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Back to the Drawing Board

10/28/2017

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How shall Arcosanti demonstrate how arcology actualizes an experiential constructive prototype that demonstrates Paolo Soleri's approach to maximizing sustainable habitat, a "living laboratory model" for the world?

G
iven Paolo Soleri's self-acknowledged major shortcoming as a planner (he freely admitted he had none; his claim as a plumber notwitstanding), developing a strategy that's immediately viable seems a sensible place to start. It isn't rocket science for the Urban Laboratory to commit to responsibly assuring all its programs evince all-inclusive population diversity, now and forevermore into the future.

I start with diversity because I suspect (and would wager) that A
rcosanti workshop program demographics cannot provide incontrovertible evidence that absolutely anyone who's interested in learning experientially at Arcosanti (or, for that matter who's interested in visiting Arcosanti) can readily take part in any event or project, no matter whatever his/her handicap might be.

But here's what looks to me like a
 nitty-gritty issue: Arcosanti Workshop flyers declare, pace Iolanda Lima, that Arcosanti is Delivering arcology as human ecology.  How, exactly, is that being done? What is the curriculum? Who is responsible for planning? Execution? Are the program's course work records, report sheets, participant evaluation reviews, et al, available?

Interested people want to know. 

I myself want to see Arcosanti fulfill the vital imperative of assuring that the workshop program outreach and execution are inclusive. Maximized diversity cannot help but serve as a strong symbol of comfort with how the workshop program practically serves to realize the premised goals of validating the crediblility of arcology at Arcosanti for a global majority.

Arcosanti can demonstrate accessibility, inclusive user-friendliness, its unique material culture's validity and meaningfulness in a multicultural world, by taking the ADA seriously. The ADA is, after all, no only federal law, but an ethical imperative to assure the safety of guests as well as workers at Arcosanti. Awareness of this cannot be permitted to dangle as an optional concern.

As architectural oversight goes, is there really/truly any actual doubt this challenge can be met? Are ADA-compliance and site safety assurances too complex for Arcosanti's gifted architects to solve? 


That hardly seems possible.

[CONFESSIONAL CAVEAT:
My concern is personal and professional, over and above my historical experience as a handicap-identified human. 

Alhough I know the terrain of Arcosanti relatively well, I took a wrong turn one night last winter, stepped off a ledge, plummeted smack down onto rocks and concrete. At the time, I was just grateful that I didn't land on my head. I caught my bearings, picked myself up, somehow put one foot in front of the other, managed to get myself to my intended destination. 

Pretty much put the event out of my mind immediately although I did say, at least once, to all the Arconauts within hearing range and anyone in the world in general who cared to listen, that visibility, even/especially at night, is A Good Thing worth having in great abundance at Arcosanti. (Unless you prefer a gimmicky alternative, like handing out headlamps at the gate?)

But when a necrotic mass in the back of my left thigh showed up on a medical scan some weeks later, I thought not hardly at all about it until it pained fiercely enough to warrant a trip to ER. After which, my terrific docs insisted on biopsies to make sure whatever it was, wasn't malignant. 

It isn't malignant but having to cope with miserable slow-downs of my already slowed-down walking pace, killer pain-medication PRN, plus the general nuisance of either moaning and groaning or putting out the energy required to ignore the pain, has added a whole new realm of obstacles that have to be overcome on a daily basis . 

And here's the quintessential irony: Having put the brutal tumble out of my mind ASAP ("Keep on trucking," right?), I could not account for the awful lump in the back of my thigh that hurt non-stop. Had no recollection of how that lump coulda happened. 
Until very recently, when in the course of thinking about other Arcosanti-related matters, I recalled how I'd plummeted off that beautifully intended, poorly illuminated, completely unguarded ledge. 

"No blame," as the I Ching says. I don't see the point in adding to Arcosanti's anxieties by piling yet another negligence lawsuit onto the Foundation's  heap of unaddressed burdens. Plus I'm not litigious enough to threaten one  - no matter how forceful such a suggestion might be. 

​But I will still like to know what could be making it possible for people who claim to care about Arcosanti to think (if Arcosanti is supposed to be demonstrating the value of arcology to the world) that planning for accessibility is not essential, that designing for safety isn't paramount? 

​No chain is stonger than its weakest link.  

​
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Calling Kin-Kin, Australia...

10/23/2017

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In 1967, Expo year in Montreal, Christopher Cordeaux was living in an apartment on DeCarie Boulevard. He'd been loaned to the National Film Board of Canada by the Australian Film Board to help the NFB make its first feature film, I learned from Carolyn, his wife, who introduced herself as I was helping her choose fabric at Marshall's on St. Catherine Street, where I'd been hired as a sales clerk. When Carolyn invited me home to visit with her and Daniel, I was so charmed I could not refuse.

Stepping inside the door of their apartment on DeCarie certified my impression that I had met people with whom I would be "friends for life." The refrigerator was an icebox: (how they found ice in mid-summer Montreal is a mystery I've yet to solve). The screen of the TV, kicked to smithereens by Chris in a moment of pique, had been replaced by a Beatles album cover., Sergeant  Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  

Carolyn got me giggling to the point of tears when she told me about her encounters with les grandes dames of DeCarie Street while she and Chris were looking after a friend's aardvark: Pregnant at the time with their firstborn, whenever she wheeled the wee beastie up the street, tucked into an old fashioned wicker pram, les grandes dames could not help but peer into the beautiful antique, expecting of course to see a drop-dead adorable human infant... 

The following year, back in Arizona at Cosanti, stationed in the bell area assembling clay bells, on hand to greet visitors who might want to walk around with a guide, as was typical with visitors, I noticed a young woman who was with her architect-husband and their two young daughters. Naomi and Tony, she told me by way of introduction - from Sydney, Australia.

I did not get their last names, alas, but what happened in those few moments we spent together was that I could not help but say to her: "You know Christopher, don't you? Christopher Cordeaux?"

Naomi demurred at first but I was insistent, could not be dissuaded. "You know Christoper?!" I said repeatedly until finally it seemed she heard me, glanced at me straight back, saying as if from a long ways away: "I do know one Christopher. Christopher Cordeaux." 

"Yes! That's the one!" I flipped back at her, relieved. I can't imagine what she thought of my insistence but her assent was enough, Although I have no idea how I knew, I just knew she knew Chris. I also knew it was important that I let her know I had sensed that she did. (If anyone wants to or can Go Figure This One, Please Please By All Means, Please Do...

It's been a good many years since that day, but if anyone reading this happens to know Naomi, please to let her know that I'd very much like to hear from her, to know how she's doing? Oh gosh, Yes, I would...

​  
  
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Unscrambling Rambled Decision-Making

10/18/2017

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​Talk ain't cheap when judgment calls are everyone's specialty. Greens in Germany reacted post-war to the brutalitites of fascism (neatly defined as "aggressive nationalism driven by the interests of big business") by deciding to take consensus as their decision-making model. Which to me makes total sense.

If agreement is the antithesis of a dictatorial system that disrespects most speech, what must happen is that all concerned parties must be accorded the freedom to speak and be heard. All parties agree to come to consensus, whatever matter the issue. Assurance is provided
 that: 
  • every opinion counts
  • all proceedings are carried out without coercion, expectation of immediate direct remuneration, devaluation of processes and/or proceedings.

With respect to the practice of consensus as an achievable social model, one example of a group that practices consensus is The Religious Society of Friends (aka Quakers). And I was informed that at Arcosanti, the Arcosanti Leadership Team (aka ALT) also practices consensus decision-making.

I am familiar with Quaker examples of consensus decision-making. I don't know what form of consensus decision-making is practiced at ALT meetings. I was told that ALT meetings are held in private ("in camera") with no recorded minutes. That means, of course, that we have no way of verifying what procedures assuring consensus are in place at Arcosanti.

As consensus models differ and people have to come to some agreement about 
how dissent will be handled, it's not "outside the box" to examine different consensus decision-making models or procedures.

What I have wondered is: If you have never before had an opportunity to test how blocking some procedure or process works, how do you learn to sagely use such power to test how the practice of consensus helps achieve an organizational goal? 

Here are some areas of enterprise that might require consensus decision-making
: 
  • How are the books of account to be kept?
  • How will it be assured that all record-keeping will be accurate to the letter?

Dissent in some cultural groups may be so compelling that it will be met with an entailment ritual. One example is the ceremonial call for objections to the coupling that a ritual marriage ceremony will confirm. (As in: "Let anyone who objects to the union of this couple speak now or forever hold his peace!")

A group seeking Consensus might have agreements in place which permit just one individual to block a proposed procedure or process. 

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE PLEASE ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS:
  • WHAT ARE THE ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS OF ARCOSANTI?
  • ARE ARCOSANTI'S GOALS EXCLUSIVE OR INCLUSIVE?
  • HOW WERE ARCOSANTI'S GOALS ARRIVED AT? 
  • HOW ARE THE GOALS BEING IMPLEMENTED? 
  • WHO BENEFITS?

​


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Photos used under Creative Commons from FaceMePLS, nedrichards, qtschlepper, M_Schimmel, fihu, Abulic Monkey, Space][rucker, David Jones, --Sam--, saamiblog, hr.icio, robertkillmer, Vanderelbe.de, runran, Melody Ayres-Griffiths, BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives, LoopZilla, Space][rucker, Cambridge Cat, Tomás Fano, Jonathan Lumibao, srqpix, exfordy, a minha menina, Piano Piano!, loufi, Gwydion M. Williams, TheeErin, Jo Naylor, Ben Sutherland, ratanx, Rome Cabs, tara marie, Joe Shlabotnik, Chrissy Olson, Mavroudis Kostas, postal67, Ryan Dickey, Amanda Niekamp, Paulimus J - moved to: ipernity.com/home/paulj, qtschlepper, qtschlepper, Arria Belli, gedankenstuecke, qtschlepper, Wolfgang Staudt, exfordy, OakleyOriginals, bixentro, 드림포유, RileyOne, kuhnmi