The Ecosa Institute was started by Tony Brown an architect in Prescott AZ who had spent more than 10 years at Arcosanti. After leaving Arcosanti he started an architectural practice and also taught at Prescott College. Over the last 10 years he has been building up an 4 month program on Ecological Design that is designed for architects and other related fields.
My Ecosa experience helped me see how the architecture and design fields were being dramatically transformed by the introduction of ecological concepts. Being rooted in a more holistic understanding of things, the green design movement sought to bring fields bringing together in a multi-sector approach to solving problems and promoting more innovative and sustainable building technologies. What emerged from this great melding of people and ideas were terms like ecological design, biomimickry, green biz, synergy, symbiosis and multi-use, that were rapidly introduced into the mainstream vocabulary through books like Natural Capitalism and Cradle to Cradle. At the time I felt very much like I was in the middle of this being exposed to many of the people and ideas I felt were transforming our world into something genuinely more sustainable than the one which drove our conventional, everyday reality.
It also included a aboriginal living skills cource by Cody Lunden
Total Immersion in Ecological Design
Tony Browne a former Alumni of Arcosanti started the Ecosa Institute at Arcosanti as an accredited college credit program conducted in association with nearby Prescott College. The program focuses on the need for a massive redesign of the human environment. The Ecosa Institute says that, "It is certainly critical to the future survival of our species and is indispensable to creating a sustainable future."Not only is it important to train people to use existing tools and create new ones, but it is also vital that they are trained in designing an aesthetic that creates significant form from which people can grasp as a tangible alternative to consumerism. Central to this is the overcoming the embedded inertia in society, which resists necessary change in relation to the way people see the world.