The Arcology Precedent

This is an excerpt from the book “The Urban Ideal, Conversations with Paolo Soleri” as edited by John Strohmeier and published by Berkeley Hills Books and reprinted in 2001.
This particular excerpt is from a recorded conversation between former California Governor Jerry Brown at his hime in Oakland, California. It was recorded in 1995.


JB: Let's focus now on the city of the future. Having talked about all this, I get a sense of the criteria for the new city. It certainly doesn't look like Oakland or Manhattan or Los Angeles.
Soleri: Perhaps it is not too different from the old examples of successful cities. There have been periods in European history, for instance, when cities were successful. They gave us the Renaissance and then developments from the Renaissance up to the present day. The fact that we are gregarious, we are political, we need each other, indicates that eventually, the city is going to be, as it has been in the past, the container of community.
Now, Phoenix, Arizona is a structure of about six hundred square miles. So it's gigantic, and like so many cities, it doesn't work very well. It's sluggish by necessity, because it's gigantic. It depends on logistical systems which are colossal, in fact futile. So just in physical terms, in
terms of gravity and thermodynamics, Phoenix negates what Phoenix would like to be, which is lively, intense, joyful and so on. What we need is to take Phoenix, and in a way, fold it over upon itself, make it three-dimensional, so that we miniaturize its landscape, and by doing that we eliminate all the problems of the gigantic. This is pure physics; this has nothing to do with metaphysics. This is the fact that time and space are very precious and we should use them in the best way we can.
JB: Okay, now as you fold Phoenix into a three-dimensional city, what's it going to look like?
Soleri: Well, perhaps we would subdivide Phoenix into, let's say, ten sections, and then begin to build properties that are no longer one or two floors, but that are many, many floors, maybe up to fifty, maybe more. This is very efficient, it's where frugality comes in, producing less pollution and less waste. Depending upon the population, each section might be a quarter of a mile square, that depends on the number of people and the technology you want to put in.
JB: Would everything people do be done within that building?
Soleri: I would tend to say, yes, if you want to achieve a great efficiency...


This is a good starting point to describe what I want to do with the building form of my thesis. The more I read, and the more I discover about how ineffecient the way we live is, the more I realize that some kind of solution must be presented. Yet, the solution can't be such a change of lifestyle. That will be the challenge. Le Corbusier, and Soleri discuss the wasteful nature of the suburban home. Soleri specifically about the every increasing size of these homes. It is completely unnecessary in most cases for a couple with no children, or children that have grown, to build a new 6,000 sf home. But the nature of this is that it is a sign of stature. Maybe in this new building, the signs of stature can be different. Considering that a home in this building can't be observed from a distance to measure it's size, a person can claim stature, instead of by size, but by quality, or style, or experience. Some of these things are incorperated in societies image of stature already, so it isn't that big of a jump.

So in conclusion of this particular post, it's the environment stupid.

Like the COMfester's say

NO PLANET, NO PARTY