My name is Dan Jones on behalf of Howe Architecture Library and the
College of Architecture. I'm proud to present Dr Paolo Soleri.
There are a few seats I don't know, since it's mostly visual. If you like
to try to come look forward,
there are a few scattered around,
Uh, you are going to see an attempt to suggest alternatives to the kind of
, uh, urban conditions that we have been developing in the West in the
West and definitely in in the States. We don't seem to be able to get away
from it, and I think that it's very important to try to define options and
to define options is going to take a long, uh, ha quite a bit of work and
time and investment in order to to define options. So prototyping or
modelling and testing, I think, is one of the essential tasks of, uh, of
any kind of society that wants to have an open openings on the future. We
seem to be not willing to do that, and one reason is that it's very
expensive to experiment on on urban problems, and not only that we are
really sold to the notion that what we have been developed. Now it's the
best of all possible choices, and we are stuck with it. And I think that's
not just
dangerous, very at this point is also very, uh, demeaning.
So what you're going to see is what I think. It's not an exception, but
it's a rule and the exception being the the kind of, uh, Los Angeles
syndrome that we have been developing in the last two generations. Let's
say so before that happened. And it happened for many reasons, not just
because of the automobile. Before that happened, there was another kind of
of view on how to live together. So I feel that I am in a tradition
of things, not trying to get away from it.
Oh, I'm going to have, uh, 300 slides. You think you could reach in turn
on the and, uh, the first city. It's just a, uh, an opening, a visual
opening,
some kind of a warm up, which I'm not going to explain, but the title of
representation to some psychology, Archology is the combination of
architecture and ecology. Two sons refers to the existence of those two
resources. The physical resource and the one that is it's a, uh, an
offspring, uh, of this resource, which is life in general and, uh, the
human life in particular. So there is a physical radiance, and there is a
a human and, uh, physiological radiance. Those two have to be present
whenever we think in terms of, uh, human habitats within an ecological
frame of reference. Many of you may have seen the the foundation. This is
the layout of the foundation, which happens gradually without any, uh,
predetermined plan. Uh, this is where we have this. The office, the
ceramics, the family, the the exhibition space, the entrance, one of the
residences, the swimming pool, the canopy, et cetera, et cetera. As I was
saying, could we turn off the lights?
I'm very, very quickly through some visual things.
Thank you.
Uh, something that I was playing with in the fifties, the beginning of the
interest in urban questions. And this was, uh, a very simple minded, uh,
logistical network, uh, roads with the automobile in mind. And but there
was a certain topography which, uh was defined by a little lake and little
dam. And so on and around this, uh, topography. I was trying to develop a
, um, a network or four. So that was it. There wasn't very much depth in
it. This was a much more complex, uh, study the Mesa City project where,
since I was beginning to be interested in, uh, in ecological questions, I
was trying to put within this this idea some of the reflections of this
interest. Uh, for instance, there were processing plans which were, uh,
serving as, uh, the transformation of, uh, liquid and and solid waste into
chemicals or minerals or whatever that would be fed back into industries
and into farming.
There were the main feature was villages between two and 3000 people
organised around a inner garden and surrounded by a larger garden. Those
villages were connected with the local centres of market and C civic
activities. But the main resource serving those villages were a network of
industries and marketing places and a smaller one of home industries and
markets. There were there were there was a large, uh, learning centre in
here. There was a federalized theological centre in here, and the
connection between those two centres was was the development of a quarry
and this quarry, which would be serving, uh, the need of in aggregate and
possibly some something like lime or even con cement. This quarry was
progressively transformed while exhausting itself into a garden. So this
is this is a geology which is transformed through the intervention of man
into a neo geology, which is a landscape with, uh, a number of features.
So the closing of a cycle there, the attempt of closing the cycle there
basically the idea was still very much geared to modes, which I think I. I
began to think to think then that they were not sufficient to serve well
the needs of a of an intense urban life. In other words, if you are there
in order to get there, you might have to spend 20 minutes or whatever and
plus energy plus investments in whatever is the mode that you are using
and so on. So that very physical fact made me to move into a direction
which is almost the opposite. Instead of having a a big pizza, Uh, where
you develop an habitat, you you build a, uh, a three dimensional solid,
more or less, which is the idea of Archology. So you minimise you implode
all this system into something that might be comparable to that much. Or
maybe that much. And that's what Well, what I will get into Later in the
fifties, I was interested in solar energy, and this was an, uh, an
application that I made to MIT from Italy. I didn't get anywhere, but
anyhow, I was proposing some. Some work in seeing how solar energy could
be captured may be stored partially and also fed into a building. And the
building would have been a residence, residential building or a mix of
activities. So in this case, you see the the greenhouse develop into a
chimney, a water tank that could have been connected with some of the
storage heat sink and so on, and then with different kinds of diagrams. I
was trying to use the wind, multidirectional winds, tides, waterfalls like
in the dam condition and so on.
Nobody was interested in those things at that time, so slowly drifted away
from specifically from those things. But I kept trying to do something
that was connecting with the sun, and you'll see that in the apsis. Later
on the the diagram of representation used to be, uh, a metro, which was
referring to effects. They were effects related to inorganic energy
effects related to the organic energy, the effects related to the human
condition in in organic energy, I have the greenhouse effect, the chimney
fat, the apps effect and I will go over those in at a certain point in the
organic energy, I have the horticultural effect, which is the cultivation
intensive cultivation of foodstuff, mainly vegetables, but also filtering
animal proteins, possibly into a greenhouse condition. And the mental
energy was the human, social, cultural, political, economic, aesthetic and
so on. And this is the the most difficult part of the presentation. It
relates to what I call the urban effect, and I will go into that later
after those. I have a very brief survey of the first generation Ecologist
, the ones in an MIT book where I had diagrams and models very theoretical
, very hypothetical, very symbology more than anything else. Then I had
the empirical process, the prototyping, which is a Kante. Then I moved
into the transformation of the first generation ecology into the second
generation, where the sun is pulled in and it's made to be one of the main
actors within the urban landscape can have models and some diagrams about
this and ultimately the transformation of Kanti because of this
intervention into a new model, which you see at the end of the
presentation, as it is now, I somehow rearrange the presentation. I go
through the Arcosanti empirical process first so that you can grasp some
of the concrete things that we are doing. Then I move briefly into the the
theoretical idea of Archology. Then I'll try to explain the the effects
and more, very specifically, the urban effect. That's when you'll go to
sleep. And then I'll move into the Tucson ecology with the new the recent
models and and then they they kanti under this change conditions. So the
prototype. I don't know how many of you have been at that Kant. It's about
70 miles on the Black Canyon Highway Highway at Cordes Junction, which is
there two miles from from the site. As as you know, this is grassland 3700
ft above sea level. I picked this ledge of auto 860 acres that the
foundation owns, and on this ledge by using only less than 202% of the of
the of the site we are building at Kante after setting up the camp about
eight years ago, where we have water, power and shade and so on. We began
the construction.
The construction is painfully slow because the money is coming in by the
eye drop or whatever. And one of the main resources to go under this
construction is people coming and working with us and paying for work? Uh
, that means that quite hopefully they are learning something. We are
meeting this before breakfast, uh, looking at the site in the shade
because it's summer a meeting. We have at least one of those meetings with
myself once a week, and they have a number of meetings among themselves,
with the staff and so on. So they come, they pay and they work about
between five and six weeks or longer. So with the mo the money, we we buy
, uh, materials, energy, you know how and equipment and so on. And then
they put their own, uh, labour to the construction. So it's a double
kind of help that we are receiving from people and they are mostly young
people students, and we are constantly trying to recruit naturally.
And then we are matching those ones with what we do at the foundation. But
this is the KANTI regional activity. Bells, ceramics, bells in metal,
small, big, inexpensive or very expensive. Some commissions. This is done
in Phoenix in front of the library, between the library and a museum,
small pieces that I do in Styrofoam and then they are translated in metal
sketches that I've been doing lately, also in the market to raise funds.
And this is part of the early model, which has been almost abandoned,
totally transformed. This is the camp about three years ago, with some of
the organic vegetable grown,
um, the campsite. I mean, the building site is up there. This is a view
from the South looking at the slope, which is eventually going to be a
greenhouse. And then the bulk of the building, which is transformed now.
But it's still 25 story high. And what of this or early model we have in
construction? Two boards, two residents with offices, ceramics, family and
restaurant with exhibition and so on. And at the same scale, you can see
them there.
This is the kind of sub soil that we have. It's a basaltic rock,
and this is the new from near the highway from the west, part of the early
model.
And this model, As I say, we build two boats one and two in the North Side
residences and so on. We use some of the techniques that we have been
working with in in Scottsdale, which means we I think it's a little too
high. We went, we go and a little bit. We take this silt, which is very
fine sand mixed with some kind of bentonite or whatever. It's all natural.
We are not adding anything, and this S, this very fine sand is packed,
and then it's patterned sometimes and painted with cement colours.
And by starting with the let's say with the skin, you, you end up by
having the skin incorporated in the structure. This is the foundation for
this vault,
and this is the final unit assembled.
The second law was added about two years ago, so now we have a F space,
which is where we assemble the modules in steel or in carpentry. Then we
have, uh, we can do many things there, including performances, dinners,
concerts and so on
the same technique, somehow using the sled as a bond breaker. This is a
slab, and you might pour a unit a module in the slab. Instead of using AAA
Bond breaker, a chemical bond breaker. You can put the sealed you can pour
liquid seal, let's say and then by doing that, you you invest the sealed
on the surface, which is shown there. This is the ceramic sets, and it's
like an acoustic shell with the opening to the south. That means that the
winter sun is allowed to penetrate in on the working area throughout the
winter. The closer you move toward the the hot, the heat of the summer,
the less sunshine you get to the point. But in the middle of the summer
you get quite a large shaded area working area. So I call this some kind
of a passive sun machine because through the shape to the methodology of
the system, you you obtain this climate, which is quite good winter and
summer. At this, in this kind of of climate, where you have quite a bit of
sunshine and the winter days are quite warm if you can If you can be
surrounded by a shell which separates you from the cold radiations and at
the same time you have the sunshine pouring in. The sum as that we are
saying is the opposite.
So this is the ceramic sets. And of course, we have been built using silt
again as one of the moulding materials, the inside of a of a residence
showing again the use of silt.
And this is the family which is somehow the same kind of apps that is
surrounded at the second level by, uh, two residences, two independent
rooms and two studios connected with the residences two level studios. So
the same procedure here, we're using the silt, the very rough forming the
finished form where we are cutting patterns. We are putting colours and we
are putting reinforcing still. Have you see there?
So this is the forming the negative. That is the the resulting structure.
This is the finished apps, the family with the residency with the two
studios, the ceramics, one resident, one of the walls. And then there are
the four story building, which is now almost completed. That's the foundry
in that building. There are some private rooms at this level, with
services in the north side, a two level place which will be eventually a
restaurant with a mezzanine where we have a cafe now and again. The
service in the north Side and an exhibition space on top exhibition
restaurant residences is the landscaping between the buildings in there,
The inside of the restaurant. We are using local stones for the retaining
walls, it, the ceramics, ceramics it was. It didn't take too long to find
out that those buildings were responding to a number of needs or they they
design somehow new needs. And that's what I call. That's what I mean when
I say that quite often the forum comes before the function,
and this is the lab in the on the outside of the two balls where we are
going to develop graphics and some and some woodwork
and returning to this question of what comes first, the function of the
forum. Those forums define define a very good condition for, uh, for
festivities, celebrations and so on. So we might have a small concert or a
mime or a speaker doing something there, and then we have here there. And
also you can project those sounds and lights at night, for instance, and
go there and listen and look. So we have the three festivals. The Festival
of October. The first weekend of October is the festival period. This
October, we are going to have four days. The conference is going to based
, which is part of the festival is going to be on the subject of the arts
and the environment for very specific reasons. But, uh, for instance, the
last three years, we we set up a stage on the bottom of, uh of this slope
and that's where we have the main performances, the smaller performances
that are going on in the vaults, in the apsis and also in the restaurant.
This was the opening of, uh, last year, uh, festival.
Last year, the subject of the of the conference was health healing and
self reliance. This was one of the meetings in the foundry apps.
We had dancers, many group many groups from Arizona and outside of Arizona.
The people in what is the temporary cut for the amphitheatre. We can We
can, uh serve about three or 4000 people here. And then if you go into the
main slope, then you can go up to many, many tens of thousands.
A certain point. We had dances all over the structures
there on ceramics, found stage and so on.
This is the ceramics ceramics
we are. We are a very good man that from New York that has beautiful
banners. This year we are going to have probably kites many, many kites
and balance.
But you know, this man leader leader
who live
there are minorities in this conference about help. You know that Lance
Indians Chicanos blacks.
So this this relationship of of a stage which eventually will be built.
The greenhouses which will in which the stage will be incorporated, the
large possibility of many thousands of people on on the natural and the
buildings which are performing part of the performing act. So we have
geology, climate, hour of the day, people groups, all the things working
together and quite well,
it will be far. All group from New York
dances under the vault. One of the meetings last year, again with Betty
Friedan, Mel Roman from New York and so on.
And we had a This was a, uh, Indian American Indian group. Some of the
shots at night. And this is a procession of Childrens with Japanese
lanterns. I think 70 Children, the two cranes. And then we got the the
world we had the welding going on while we have acrobatics there in the
town where we had the grinding going on. And then we had the shadow
playing of dancers against the walls or through the windows, and so on. At
the same time, we had music music going on so that the whole thing was co
ordinated, but not the best coordinations. But it begin to show the
potential of the side welding, grinding
again, welding light.
And then on the opposite side we had the Spectators with the main stage.
And then we had things going on on the cliff on the slope, groups of
dancers, processions and so on. And finally, in this group of slides, the
swimming pool which originated with the idea that we would try to use the
sun as as a heater. So we cut this the platform along this slope where we
have a nice cliff rock formation there we put a bed of rocks about 2 ft
high, which is going to be a a perforated bed with the hot air from the
from the greenhouse is going to be conveyed under to the chimney effect.
So sloping greenhouse hot air conveyed under conveying itself under and
venting along the rock. The rock themselves are going to accumulate quite
a bit of energy. The sun is quite low in the winter, so this warms up and
begins to begins to radiate. So the combination of those things should be
sufficient to raise the temperature up to the point where you can swim
even in the winter and the swimming pool is almost completed. Now we are
trying to open it by May. This is the view from the north. This is going
to be a part of the deck. The deck is finished. This is the engine, the
equipment room. This is the sloping to the south. That's the camp. This is
going to be a water pond. Hopefully eventually and that's farming land.
Our land goes up to the power line there. Now I'm leaving aan to come back
to it at the end to show the transformation of the model of the general
structure, and I'm going through very quickly the earlier colleges. The
fundamental notion is that life is a very intense phenomenon, very complex
, the most complex thing that we can we can anticipate throughout the
universe in terms of life or or a phase of this complexity. And so the the
notion is that there is no way by which we can simplify or return to
conditions of more elementary association or or culture, and so on. We are
going to be more complex, never more more simple because that goes against
the grain of conscience, consciousness, mental work and so on. So you got
a paradigm. If you work on that long enough, you got a paradigm where you
find out that you have more life where you have more complexity. You have
more complexity whether you have more miniaturisation, and I'll get into
that a little later. But that's the by line for the idea that any kind of
habitat has to be very, very conscious of that paradigm.
Uh, in the MIT book of the illustration of those, I had 24 or two or so
ideas we developed So we put them in a book. This was a floating system.
You have collection and and transformation of material from the sea fish,
mineral chemicals, whatever the consumption on the spot and also the the
export, the export would define some of the capability of this community
to to survive and so on. Eventually, you would build, uh, urban ris
connecting those units of those harvesting and processing units so this
could become a floating metropolitan system on a continental shelf. The
same notion, uh, something floating in the water in different kinds of
structural and performing terms.
The idea of a dam that, in a way it's a wasted, um, gigantic masonry in
the sense that the same masonry could contain. Besides being a container
of a floor, it could also be a container of life. So by designing tent,
you can take the idea of a dam and make it into an idea of of a city dam.
If it's small, it could be a resort centre. If it's large, it could be a
metropolitan system. Water is available for the energy for farming,
domestic purposes, recreation, power production and so on. And sometimes
those sites are quite striking and beautiful.
You think you could put the other one?
Thank you.
I have a series of very rough models to indicate somehow to show a
parallel between the Palestinian building as a size and what those ideas
in terms of community could be. This was a suggested something like less
than 20,000 people, a community in a hot climate where the community
itself becomes the big umbrella, the big parasol for the main staging of
public activities.
So thank you. This was still the damn thing.
So this was a unit that I. I tend to suggest, as a farm town for farmers,
which might sound strange in this country. It's very normal in Asia and
Europe. Most of the farmers live in towns. This is the same thing for
Lisbon. It could be a farming town where the families of the farmer might
choose to have to live in an habitat which can offer resources beyond the
farm condition again. The invested building to indicate the size. Now I'm
showing this because, uh, I'm I'm constantly saying that we are not
involved in mega structures. We are involved in mini structures. The
reason is that this. If you develop this two dimensionally, you get
something which you get a structure which might be 20 times as big. So you
move from a from a very large, let's say, pizza structure pancake
structure to a very small, three dimensional structure. So it's a mini.
It's a militarization of the urban landscape. This is inside of the second
one that you saw, indicating mainly the those spaces which could be
commercial, public, social and so on. Because we are trying to keep the
exterior, uh, for the urban for I mean for the private conditions, homes,
apartments and so on. Another example in this series, about 1 million
population and the main point to make here that again, since you are in
the car pedestrian due to the mini landscape by being a pedestrian, you,
uh, you eliminate the automobile. The automobile has no no access. There
are no roads, period. There are only streets, arcades, plazas and whatever.
It's acceptable and desirable for for people, not for automobiles. You
can walk throughout it. If you live here, you can have your grand
grandparents there or vice versa. That means that you are not sitting on
top of each other. But you you have this access on a daily basis without
the need of of devices like automobile and so on. And that means that the
child can do that. The nurse can do that. The businessman can do that. And
you you find out that your life can be enriched by eliminating those gaps
in time. Space, frustration, energy, pollution and so on. The fact of a
minimised landscape defines an immediate country between the cityscape,
the manmade and the open country, which I think again, it's a very crucial
element to to survey, especially for the underprivileged. Usually when you
are trapped in a city which is the poor, the poor roses site, I mean it
doesn't have access to nature. And if you think of the Children's putting
that kind of condition, you see how squalid life might become. So this is
an attempt also to define this continuous connection between the habitat,
which can be crucially intense and outside outside it, it's almost the
opposite. Uh, services, utilities and so on would be minimised in terms
again of length of a section in, you know, uh, floor
and also the the administrations, probably could be cut down, which means
you begin to see the possibility of the reduction of bureaucratic machines
remoteness. Due to that and all the consequences of feeling impotent
within a gigantic system.
This imply implies saving, uh, in terms of ecological sanity, saving of
land, saving of water, saving of of energy, saving of materials.
And if you can get the sun to work into it, then you introduce this
additional element in terms of a democratic kind of resource.
The non dependence from a large governmental or or corporate systems for
your resources in terms of energy,
could you do the same thing? Thank you.
So we we have a number of models and they are not all here. But, uh, I
hope you got the some some ideas of why the third dimension being
introduced.
Two more examples. One is the concept of the linear city. This is a very,
very rough model. But the con if you cut through here again in a very
simplified way, you are at the central level Logistical network. That's
where automobiles, trains, thematic transportation and even air
transportation would be the bulk of the logistical, uh, network.
That means that you could plug them to this network communities from the
very small to the very large.
And by doing that you have this transportation has worked very close to
your house. You have your house in into the into the social and public,
and, uh, and cultural institution for the city and again, you you have
immediate contact with the open. When if if you break down this, you get
the unsolvable problems of of the diaspora, where things become
unmanageable and you lose touch, social touch, touch with nature and your
somehow your civilization seems to be on the brink of collapse.
Linear city means a continuity. Continuity would mean, in some instances,
the bridging of some obstacle, like a canyon or a river and so on again,
extremes to illustrate the possibilities,
uh, according to a certain approach, which is again complexity and
implosion
and last in the series. The idea that,
uh, airports are really, uh, places where no one no one is interested in
going or coming from. So why not build a city instead of an airport? Well
, a big airport employs more than 100,000 people, so you have already, uh
, an an embryonic city there. So the question would be to redesigning and
see in it the the quality of permanence and an intensity that belongs to a
city. So in this case, according to a certain pattern in New Jersey, we
have we suggested the landing steps. Suppose you land. The engine turns
off, is turned off, the aircraft is pulled in in this taxi ring and you
are practically disembarking or getting onto the plane at the centre of
the city. The city is never flown on top because everything is tangential
to it.
Mm. This is the land, the taxing ring. But the indications of industries
will agree. Agree with the with the green belt. And this is the bulk of
the city in this case, about 1 million population.
Uh, we developed some libras indicating the time gaps between activities.
So it it's a question of hundreds of feet instead of tens of miles, and
it's a question of minutes or seconds. Instead of dozens of minutes and so
on, the consumption of energy would be reduced, the pollution will be
almost eliminated. And you you can enrich your life. If this landscape is
well defined, and if if it becomes a very exciting place to travel to,
it's again. It's a mini landscape. Now I'm trying to explain the urban
effect, which is based on this idea of complexity miniaturisation and I'm
beginning from the very beginning, and I cannot read it. Thank you. Zoom a
little. Thank you. Um, a little more. That's good.
This is a a diagram. Uh, somehow, based on a western view of of the cosmos
, the evolutionary process, it's a process. It's not a state, no matter
what you look at. So we have a mass in the universe, which is the basis of
this process. The deterministic way is deterministic because some other
rules that we think are unchangeable the laws of gravity, gravitational
law, electric,
chemical or whatever. And it's a it's a cosmogenesis, and I tend to call
it the universe of indifference. And listed here are cats, which are very
much pertinent to the idea of the of the urban effect. This the problem of
the consciousness, uh, mental processes, social processes, cultural
processes in the city. This universe is insensitive, structural, Similar,
predictable, granular, rational, statistical and tropic. And segregation.
The physical universe. Uh, not spring or the possibility of this becoming
something else has been exemplified, at least on one spot. The earth, the
genetic way, the biogenesis, the biological universe, the universal. In a
sense, if you see it mainly as plants and animals, it is social Cooper
sensitised, no civil or Iver selective evolutionary durational and
unconscious and instinctual. I'll explain this again in terms of this one
spot in the universe in the cultural way, the human universe, the
homogenesis, the universe of conscience, good and evil, its cultural,
social Cooper compassionate, willfully reversible, evolutionary, direct
conscious, mental and so on aesthetic, then some kind of an extrapolation
, sacramental way. The divine universe with Geo Genesis. It is seminal
aesthetic, resurrection or catalysing loving, universal gener, the
universe of transcendence. It will appear very quickly that in this
diagram, at least from my point of view, Grace is not of the origin but
could be potentially at the end. It's a possibility we can anticipate the
possibility of grace at the end. By grace, I mean total knowledge, total
wisdom, total beauty and so on.
So you move from the simple relatively speaking to the complex, utterly
complex. You move from the nonconscious or what we call the non living
into the conscious and living and so on. And besides those
characterization or repeating and emphasising those characterization, you
could say that this is development and an escalation of Cooper compassion
, liveliness, intensity, interdependence association,
uh,
sensitivity responses, reliance, learning, memory, hierarchy, knowledge,
passion, anticipation, care, transcendence, reverence and so on. And this
seems to be pointing at the fact that evolution, when it's successful, is
a process of moving into more complex system where you have more
interaction, more Cooper. More understanding, more knowledge and so on
to small illustrate the case of this complexity ever growing and
miniaturisation related to complexity. I take a seed, I plant it, and I
suggest that the process of the seed becoming a tree is not so much the
explosion of the seed into something bigger but the implosion of
environmental elements into something very small, intensely organised,
synergistically active, able to reproduce itself and so on. So from the
soil you get minerals, including water, distances are measuring
centimetres or kilometres. In the area. You have another story. You really
have a cosmic coordinator in terms of of, uh, light energy coming in
hundreds of thousands of miles and so on. And those elements which are
scattered like it's called them photons and miners and so on. They come,
they are captured. They are. They are elaborated. They are made into the
organism. So the the photosynthetic process connected with the chemical
processes biochemical processes of the seed becoming a tree. Uh, this this
phenomenon of complexity and miniaturisation the tree is one example it
can be any kind of animal organism can be an association of animals. It
can be an association of people or peoples. But the indication of 3000
millions of years is that this is the way by which matter become
sensitised and eventually could become spirit. So you have a mass energy
universe in which you have the parameter of time space as devices by which
this mass energy universe tends to become, possibly at a certain point,
the seed of itself. So in a way, the genesis of of this process is to
produce the ultimate genes, which is the idea of divinity, grace and so on.
Now, in on the earth, we call this person the ecological dynamics. So if
you if you think that there might be an end or an eschatological meaning
to it. You could say that the ecological process is a Theo ecological
process is an attempt, at a certain point, developed by the universe to
find the meaning of itself and by doing that to transfigure itself into
robs knowledge and so on.
Now what I've been presenting defines a certain model, which is almost the
opposite of of the traditional model. The traditional model says that
reality exists somehow completed. What they are doing is to try to
understand what it is through the process of learning and through the
evolutionary process. But God, is there perfect. You can call it God,
nirvana, truth, logos or whatever. But it exists and it might be an
observed. It might be observing or might be guiding. But it is there. So
this is the revelation of universe. Whatever we do, it's in a way, an
uncovering of an existing truth. The model I'm suggesting is very
different. You are not in calling it through. We are creating it, and most
of the of this doesn't exist yet because the future is in a way much more
dense of potential than the past has been so you have an empty socket,
which is the future, and this empty socket is begging for to be created in
attempting to create this future. We we anticipate and we produce
religious structures. So divinity is a blueprint that we have invented.
Now we have to realise it by the process of evolution. So this is the
evolutionary model or the creational model, and the two have implications
in terms of ethics and social and and culture, which are quite quite
different in emphasis. At least
I'll, uh, I would say with those but a repetition of the first diagram in
in different form. If you accept the notion of the Big Bang, you could
imagine that at that point the universe begins to act. It goes from being
into becoming within this becoming. You have the origin of nodules of
conscience, consciousness like on the Earth. Those are beginning to
transform this phenomenon into something else. So it's the media, the
regional media, without any message that eventually could become a message
which has consumed the media or its reality, going out as a matter of and
coming in as spirit.
Using the complexity miliar coordinates and having a time coordinate on
the 45 degrees. As a diagram, you could suggest that there are two
extremes, which are one is represented somehow somehow by by the Western
Mo os and even by the Eastern S. This is a very gross simplification, but
just as to try to make the point in the West, we tend to be very clever,
in fact, extremely clever in defining system by which militarization is,
quite evidently, the goal. Take the the technology of the computer. We are
tremendously successful in moving toward the militarization. What we are
lacking sometimes is to the motivation for that what the motivation is. It
tends to be matter oriented, materialistic. The consumerist society is a
very good example. So we have got a matter forgetting that, perhaps that
this is a function of something greater than than matter itself, which is
spirit on the East. You might have the opposite condition where there are
construction, which are very complex in terms of spiritual models,
religious notion, traditions and myth, and so on. But there is a tendency.
Perhaps there was a tendency to ignore the physical from the
physiological to the to the environmental. So you have a You have a
continuous critical situation in terms of health, for instance, and so on.
So in this case, you have an authority of spirit which is transposed to
the authority of matter. Uh, my suggestion is that we should be able to
find a more balanced situation so that we can move into this evolutionary
trust with better with better success,
which is what this tends to represent.
Could you balance? No, wait, wait, wait a second. Maybe I. I can still
Yeah. Could you make this a little bigger on this point? Now I'm coming
down from the very general model, which entails a certain theological
reference to the conditions of society, especially the Western society,
and relating those to this possibility of transforming the habitat so it
might be more responsive to the critical condition that we are in. I'm
saying that this idea of complexity, militarization if applied and I call
that archaeological commitment you would have an alleviation of ecological
crisis, every dimension of our use of land, air and water. A reduction in
the pollution caused by technological societies, the perception of the
nature of waste, affluence and oul a reasonable sheltering of man which is
moving now beyond the four billions and might go up to 10 or more billions
of individuals. The resolution of the problem of energy depletion,
distribution and consumption, the resolution of the problem of segregation
, of people, things and activities. Responding to the increasing
encroachment of remoteness by way of the gigantic system that we are
developing, like Phoenix and and the services which have to be connected
with them, the bureau cutting machines and so on.
The next step is to move into the facts that I I pulled out from from the
menu that they can work with to define a physical model.
So you have, uh, the horticultural effect within our greenhouse condition.
Two effects there.
The ABS effect, which I explained briefly at the beginning the ability of
some structure to shade themselves during the week during the summer where
the sun is high and to get quite a bit of sunshine and accumulate its
energy. In the winter, the chimney fab connected with this type of moving
air at a certain way and then, in addition, the ability of structure of
bulk of mass to accumulate energy to store energy and then giving it out.
For instance, when the temperature surrounding it it's slower than the
temperature that has built up into the building. So that's the heat sink
effect, which makes for the five effects and those five effects
you see for that, uh, we are trying to make them work around the urban
effect and coming back quickly to the urban effect. It is that kind of
phenomenon, which seems to be originating at the very beginning of life,
where the particles are becoming conscious of each other, they begin to
work out. They they transform themselves, and they they develop this
synergistic process by which life it becomes possible. So embryonic or no
or no within the weather region, let's say a virus. You have already
synergy intensity, consciousness of some sort of transcendence, brugal,
sensitivity, beauty, knowledge, interdependence, coordinations, compassion
and so on. They they begin there. They they accelerate that their
formation, and eventually they become very evident in in the nature of man
and actually in what man is doing as a social animal animal. So you could
suggest again that the urban effect it's very central to the emotional
process and in a way it could be seen as, uh, that kind of impulse, which
will make eventually for the development of the ultimate logos, divinity
or whatever. Um, now very modestly. We are trying to get those five
effects working around the urban effect in one system. By doing that, we
would be saving our resources, land, water, time, energy. We would save in
minerals, and we would have an ecological ecological sanity. We would cut
on pollution, segregation, waste business, bureaucracies in isolation,
alienation and so on. We would point at better possibility in learning and
integrity in reaching health in identification and Cooper and so on. The
next step is to move into a natural spatial diagram. So I take the the
greenhouse as a as a guiding element. I begin with the greenhouse as a
flat surface, sheltered by a skin transparent skin. You need equipment and
energy to ventilate the greenhouse, especially in the summer months,
depending naturally where you are in the in the climate. But if you start
the greenhouse, you can get most of the ventilation, if not all of it to
the chimney effect, and that way you can invent that energy accumulated
energy outside or inside something. You can put a greenhouse as an
envelope around the house. You can build a dome of some sort and build
levels of activities. Within the dome, You can make a greenhouse into a
wafer where only the energy collected is used so that you have a sun
collector, which can be incorporated one way or the other into the
structure of the house. You can maintain the two assets or the two
characteristics of the greenhouse food production and some and energy
collection in terms of warm air. For instance, if you stop the greenhouse
, you have this possibility of using again the chimney effect or the
raising of the air into the house. For instance, winter conditions. You
can transform the house into a collection of houses or other institutions
so that you begin to see the connection between that kind of mould and and
the village or the town or the metropolitan system. You take the town as
such, and you transform it in terms of of sensitization with the sun to
the sun, which is the ABS effect, at least one way of doing it. In
addition, there you have a better capability of the structure to
accumulate energy again, especially if you if you start to work with that
notion. So here you have the fire effects connected, working around the
urban effect. So that's the typical section of psychology an example,
which is the most elementary one which we have been working on. It's a
possible public centre on a centre on a public park where we have a
natural slope. This is near India. In California, natural smoke. You cut a
ditch, you build shelves, you put a membrane as a greenhouse. So you have
the greenhouse chimney effect, horticultural effect. Then we begin to have
some sort of a heat sink and urban effect there because we have a number
of things like
lectures, uh, projections, little collections, and so on, like a museum.
So this is a very simple application of those five effects plus one. You
can move from that very sea to the very, very highly complex that could be
a town of many thousands of people or many hundreds of thousands of people
going back to the ABS factory state again. The notion This is a shot in
the in the summer is shot in the winter. The difference is this. This is
midday. This is before the sun comes on the south side. But anyhow, it's
it's, uh, it's still clear that in this case, the sun pours in very, very
deep for many hours a day. So you have You have sunshine and you have
sheltering from the cold radiations. In this case, you have shade
sheltering from the hot radiations.
So that's the ABS effect again, illustrated here by a winter shot and a
summer shot.
Uh, about three years ago, we were able to get some help from the Xerox
Corporation, and the Bicentennial Commission came in. So we have. We
developed a number of models, and they were all based with this to this
notion, the two sons of colleges. The sketches here represents the
introduction of owns, which could become a very great asset to to a large
the shade volume within this system, which, especially in a climate like
Phoenix or Arizona, it's one of the key elements for, uh, for the climate
of A of A system. So eventually we made a model. We exposed the model to a
sound machine to see our factory, the apps effect of working. And
basically this is the model that you're going to see repeated a number of
times. The some collect in terms of a greenhouse, which produces food for
local consumption or export, or both. And the greenhouse feeds directly
passively into the main mall that it could be a marketplace, a buzzard or
something else, depending a little on the character of the society. But it
would be a public place connecting the two main residential and working
areas, especially in this case instead of an app is that it through from
cones, you can add shade here in the summer, but even if you don't put
shade in, the building itself is able to shade itself quite successfully.
You can see that in June and December, the two the Thursday You see
sunshine in December Shade. In June,
we were able to put some effort in finding out how much energy was falling
on the structure, how much could be captured and stored, how much could be
used and so on. And then we developed models, depending on technologies on
a number of people's topography, geology and climate. This was for the
Sape Bay, where there was a natural a natural slope on the southeast side.
So those are the greenhouses developed on those two slopes and feeding
into the building?
Uh, you keep in mind that, uh, those are mainly, uh, more That could be
very useful in, uh, in, uh, places where there are lots of sunshine and,
uh, and also possibly a rigid climate. Very high change in temperature,
winter and summer, and also night and day. In addition, you have in this
condition or usually you have a limitation, a limited amount of water
available. So the greenhouse becomes very important because it saves an
enormous amount of water for food production,
a condition which we compare to some of the climate. In Nevada, where we
have a slope south slope, we terrace the slope. We put the membrane the
membrane into again into the room. The main public space within the town
again. A very small town. The transformation of the crown into two
straight blades with some kind of the same general results the use of the
same idea for a place in Regina in the centre of the town. They had a
graveyard that was moved outside of the town. So there was a competition.
We suggested the placement on Archology, where we have again the same kind
of section typical section and above the garages or the warehousing. We
developed the greenhouses. It's a very windy region temperature which can
be very rigid, down to 50 or 60 below grey below zero in the winter, but a
great amount of sunshine. So, in a way, an ideal spot where we could
develop. We could have developed an intermediate stage, almost an outdoor
place, but sheltered from those extremes wind and temperature,
Another example of extremes where the suggestion was that the greenhouses
and then the greenhouses become a garden for the for the town. In this
case, you have to introduce energy because the assumption was that the
climate would be very rigid, especially in winter. So that you that you
need some kind of resource, like oil, coal, timber, industries so you can
use the leftovers and so on. But in this case, the psychological asset
would be the main asset. You develop a green outdoor. Well, maybe you have
, uh, many field of snow around it, and so on.
The idea of a dam, which somehow has a shape which is very amiable to this
kind of use. If it's oriented to the South
and we have many, many ideas to develop, we develop only a few of them.
Those were the sketches for the dam,
and one was a village which ended up by being called the Indian Village.
Because a young architect from India was developed involved in the model
and the same kind of thing, the slope would be partially covered by the
greenhouse that they see only half of that there. And then the village
will develop with very elementary technology into this kind of thing,
where you have the buzzer and the living quarters and then some other
institution for the city with the same kind of diagram
the feeding of the energy and winter throughout the village.
Uh, I'm almost. This is an idea that developed in the fifties, and in the
sixties we made a little model. It was part of the MIT book. It's a It's a
space, uh, city. It's a cylinder rotating on this axis. It's lined by
vegetation. So you stand inside of this green belt this green barrel, and
by studying by rapping at that. If you get really into it, you will find
out that you have all the elements which are part of the city mode. But
they are exasperated. The most exasperated is miniaturisation, evidently
because we have to be very careful in what you do with space. But there is
Cooper in interdependence, synergy, learning memory. All sorts of things
are very much basic in this kind of process, because by definition this is
a frugal system, which is one reason why we will eventually move into
space. This was picked up, wasn't picked up, but General O'Neil came to me
and asked me a suggestion about his, uh, space colonies. So I was asked to
respond to his ideas. So I made a I made a model and I made a lot of paper.
The paper was suggesting that the space is going to be colonised for two
fundamental reasons which are somehow coinciding. One is frugality, the is
theology. We are going there because that's where the resources are going
to be eventually the the unlimited resources and we are going there
because we are going to make the universe into into our thinking um,
conscious phenomenon. It's going to take a few billions of years, but so
this model was transformed into something more complex. This is a barrel
about 1010 kilometres in length. You have different kinds of gravities,
the more you move away from the centre and you have about seven or eight
landscapes, one barrel inside the other one. The first is a is a
technological bar where you have all sorts of things, including
warehousing and on the skin, also as a shell shield inside on that surface
and in the surface, we have a water condition for the storage of water for
aquaculture, possibly and also for as a reflector of energy and light to a
hanging garden, which is, they would say, the vegetable gardens on that
barrel again. And on top of this skin of this battle, we have a landscape
which is very much connected with the urban condition, which is again a
hanging condition, many layers thick, which has also another landscape on
on top of it, which means inside of it and then the you have a condition
of quasi
weightlessness where you could develop technologies and uh, including the
the health technology and so on.
And lastly, before the a anti the idea of an archology that could be a
floating city. So we have the typical section, the greenhouses and the
town, Let's say, but in this case the system can be rotated very easily
because it's a It's a buoyant system, so you could always follow the sun
in such a way as to have an optimal condition both winter and summer. I
suggested the introduction of the iceberg as a resource for fresh water if
fresh water is limited and the asberg could also be a refrigeration
resource in the hot summer months, and then you could make it into a very
crazy kind of landscape. Three dimensional playground, I mean.
And this is the intermediate model of our CAS Antiva, used in a typical
section and developing existing buildings so that this this area becomes a
sheltered and basically shaded space in the summer, when the winter
becomes a collector of energy for those buildings. So those are the
existing buildings we are developing now, a crescent for 14 minutes of
living. This is what I I called them. The cloister, which is a conference
centre and we have another crescent here for a guest, mainly as a project.
And then from this we move into this mo model with another kind of
structural approach. So we are here now, far from the indefinite, but
that's where we are. The greenhouse is on the slope that we have seen at
the beginning. The connection with the green with the main building. The
main building is 25 story. Each level doesn't have just habitation have
habitations, plus activities of different kinds, small industries, private
initiatives and so on. And the main level, the ground level is the main
social and public activity goes on.
The building itself has its own greenhouse conditions because of light and
sun coming in in winter, and it becomes a shade in the summer. The
building could have extensive owns connecting the two points, Let's say so
that you can add shading there.
Uh, not very successful attempt of the buildings to come down. But, um,
there are two two main climate conditions. One is the winter. One is the
summer in the winter, you have the intake of cold air or relatively cold
air to the to the at the base of the greenhouse. The greenhouses are
causing this air to warm up and to rise the rising it it becomes a chimney
like rising to the building. Especially if you if you boost that with DS
or whatever or everything passive at least theoretically in the summer,
you can reverse the process because of the dryness of the of the climate.
You you have openings on the on top of the greenhouse. You, um you fire
the air to rapidly cooling of some sort pulverise water or padding or
whatever. The air becomes heavy and cool, and it falls throughout the
building. You can lose that with different openings at different levels.
So theoretically, you have two passive system of warm of heating in the
winter and cool in the summer. We are working with them Environmental
Research Centre in Tucson, which is furnishing us the elements for the
development of these of the formulas. And they seem to be quite happy with
what they are finding out. So, as I say fundamentally two passive ways by
which we climatize in addition, we would have developed we will develop,
uh, hot water systems, some collectors for domestic purposes, and in
addition, we have the production of food. If you add to that the smallest
of the building, the capacity of using it without the use of the mobile.
The integrity of this potential of the community because it's working
within one system doesn't have doesn't have the barriers that we are
building around ourselves now and so on. You get an idea of the six
effects working together
well, this is the model of the question, which is this combination of 14
units around the theatre.
The theatre is an open theatre, but part of it could be imposed that we
could put a tent. We have a frame for a tent there, and the the would be
where you have a daily cycle of Children, playgrounds and meeting during
the evening or whatever movies, concerts and whatever you might have
according to assistant schedule, including, um, a marketplace.
So this would be serving not only the the 14 units, but also the people
that are beginning to settle at Dante. There's an existing buildings, the
two vaults, one of the residences.
I think you don't have to worry too much if you can get it out.
This is somehow uh,
almost an arrogant parallel between what I call the the Los Angeles
Syndrome and the oncology syndrome. This is actual, I think, and we
probably we could agree on most of those things. This is theoretical
because it hasn't been tested today, but has been tested quite quite a bit
throughout history. Because I was saying I really trying to do the routine.
Not the exception. The bigness against smallness, expectation, fitness,
segregation, integration matter, mind power, authority, destruction,
conservation, pollution and pollution. Enthropy and enthropy this
intensity even short of fragmented the structure Exclusive Inter
complicated, complex bureaucratic performing through the greedy culture in
Congress and Congress.
Um,
I I'm ready to to get some questions.