News + Updates for June 2022
Design Technology, Local Farming, Current Exhibitions, + More
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Ready for the solstice, Friend?
After the excitement of May, we're looking forward to the relative calm of the next couple of months. There's still a lot going on—our Alumni Reunion is just a week away—but overall, summer in the desert is a season for relaxing into some of our slower, longer-term projects. Take a look!
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The Urban Laboratory Gets Serious about Science |
Our recent blog posts and newsletters have talked about our ongoing academic partnerships with CBBG, Strathclyde University, The School of Architecture, and more. We've also covered some of the virtual and augmented reality work being done through The Cosanti Foundation Archives. Now there's another exciting development!
Since March, The Cosanti Foundation has been working with Dawn Gilpin of the University of Michigan and Warren Roberts of Rio Hondo College to conduct LiDAR and GIS photogrammetry surveys of Arcosanti, Cosanti, and Dome House. If you're not familiar with these technologies, take a moment to Google them. The potential applications are enormous, and we're only beginning to scratch the surface. From exact measurements, precise images, and computer-assisted inventories of the architectural and ecological features of our properties, to the potential for displaying detailed and interactive digital models of current and future arcologies, we can't wait to see where all of this goes. To be continued!
In the meantime, you can start to learn more about our 21st-century archives work online.
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Professor Dawn Gilpin worked with her team to set up aerial LiDAR scans of Arcosanti in March, and returned this month to augment that work with ground-level and interior scans of many of our most well-known spaces. |
Gilpin's team also traveled to Cosanti and Dome House in June to conduct scans of the spaces there, adding to our recently-captured 360-degree image banks of both places. Don't be deceived by the relative compactness of the LiDAR camera—that little piece of technology could make a huge difference for our work and mission. |
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The Monsoon Garden area, prepped & ready for its upcoming planting |
Learning to braid and cure some of the massive amount of garlic we harvested |
Enjoying the launch of our new community-supported agriculture program |
A piece of the pollinator project rested for a year and now awaits initial planting |
Our littlest Arconaut is already beginning to learn how to grow food |
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Fields (& Gardens) of Dreams |
It's happening! After getting our agriculture program back on its feet over the last six months with a food forest, orchard, and expanded greenhouses, as well as an 8-part Spring Speaker Series, we've added an ambitious new project to the mix: a one-acre Monsoon Garden.
This month, we prepared a 200 x 200-foot piece of our field to hold a crop of Hopi corn (thanks to Michael Kotutwa Johnson) and a mix of native, desert-ready squash, beans, and grains (thanks in part to Native Seed/SEARCH and Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance). We'll be getting everything into the ground over the course of the next couple of weeks with the help of our summer agriculture workshop participants as well as alumni visiting for our upcoming reunion. A late-season planting by design, the Monsoon Garden takes advantage of Arizona's long growing season and (we hope) the summer monsoons to get everything growing.
We've also started a CSA (community-supported agriculture) program with Arcosanti's residents, and kicked off a partnership with The Farm at Bent River in Cottonwood to augment our own output and ensure a steady supply of fresh local produce for our recently-reopened café. Norela and Harold Harrington, who own The Farm at Bent River, are also the people whose farm equipment has helped us improve our field. On the main site, residents are weaving agriculture into the architecture itself with a "Make Your Bed" challenge to fill every available planter with life.
Last but not least, we're also growing more food...for the bees! Local pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds play a crucial role in ecological and agricultural systems, and our new pollinator project is designed to make sure they have everything they need to survive our increasingly extreme climate. Plantings are taking place within Arcosanti itself as well as at key locations on some of the 866 acres of land that surround us. We hope to eventually expand pieces of this project to Cosanti as well.
Thank you to everyone who has supported the growth of these programs with in-kind and cash contributions of all shapes and sizes, from Arizona Gives Day to workshop participants to private donations. Whether you've given 10 plants, 10 weeks, 10 dollars, or $10,000 (our biggest farm gift so far), your generosity is making a difference!
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As we work on several major show possibilities, these two small-but-mighty exhibitions are busy bringing the world of arcology to life for audiences near and far. We hope to have more to share with you about the big ones later this summer, but in the meantime, here's one we'll definitely have more to say about in the coming months: Scottsdale's Canal Convergence, November 4 - 13, 2022. We'll be there, and we hope you will, too!
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"The Architecture of Possibility" in Phoenix
The exhibition traces the history of arcology as a theory of sustainable urban planning whose earliest roots can be seen in the unique design of Paolo Soleri and Mark Mills’ Dome House in Cave Creek. We're working with the library to take this exhibition on the road to other libary branches, and to develop additional exhibitions around Cosanti, Arcosanti, and future arcologies.
"The Architecture of Possibility" will be on display through August at the Burton Barr Central Library in Phoenix.
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"Imagine a World" in Bend
Arcosanti is currently being featured as part of "Imagine a World," an exhibition at Oregon's High Desert Museum in Bend. The show focuses on "different groups that have come to the high desert inspiring visitors to ask their own questions about what community can look like and how we work to create it."
This wide-ranging exhibition spans nearly 150 years of history, from California's Kaweah Co-Operative Colony in the 1880s through more recent ecological laboratories like Biosphere 2, as well as modern art that explores Indigenous futurism. We are honored to be included!
"Imagine a World" will be on display through September 25th at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon.
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Wake Up to This Vista
Arcosanti's Greenhouse Guestrooms are once again available for summer stays, and booking fast. Every room now features not only this fabulous sunrise view, but air-conditioning, too. To learn more about what there is to do at Arcosanti when you're here overnight, explore our website as well as travel blogs like this one.
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Become an Arco Alumn
Arcosanti and Cosanti were built by more than 8000 people who have participated in our signature multi-week workshop program. Today, those workshops continue to build on a nearly 60-year legacy, broadening horizons for participants and arcology alike, all while enjoying life at the one-and-only Arcosanti.
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In Case You Missed It
Thank you for being a subscriber! A lot more happens in the month between each newsletter than we have room to cover here. For instance, we held an Arcosanti Art Market. We celebrated Cosanti. We were enchanted by the Tucson Girls Choir, and inspired by Ed Kabotie and The 'Yoties. We graduated our last spring workshop and welcomed our summer workshop. We had dinner with Cloth + Flame. Some of it, you had to be here to experience. But a lot of it can be found online, especially when you follow us on social media. Use the grey icon links at the bottom of this email to find our main channels.
Plus, if you're only subscribed to The Cosanti Foundation's newsletter, you're only getting half the story. Our sister organization is Cosanti Originals, where we make our world-famous bronze and ceramic windbells and other artisan items. You can see these artists in action on any given weekday at both Arcosanti and Cosanti, and enjoy their work 24/7 when you visit Cosanti Originals online. Be sure to subscribe to their monthly newsletter, too!
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Coming in July
- Our New Membership Program
- Juneteenth Celebration Recap
- Tales from the Alumni Reunion
- Autumn Events Take Shape
+ more!
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About The Cosanti Foundation |
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Since 1965, The Cosanti Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has advocated for the built environment to be created in harmony with nature through the concept of arcology (architecture + ecology), and through our Arizona demonstration projects, Cosanti and Arcosanti.
Join us in our mission to inspire a reimagined urbanism that builds resilient and equitable communities sustainably integrated with the natural world.
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Images courtesy Shanta Ambady, Paola Avila, Kate Bemesderfer, Ana Catalina, Nikki Check, Noémie Despland-Lichtert, Pinto LeBrun, Liz Martin-Malikian, Brendan Sullivan Shea, Seth Winslow, Rebecca Young, Go Near Far, The High Desert Museum, and The Cosanti Foundation |
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