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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] interesting....
  • Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2005 08:31:51 -0700


Hey, Gene. Know anything about this?

http://www.arcosanti.org/project/main.html

Lynda

It's in my book. I have visited Arcosanti many times starting in the mid-seventies. I've also attended a weekly session with Paolo Soleri at his Cosanti home in Scottsdale, where they make and sell wind chimes as at Arcosanti, a smaller production operation but a good retail place for the project. He is one smart dude. Little bitty guy, probably doesn't weight 110 pounds but he has a huge brain. When he asked my interest and I told him about homesteading and my book he smiled and looked knowingly at one of his associates. Our individual homestead model conflicts with his more sustainable vision--and reality at Arcosanti--of close community sharing tools and facilities and minimizing vehicular use. Arcosanti is a design we can all learn from.

One of the first structures at Arcosanti was the foundry, which is shaped as an apse. They piled up a bodacious amount of soil, put a design into the surface that would later appear on the underside of the concrete roof, installed reinforcing steel, poured the concrete shell and after the concrete cured, dug out the dirt. Magnificent structure that will last centuries. Catches winter sun and holds the heat, shades from summer sun and tempers the heat with the great mass. Essentially zero maintenance. It is a design I consider for a garden house. Built into a hill, earth bermed, and closed with movable glass, it would be even more temperature steady. I see it as a greenhouse/nursery/tool storage building.

Arcosanti is well worth a visit for anyone driving Highway 17 between Flagstaff and Phoenix.









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