning center here from
secondary school to university and then there was a theological center
there water was used for transportation for domestic purposes and a
recycling into farming. It was all hypothetical naturally and it was
designed for a climate Arizona, this was a for me sir,
it was a two dimensional basically. And eventually I decided it wasn't
acceptable any longer. So I got into the the psychologist And smart
ecology picked up where I left in the 50s, trying to use solar energy in
connection with other activities. So this was a greenhouse, a black
surface chimney and the whole thing was incorporated in infrastructure
which could be could have been a residential offices over terror
in this cycle. I was, I was working with infrared with winds, with water,
all, all of them solid energy
elements
Eventually moved away from there because there was no interest at all
anywhere about solar energy in the 50s, as you I can imagine.
And then about four years ago when the the gasoline crunch came about, I
began to work again on, on the question of solar energy and I ended up by
having a certain notion oh connecting a number of effects within one
system. And you'll see that later on in this diagram is the program of the
presentation related to this idea of the sun used in a certain structure.
So the ecology is the architectural and ecology notion two sons refers to
fundamental elements of reality. One is the sun at least in the solar
system. What is the sun as the originator of a certain condition on this
earth? And here is the mental stuff which is the consequence of this
process originating through the sun presence. So in this, what we are
attempting to do here we are, we are telling ourselves that those two
elements the physical and the metaphysical are fundamental in defining the
urban context, not a initiation to this process. We are observing a number
of energies. The organic energy, the organic energy, the mental energy in
an organic energy will see the greenhouse effect, the chimney effect, what
I call the apps effect in the organic energy will see what I called it as
a public but it would be really the horticultural effect production of
food stuff within a greenhouse condition. The mental energy deals with the
human, social and cultural and this is what I call now the urban effect
and I will try to explain that uh huh Before I get into this, I'm going to
go through their colleges as we are trying to do now an empirical example
of it in Arcosanti. And then quickly some of the first sense of ecologies
as they appear in the committee book the colleges and then we'll go into
the psychology which are the transformation of those uh sets into the ones
which are taking into account more forcefully than the the sun through
those organic inorganic and mental processes.
I know many of you have been dr Santee, I will not spend much time on it,
You can come and visit if you have not been there, this is the land, we
have 860 acres. We are processing about 10 acres of the land to transform
it into an urban condition and we develop greenhouses on the south slope.
This is the camp we set up about eight years ago and this is where we'll
be building the last six years and a half so
mr angiography river.
And the construction was probably, you all know, it was about by engaging
young people, mostly students that come for six weeks and they work Soon.
I was in 79 hours a day and they help in the construction and also the
finance part of the construction by their own fees. So this is a meeting
before breakfast probably around june now we match this effort and that
funding with the work we do in ceramics and metal mean wind bells
and this is the original model of arcosanti which has been now totally
abandoned in this model. The sun was used basically as a uh has Dick the
definer of a certain climate in the climate was small, was the defining a
certain character of the building within the building. There were some
facets which were referring directly with solar energy. This is naps and
if you expose it to the south, we have a special relationship between the
sun and the abs which makes for a good use in winter and summer and I'll
show you later the apps effect
and it shows a little, we have of the amount of building that we intend to
do, Even though this now has been abandoned. This is a ceramics workspace
is a foundry, two vaults where we do a number of things, including a
sandwich of modules, two residences with offices in the building here with
a four story building
of the old of the old design. So we does some of the elements that you see
there in blue, including this building.
We set up a camp using concrete to build those cubicles. Then we have an
underground which is a larger building, four meetings and for eating when
the weather is bad, the building site is there. We began to cultivate some
of the land to get some vegetables. Uh huh. We have been building this
kind of foundation,
the bazaar tick look. And this is the view from the, not far from the
highway about two years ago
in moving there, we began to use the same some of the techniques, we've
been using that foundation in Scottsdale, which means take some of the
materials, local materials and use them as a forming device. So this is
silt
and the silt is uh, we get it from the riverbed is packed shaped then
painted.
So this is one of the modules you see there before the pouring of the
concrete and this pattern in those colors and some of the texture is going
to be incorporated in the vault.
We build a second vote two years ago. Yeah.
And then we proceeded with with some of the some the structure that we're
using now this is the ceramic space and since it is an abs it works as a
son, a collector in winter and sunshine in summer and we do the production
in this area.
We use the sort as a brake band breaker and that also gives us a texture
in color which is somehow connecting the building to the ground.
These are the sale for the same purpose. The fall in the shell. Uh huh.
Say it again in making the inside of one of the houses,
the forming of the foundry.
The very early stage of this forming the finish stage just before the
reinforcing is put in and then the shell is poured and they found a
slightly more complex than the ceramic because it has two stories in the
second story has some uh private spaces, too little apartments with two
studios in two rooms
there you see the the mold the negative here you see the structure which
is the positive.
So there's the family, this is where we do the family work proper, this is
where we do assembling and storage, storing and so on and this is where we
have residential spaces.
Mhm. Mhm.
This is the first story building. It has a some rooms down here with
services. Then there's a restaurant on two levels with the services in the
north side and then there is a an exhibition space on top.
Now we find out very, very soon that the buildings were interacting with
the land and very, very well. So we began to have things happening at
night or humid day like sound and light shows and you can watch from the
spot on this part where you can go down and watch from the other side of
the ravine so that eventually will, will become a structural procedure and
we will have festivals and in fact we have two of them already where you
have people all over the place watching, listening and participating in
and a little of activities. Mhm Mhm
landscaping between the restaurant and family and the ceramics,
the inside of the restaurant.
This wasn't one of the three days of festivities last year and we have
things going on in each building, some demonstrations in crafts, music or
mimes and so on and then exhibition of crafts within this building. And
then we set up a stage
down Levine and we were able to have many thousands of people watching the
performance at night watching the performance of the on stage and also the
performance of what is there of the town. Now
A little that building in the back of the two votes.
This is what eventually is going to be a regular theater And this is the
larger than 50th which can take many thousands of people up to 50, 60 or
more 1000.
This site is open seven days a week. We are told to 11 and two if you're
instead this is the falco group from new york performing
and this is the
the swimming pool which has now been, has been cast. The uniting has been
done and it's in such a position in such a sight as to take in the warm
air coming from a greenhouse which is going to be the main greenhouse
sloping on this south slope. The hardware will to the chimney effect will
go through under the swim pool through those gates and would accept it
along this cliff. The cliff itself is going to work a little like a heat
sink.
Now I'm going to go very fast also through the first part of their
colleges, the first generation ecology as they called him.
Mhm
Which would be this the application of some of those notions in early in
the 60s this was a floating system with subsystems which would be where
you are rest from the sea and new process, chemical minerals or whatever
foodstuff and eventually those, the system can cluster in a number of them
and then you would have an urban ribbon tying everything together.
Fundamental is the idea that whatever we go to exploit the earth, we
should also try to develop a certain culture connected with this process
so that we, we don't go there just as a technocrats but as human beings,
those are similar ideas developed in somehow different kind of mold. Uh
huh
an idea for a dam which by design could be made into an habitat. So you
you don't have to alter very much of a structural system with them. You
just perforate them and make it make deeper blades, let's say so that you
can take care of the structural needs. But at the same time you could come
out with what you might call a full fledged community if the dam is large
enough of that. If the aim is smaller, you could come up with something
smaller like a resort, what a hotel, whatever
if you have is much larger than you can develop a metropolitan center. If
the interesting thing is that you have water for power for irrigation, for
domestic purposes, for recreation. So you have a very specific INGE
ecological INGE which could be very interesting.
Those are rough models of some of the more detailed models of other
ecologies. This refers to the idea for 17,000 People, these 30,800 and
some 1000 200, sometimes in less than half a million. Those are very
abstract concepts. They are trying only to suggest what could happen if
you introduce the true dimension within the system, this is in paris state
building on the same scale.
And the interesting point is that there is so much talk about mega
structures but what we are doing is to work for the sake of mini structure
, not mega structures. This would take place of a village or a town of
maybe 10 15 sq mi. But this is only a quarter of a square mile properly
with a certain dept. So you're substituting a mega mega system which is a
Tempe phoenix, Los Angeles with a mini system which is a three dimensional
landscape. Uh huh. And this is very important because deals again with the
difference between the gigantic and performing This is the interior of the
30,000. It could be a village for farmers and the interior will be mainly
commercial, public and so on. While the exteriors would be where the
private spaces with development,
This was a larger one.
You can also connect yourself with outside. Almost instantaneous. A few
minutes you will be out in a countryside that suggests that
life will become richer. You have less waste in trying to connect and to
join or to separate yourself from other things and other people. Also the
services will become smaller because you're dealing again with a mini mini
condition instead of a mega condition. That means that eventually even the
bureaucratic machines can be cut down to size
the automobile would be would be stopped at the edge of the city because
there are no roads within the context of the on the habitat. So there is
no possibility for the automobile to penetrate inside of it, which means
you move from the, from the automobile scaled to the human scale, the
person, the legs and so on.
Oh
mm, if the idea or the linear city was adopted
an advance, you will be that by by maintaining defense, vertical dimension
within reasonable distance is like, let's say two or three miles, you
would then be able to very quickly connect with the main logistical
network which would be at the center.
You will be able to connect with the institution of the city, the urban
condition depending on where you are within the many villages or towns or
see the connected with the main logistical system and also you will be
directly able to move out of that kind of condition and move into the open
landscape.
If that dimension is not respected, then you get, you end up by having the
eastern seaboard with all the troubles that it has the western seaboard
with all the trouble that is developing
it continue waited with demand, possibly some bridging and this is
indication of suggestions of the structure bridging river canyon
and last in this series An airport which becomes a town of about one
million population and this is the town about one half kilometers in
diameter is surrounded by a green belt and the green belt are industries
in the industries are connected with taxing link which is where the
aircraft would be pulled in or pulled away from and then it would turn on
the engine and take off or landing according to the, to the wind, to the
wind pattern. What you would have is that you learn practically in the
center of the city, you never fly above the city and you will make the
city into a place instead of being a known place, which is what the
airport is now.
For this mini system. We show the distances in feet and in minutes to
indicate swiftness that you can obtain when you're dealing not with a
gigantic but with my note
Now, I'm getting into the more difficult part of the presentation which is
trying to explain the urban effect.
And I begin from the very beginning,
which is I attempt to suggest a certain evolutionary process. I had to
promise that I believe in evolution. So you're an evolutionary process
which is, let's say, a certain point of origin and then the development of
what we call the cosmos. So this is we tend to believe at this point that
this is a deterministic condition, optimistic way, the mass energy
universe. So we have a genesis of this cosmo cosmo genesis a universal
indifference. All those relative characteristics. You can say that this
cosmos is insensitive, structural Simula ble, predictable, granular,
statistical, rational and entropic
because of the presence of this genesis of this process. Somewhere,
certainly in one point in the universe we have the genesis of the life the
genetic wait a biological universe. The biogenesis, it is the unions of
the universe of innocence. If you see it a proto human before the mind
developed and the conscience developed. So it is social and corporate,
cooperative sensitized, no symbol selective, irreversible revolutionary
duration or unconscious and instinctual. This gave birth again, at least
in one place which is the earth on to a new kind of phenomenon. New
because of the some kind of a quantum jump. And you have the cultural way
the human university of the genesis. It is cultural, cooperative, social
uh huh.
Wasn't
compassionate, non, seem edible, willful, irreversible evolutionary
duration or conscious and mental the universe of conscience. Now, if you
start to consider all those characteristics and then you you refer them to
the problem of the habitat of the human habitat. You find out quite
quickly our fundamental all of those items are and how differently we
might look at the city. Once we really seriously investigate what that
might mean, I extrapolate, I make a projection that if this process keeps
going eventually have the sacramental way the divine universe, the T. O.
Genesis it is a static resurrection of total izing loving reversible and
similar ones in tropic. The universal transcendence In this process which
can be tagged uh maybe 12, 15 billions of years in here, perhaps 3.5 or
four billions of years. For the for the biogenesis perhaps two or three
millions of years for the human genesis you have a big question mark. Or
what might be the next step which would be the transformation to the whole
of the universe into a divine condition. But anyhow, even if you leave
that last part out, you see that in this process, you begin with a
relatively simple condition and you end up with a very complex condition.
The human the human conscience, you begin with a very scattered and
somehow yeah statistical process and you end up with a willful and very
central process. You move from ignorance, knowledge, remove from
segregation to integration and so on, and he does it again, this tells us
something very crucial about the nature of the city.
If
if you try to make this diagram in something slightly more dynamic and you
accept the idea of the Big Bang, you could say that the original
university, you have this super item that breaks up breaks up and it's a
media which somehow I define as pure media and I'm suggesting that this
media eventually will become pure message through a process of explosion
first an implosion later. And this process would see this media transform
itself into a message. It will be a reality going out as matter and coming
in as a spirit. No, this is not a fantasy because this is happening under
our eyes has been happening for about 4.5 billions of years, which is
again, this process of matter becoming something modern matter, even
spirit
in trying to explain who, why the complex and the miniaturized are the
fundamental characteristics of this process. I take the seed as a As a
proposition. And I said, if you plant the seed, you eventually see the
development of a three according to a certain genetic metrics. Well, If
you could shrink this the pace of if you accelerate the pace of this
process so that you develop in five minutes, what you might might take 50
years, let's say. You would see very clearly, visually, tangibly what
what's happening and what's happening is that the cosmos
gives in and furnishes elements of its own to define the organism. So it's
an implosion. It's a miniaturization. It's an interior ization. It is a
process of complex ification that happens, you have minerals coming from
the front of soil, in water coming from the soil distances which are from
centimeters to kilometers, and organizing themselves in very special ways
to come up with the organism. And you have energy from the air, in form of
solar energy coming from thousands, millions of miles incoming again. And
working out the organism, the tree. So the tree stands as an implosive,
miniaturizing complex defying in a motivated system. The organism in any
living system somehow protects the characteristics so you move from the
scattered the simple, the undirected into the directed the complex, the
willful and so on. Now, instead of a three, you can have a human being,
instead of a human being, you can have a society and you can have a town,
a village, metropolitan system, and so on. So what what is meaningful and
fundamental for this organism is fundamental for any kind of another kind
of organism, including the possibility of a final organism which would be
the final seed, which would be the synopsis of everything which has never
existed anywhere anytime. And this would be a good idea of divinity
because divinity would be the trans complex transit duration, Alexa et
cetera.
Mhm. Mhm. I don't think we have time for stay with those things.
Maybe very quickly if you have two coordinates and one your complexity and
they're only your miniaturization and you try to define that situation
where life can develop within a balanced condition. And you might find out
that yeah, the duration als and and the evolutionary stance. Um between
those two. Which means that if you're a tendency to miniaturize without
introducing element of complexity, you end up with with the complicated we
have a congestion which some of us is suggested by some of the
technocratic developments. The computer complicated. So these will
represent the area where technology as the the edge. By the same token, if
you have a complexity, we tend to ignore the physical demands of life. You
end up in a condition which could be suggested by the idea of Nirvana.
Where somehow you you try to return to a condition which consumes you as
an individual into this sea of a of nothingness, which seems to be the
goal. So on one side you have too much mind and not enough support systems
on your side you have too many support systems and the mine dwindles. Mhm.
Mhm. Mhm.
To come down to a real closer what those things might mean in terms of the
ecology and uh what they might the ecology might do in the direction of
solving the many problems that we have. I say here that the ecological
commitment is dispensable for the alleviation of ecological crisis. The
really mentioning of the use of water, land and air, the reduction of
pollution caused by technological societies. The perception of the natural
waist affluence and affluence and operates A reasonable shelter. Humane on
his way to 678, 10, who knows how many billions revolutionary problem,
energy depletion, distribution and consumption, resolution of problems,
segregation of people things and activities, responding to the question of
child of the gigantic bureaucratic and the remote and so on. Of all of
those. One very crucial is the segregation. It's not just segregation of
blood types or religious sectors or the segregation of activities of the
of institutions of yeah, groups of performances and so on. But naturally
they are all connected with what meaning life might have. Ultimately, if
we try to fit our niche within the evolutionary process. Mhm.
Now coming down to the Tucson psychology as I was saying, we are trying to
cluster a number of effects around the fundamental effect which is the
urban effect. And we are using the greenhouse the horticultural effect the
apps affair which are all in a straight a little more later on, but you
can see that what basically what it is if you have an apps or a truncated
cone is facing south, the summer sun which is the one that you don't care
very much for it will be will be limited in its own uh access to the this
area which is including the structure which is a very good area for work
in a winter. You are the opposite. The sun is able to penetrate and warm
up this area. The chimney effect connected with the greenhouse effect has
some important advantages to effort
and uh
you have those for effects to that. To those four, you can have another
one which is the ability of the structure to accumulate it and give it
back when the temperature of the air becomes lower than the temperature of
the structure. So that's the heat sink effect. So we have those four plus
that hit sync effect which we are trying to organize around the urban
effect And going back to the urban effects at the moment. I call it I call
the urban effect, that phenomenon which is represented by a number of
characteristics and some of the list of the uh intensity synergy,
consciousness, transcendence, frugality, sensitivity, beauty, knowledge,
interdependence, coordination, compassion, cooperation, etcetera, etcetera.
Those are those are kind of physics which are embryonic li appearing even
at the beginning of life. So at the very first beginning you have an open
condition. The virus is a city. It happens to be a highly organized uh
environment phenomenon. And this phenomenon has synergy intensity at the
beginning of a consciousness at the beginning of transcendence, frugality
, sensitivity etcetera etcetera. So whatever it is true for even the early
phenomenal phenomenal lives is also true for the late commerce the city.
Now if you carry on this idea of evolution, you could point at a certain
element of perfection and that has been called in many ways I use the term
logos here. It could be a divinity or Mhm. A total loss or whatever
depending on your propensities.
But the fundamental thing is that we're not dealing with the city
something as a fringe action of uh of a species, the human species. We're
dealing with the urban effect as the fundamental and crucial guideline
which seems to be guiding the process of the simple becoming complex of
the unconscious becoming conscious and so on. Now if we are able to
coordinate those five effects around this effect urban effect, then we are
saying here that we would have definitely saving on resources on land,
water, time, minerals, energy etcetera etcetera. We will be able to cut on
pollution segregation, waste bigness bureaucracies, isolation alienation
and we would be in a better position to to get into learning into
integrity into region to help into identification corporation etcetera.
And in our very small ways with a very very limited knowledge, we are
trying to exactly to do this. Take those five effects plus one. Mhm. And
this is a very elementary application of this notion greenhouse which is
sloping along here. This is an indio in the greenhouse as a multicultural
experimentation and maybe some fish culture, agriculture. And then at the
end of this slope which goes for the for the gym effect, you might have
the embryonic character of the town where you have some class class work
exhibitions, meeting places and so on.
To recapitulate those five effects, you begin with the greenhouse which is
flat horizontal, You slammed the greenhouse. So you have this chimney
ability of the greenhouse to ventilate itself. You can you can put a house
inside of the greenhouse or you can make the greenhouse into a dome and
build facilities inside of it. I don't think it works very well, but it's
done. You you take a greenhouse and you make it into a black sun collector.
You can connect it more directly into the structure and have a little
more integrity in you design. You can take both characteristics in both
ability of producing food and producing heat. And you can have this
diagram, you can slap the greenhouse to take advantage of the chimney
effect. You can take the house and then decide that since the man is a
fundamental social animal and since life it doesn't move toward the simple
moves to the complex, you might want to organize the community into a
fairly organized system. So when you connect the community with the
greenhouse sloping, etcetera, you take the community and you introduce the
notion of the of the apps effect. And you come up with this diagram that
you see develop into the models. Now here, as I was saying, you want to
add the ability of the structure which is sizable though it's not a mega
structure. If you compare it to what it takes place of, you accumulate
energy. So this has the sink effect ability. In addition, you can have
some sink effect along with the other systems. So here it's what you have
the six effect effects coordinated into under one system.
The apps effect to show how it works on the spot. This is an apps, the
ceramic saps in one midday in the winter, probably close to the this
winter. So is this, This was around 10 or 11:00 AM,
the same date, you see the sun penetrating.
And then in the summer you you reverse the process. You see this shading
on the floor. In fact, early in the morning, you have a shading that goes
beyond the outer limits of the structure.
So that's the difference in the winter, the summer condition.
This is a winter shot Now in developing the two sons psychology. I as I
was saying, I somehow basically looked at those five effects and try to
organize them into one system. So this indicates in section a greenhouse
and the main structure which is now suggestive of the apps effect.
And this design was augmented. This efficiency was augmented by awnings
that could be used in summer.
But what we ended up with was this this diagram two blades in this case
truncated cones connected by a main garden, which is a greenhouse of many
stories and then on the south side of the apron apron, the greenhouses.
So we made a whole model three years ago and we exposed to the sun machine.
This is March, the spring equinox mhm
december early in the morning, june early in the morning and by comparing
them, we saw how well the structure response as a apps effect to the to
the impact of the sun penetration of the sun. This has to be seen as
shaded also because the roof would become shaded in the summer.
Later on, we got some help from the bicentennial from the xerox. So we
were able to develop a number of models in a number of diagrams showing
the the sun intake, the energy accumulation and what you might need
depending on the climate or where you are or the amount of greenhouse that
you have as an auxiliary source of it. So this is the greenhouses which
are producing food and energy and they feed part of the energy in winter
to the buildings. The buildings themselves have this big greenhouse
connecting the two. We developed some for specific places. This is in a
specific bay, not far from Washington, there was a slope over the south.
So we developed the greenhouses, the two blades which have been
straightened in this case
and the slot faces the south and it's just water which would take the
winter sunshine.
It will be very easily shaded in the summer.
This was for a climate in Nevada, not Nevada where the slope was a
terrorist and then covered with a membrane and this membrane would carry
on into the town about five or 6000 people. If anyone,
if you take a call and you straight and you might come out with this
diagram which somehow is the same kind of ability to respond winter and
summer.
This was an idea for a regina in Saskatchewan will have a train depot real
deep, which is going to be dismantled.
So this acreage was given to the town for developing something and we
suggested this civic center which would be a mix of residential spaces and
offices and other things. So smaller ecology and under the main storage
place, you will develop uh like a slope and on the slope you would have
the greenhouses and in this case since the climate is very, is very rigid
, 60 below in winter, constantly windy. But lots of sunshine. It's not of
this approach was the deal.
Mhm. Another idea for a political climate where you you're counting anoxia
resource of energy like burning of uh timber left industry left towards so
that you generate heat in the greenhouses at the same time, you take the
sunshine with it when it comes and you develop an outdoor which would be
somehow accessible to the population. We live around some psychological
would have been very important
uh that you have a dime which somehow as a as a shape, it's in a way idea
of this application. If the dam is facing south, we had the slope with the
greenhouses and development of structure.
Okay,
those were always sketches full does. I'm so down sketches.
This is a village that ended up by imagining in India because we had a
young architect from India and he got very excited about developing its
own village. So he made a model and it's the same the same diagram, the
two structures connected by the main inner garden and in the greenhouses
on the south slope. Uh huh
A floating structure that would show again the greenhouses, lots of going
on their storage and industry perhaps in the township with its own inner
garden. And since it's floating would be very easy to turn it and for the
sun synchronized with the sun cycles, we suggest an introduction of ice
iceberg then that would furnish water, fresh water for greenhouse working
from the for domestic purposes. It could also be a good system for
refrigeration in the summer and it could be a hell of a playground
dimensional playground for for the town.
And Many years ago in the 50s, I I was working on this idea of a capsule
which has been put in a book, it rotates on this axis or you have an
inside, you have a local gravity, you stand inside of this landscape which
is a green landscape. This was picked up by general Neil and developed
into the space colonies and then I was asked to respond to his design. So
I responded with the paper and also with a model and the mother is the
same idea, but it's far more complex. It has seven landscapes instead of
one. Each one has a slightly different gravity conditions
and that's the model
and the real reason for doing this and believing that eventually we'll do
it. It's a theological reason. It's again, the notion that since we seem
to be partaking in this person of making matter into spirit and we are
that exactly. Eventually this process cannot be cannot be limited to the
earth, which is a tiny little splinter in a tiny little screen too, of the
cosmos. So eventually we would be moving out to try to cooperate with
other sources of spirit in developing the cosmos. So this would be a one
of the steps in going out this idea of having herb or urban centers in
space and in this diagram, there are many landscapes. This is the urban
landscape, there's a green landscape here, there's a water landscape there
, there's a little escape which is on top of the,
the urban landscape, there is a A zero gravity environment there.
And this is the quick model we made for the Xerox exhibit of arcosanti.
You see the buildings, existing buildings there. In addition, there was a
building that has been decided for a the the center confidence center
and then this model was developed with more time into the model that you
see now,
which is the London and I was exhibited at Macy's in san Francisco. Uh huh.
This is the stopper, we will have the greenhouses doesn't building which
are existing
And this is a 25 story building which is as the characteristics of the 200
colleges with a big slot facing south and the connection with the
greenhouses. What would happen is that in the winter you have, you have an
updraft of energy being produced here and being fed throughout the
building, including the energy that comes through there In the summer, you
would have intakes on the top greenhouse and you would have evaporative
cooling on along the building. And this property cooling would would cause
the air to become heavier and cooler and the air drop by gravity through
the building. So even updraft, warm air through the winter, downdraft,
cool air to the during the summer basically, that's what we're working at
, which means a passive system for the the whole building.
This is Northeast. You
we were trying to to show inside because this floor is a very fundamental
one. It goes for the character of the town itself and all the activities
are going on at this level and funeral levels. But we haven't got there
the good photos yet.
Uh This is the end or those those are showing that we need people
naturally and we are constantly recruiting
and if we don't get people, we we are in troubles.
Uh Well maybe I got very quickly through this list which is a little
Presumptions but I think there's some truth in it. This is an actual
condition that we have been developing in the last few last few
generations and it's the megalopolis flat gigantic system phoenix Los
Angeles. Mhm scott. So and so on. And this is the one that I think we
should try to advocate eventually. So, your bigness against smallness
exploitations. Again, fitness segregation against integration. Matter
again. Mind power, authority destruction, conservation, pollution,
pollution, entropy is entropy, dimmest intensity it ensured posted in
fragmented structure. Exclusivity realized, complicated, complex
bureaucratic performing opulent frugal agricultural in Congress and
Congress. If you have any time left, we might try to get some questions.
Okay.
Mhm.
Yeah. Uh huh.
Yeah.
Have some has some information if you need it in a applications forms and
so on.
Do we have some time or?
Yes, sometimes
great question.
Right.
Yeah. We find out it's it's bigger. Which is good for us because it cuts
down the cost per person, whatever the cost may be. We are now working
around 5000 people.
Yeah.
If we are staying with a passive system, we are not going to produce power
ourselves. So we are to get it from public utilities which which is what
we're doing now, if we if we try to uh introduce most physically
technology, then probably we could produce quite a bit of energy because
there is lots of sunshine. So what we're trying to do now is to see how
far we can go with a passive system or semi passive. So we might we might
produce water, hot water also. But for a moment we're not thinking of
policing energy. So we would produce the climate for the town. We will
produce some of the food, high percentage of the food, at least vegetables
and hot water. And then the remaining would have to be gotten through
public utilities.
There must be some questions flooding. I know, I know one question that is
in the mind of everybody. But huh. A lot of
Yeah.
First two.
Mhm. About that surrounding this sort of Yeah, sort of alienated and
designer look uh some of that might be true. I think the contrast in the
materials in the model of my accentuated. I think that it would be a
better integration between the two also because what we what used to be
the absence now we're becoming crescent. So we're still keeping those two
large crescent like structure. We're going to be two stories the
residential but in a sense a certain indication of progress of time
schedule.
That always happens
since I've been up there last year. Put him, how long will it be or what's
your scheduling? As far as having a greenhouse to help? Mhm. Well, we
would like to have the swimming pool by august but we don't know if you
can afford it. So we are now trying to define enough deck so we can use
the swimming pool if you have a dog. You cannot use it. So now we have the
structure, we have to plaster construction and we have to put equipment
and put the deck. The Green House. We hope to design it this year. And we
don't know if we can start this year.
Mhm. There were Free river
five gallons an hour. No, no, it's it's about it's about this.
I don't know. It's many 100 gallons a minute. But it's a little stream,
the one you see the underground stream, it's very much larger.
We got 125 gallons a minute in our world. We tested a well about two weeks
ago.
All alone.
No one shall. We're going together.
What's about it. The bells royalties from the books, my lecturing and some
private help, but very
and then then some grants like for the festivals, we get some money from
endowment of the arts. We're trying to get a little more of that, but
nothing to construct. And
the cafe, the cafe is, it's opening Wednesday next Wednesday.
There's a menu which is a little more ambition that what we are we were
thinking of. It's really good. And I think the food is going to be quite
good.
Well, uh, yeah, we're keeping track of the people that I've been working
in a place because they have some kind of presidents.
Well, we have a number of inquiry from people that they have not been
working there. But then we know that there is a number of people have been
working their way. They would like to be able to get impossible. It
depends how long it's going to take and how many people are going to be
interested in
trying to see other possibilities like cooperative something which keeps
the real estate within the town where the political and economic setup is
going to be not individual, but that could change.
So you would be atlantic releasing one in mind.
Not anymore.
Well, Conscience for one.
Well, it depends so much on how things are going to go if things are going
to go the same way they're going. Now then conscience is going to be an
imperative.
In fact, it might go beyond that and my maybe a paralysis.
Now now we are naturally, we're trying to put the accident building. but
we have already a number of activities like the ceramics, the foundry, did
the restaurant, the visitor center, the garden.
Well, eventually we would like to go on with would be a greater effort in
urban problems. And that could be seen as a school as a research center or
whatever. And the only is to to see how the fruit cycle is a organized and
may be redirected. So we were producing food and then pressing food and
consuming food. And that would take quite a number of people involved
because it can become a very successful, very income producing process.