2005-01-24
URBAN PLANNING
Arcologies | Visionary architect Paolo Soleri, during much of the latter half of the 20th century, sheparded the creation and devoplment of an experimental urban center known as Arosanti and based near Arizona | Author Ivan B. Schonfeld has written in some detail about Soleri's vision and goals | Arcosanti also got a major write up in Electronic Green Journal |
The objectives in such endeavors include:
A similar project vision, Auroville has been progressing in southern India | That project was initiated in 1968 and has grown since that time | The project has a clear overarching vision and, unlike Soleri's Arcosanti, has been meshed with the local community experiencing successes and pitfalls [the latter when a developer bought a tract of land without concerns for integrating his efforts into the larger community]
On a less grand scale, Milagro co-housing outside of Tucson, Arizona, has been working on a housing development that seems more compatible with the local habitat than other communities nearby | But the focus of that effort is principally on housing, not community overall |
So, where am I going with this? | Mainly to explore some less than conventional ways of thinking about how humans live with and interact together with the planet | ¶ 01:48
Arcologies | Visionary architect Paolo Soleri, during much of the latter half of the 20th century, sheparded the creation and devoplment of an experimental urban center known as Arosanti and based near Arizona | Author Ivan B. Schonfeld has written in some detail about Soleri's vision and goals | Arcosanti also got a major write up in Electronic Green Journal |
The objectives in such endeavors include:
• reducing reliance on invidual transitSince it's inception in the 1980s the Arcosanti site itself has been slow to get beyond what looks like the beginning of a massive construction project, but it's not the progress of the initial project so much as the concept of arcology itself that seems to me to be important |
• minimizing wasteful construction practices
• dense development while preserving vast open spaces
• building with closer consideration to the impact on the environment
• developing a sense of community over mere placement of structures
A similar project vision, Auroville has been progressing in southern India | That project was initiated in 1968 and has grown since that time | The project has a clear overarching vision and, unlike Soleri's Arcosanti, has been meshed with the local community experiencing successes and pitfalls [the latter when a developer bought a tract of land without concerns for integrating his efforts into the larger community]
On a less grand scale, Milagro co-housing outside of Tucson, Arizona, has been working on a housing development that seems more compatible with the local habitat than other communities nearby | But the focus of that effort is principally on housing, not community overall |
So, where am I going with this? | Mainly to explore some less than conventional ways of thinking about how humans live with and interact together with the planet | ¶ 01:48
