Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> 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.