Arcosanti
Authors Note — I live in a suburban city in India and being a developing nation it is very common to hear the word smart city. It is often the methodology used by politicians to gain votes and symbolise what a modern development should look like. Our country is heavily influenced by Western culture and I fear we may end up repeating the same mistakes of development found in current-day cities of the United States. With the 2nd largest population, the methodologies used there will not work for us and we may need to invent our own way of understanding and building cities. This is a series into that dialogue of understanding and developing.
ARCOLOGY
Arcology, a portmanteau of “architecture and “ecology”, is a field of creating architectural design principles for very dense populations with low ecological impacts. This would in some terms represent the utopian city.
ARCOSANTI
The prime example of a project that came close was the town of Arcosanti, designed by an Italian architect Paolo Soleri’s principles. This town located within the deserts of Arizona on a 4000-acre piece of plot was meant to be the start of a Utopian city. The architect's concept was to identify a small plot of land while leaving the rest untouched. It focused on pedestrian-first spaces through the idea of interconnected volumes. Vehicles would only be on the outskirts to travel long distances. The town was designed for housing, office spaces, workshops, studios and mixed-use spaces. It also catered through energy generation as well as in-house food production.
How was Arcology Implemented within the town?
Arcology is the blend of energy conservation and land use efficiency. It is a circular model, not a linear one which focuses on energy efficiency as a means of conservation as well a means of generation. They also look at food and waste circular models. This is achieved through Biophilic design prioritising the wind and the sun being built by a method pioneered by Paolo Solari of concrete silt casting. The form of apses, 1/4th of a sphere is designed to maximise the winter sun and minimise the summer sun. The concrete apses also work as a heat sink, absorbing the heat during the day and releasing it at night.
Acosanti is often linked to miniaturisation. Why so?
At the core of Soleri’s (1983)paradigm, and the premise for Arcosanti was the Complexity Miniaturization-Duration principle which saw urban places as capable of the same type of expansion and organic growth. As the complexity of an organism increases it tends to become denser becoming more efficient, hence miniaturization is a part of the evolutionary process.
Why is Densification necessary?
As of 2008, it is estimated 50% of the world’s population will stay in cities and this will increase to 70% by 2050. There needs to be a change in prioritisation as well as the direction of development. Soleri stated that it is important to reorganise the dense urban sprawl into 3-dimensional towns and cities. In Celada (2013) Soleri stated “All organisms are three-dimensional and cities need to adopt that fundamental tenant of organic life. They need to reject the gigantism that is killing them, starting with the cars that push them into absurd horizontal dimensions”
The average density of development in the United States is roughly 2 dwelling units per acre (Farr, 2008). Soleri’s original idea for Arcosanti is that it would eventually house approximately 5000 people on only 15 acres which would result in a density of about 350 people per acre which is ten times the density of New York City. Hence density is an important method of achieving this.
Smart Growth VS New Urbanism
The government is proposing the concept of smart cities which is very different from new urbanism, as smart cities often look at additions to existing structures and road networks in traditional ways whereas new urbanism believes in developing from scratch and building a self-sufficient city on a small plot of land. Smart growth looks at preserving open land, compact design, and walkable neighbourhoods whereas new urbanism believes changes in the physical form will be the reasons for social, economic and ecological change. New uranism models have failed to eliminate the dependency of cars, but only allow cars in its periphery to travel to far out towns.
Conclusion
Soleri was looked upon as a visionary and his projects were unrealistic but over time people believe that this could probably be the true solution to urban sprawl. In spite of all of this, the progress on the construction of Arcosanti has been slow and in the past 45 years, only 5% of the master plan has been built. This is largely due to only being financed by the sale of bronze bells made there and volunteers helping as part of courses.
Sources
[1] Arcosanti: Urban Arcology — Ecologically Sound Architecture (Corinne Mclaughlin and Gordan Davidson)
[2] Arcology, Arcosanti and the Green Urbanism Vision (Ruth A. Rae)
