Arcosanti Critical Mass Theory is distinguished from the actual plan and vision to create a Critical Mass Takeoff at Arcosanti that leads to the eventual goal of creating a prototype Arcology.
In order to create a more ideal aesthetic container for human life, we need a social dynamic that starts the critical mass by which the momentum is built to create the urban effect. This critical mass phenomenon though does not necessarily have to occur in larger urban areas, it can manifest among a relatively small group of people who are very committed and effective towards promoting their ideas and make them more real in everyday life. Critical mass relates to people coming together in a powerful way overcoming inertia within themselves, between each other and with the outer world that surrounds them in the great unknown. People that are diverging from the norms and values of the conventional society must somehow converge together to create a vibrant social dynamic based on common or mutual interests.
It is that we must convince others of the hope that exists within humanity by bringing it out of us somehow in our everyday lives. While it would be nice to have a homebase for such an attempt to revitalize the collective human spirit it is possible that our lives will have to be very transient, due to the very unstable nature of the world today.
The Idea of a Critical Mass within the Arcology
While I do not believe that Soleri Arcology model as he envisions has practical real world applications (this may change in the future as we explore undersea, desert, polar and eventually space development), many of the underlying premises are worthy of further discussion in relation to developing a framework for an integrated approach to sustainable development. The Arcology relates to the notion of the container. The apse affect for Soleri is the metaphorical cocoon that protects the Arcology as the container.
Towards the Fullest Manifestation of Human Creative Experience
Arcology loosely defined is the vision of Paulo Soleri which seeks to develop real solutions to modern problems by the efficient allocation of resources. Central to this is the importance of the aesthetic of the culture and society. The idea of city, culture and aesthetics are connected in that each when properly conceived and designed creates a fulfilling high culture in which the vital need of the creative human spirit is nourished.
In order to create a new sustainable society, we need to understand the vital need of education to propel us towards what Soleri refers to as total recall. There is a potential that lies within untapped and neglected. It is the sense of hope that we can realize the potential that lies within humanity to create cities and communities where the people who live there enjoy a high quality of life, while coexisting harmoniously with the surrounding environment. The urban effect is a major theme of Paolo Soleri's ideology. It is the culmination of a learning process that has made civilization what it is today. The city has historically functioned as a center for information, knowledge and wisdom.
Arcology Modified: The Social Movement as the “Arcology Container” Creating a New Sustainable Built Environment
The cocoon or container protects the fragile social underbelly of human society, not by physical prowess (an image of the “Brilliant Pebbles” scheme outlined to protect the US from nuclear attack during the Cold War rises). A built environment designed to create high-energy environment, and a sense of excitement about the potential to realize the most precious fruits of human existence and of life itself. Such an aesthetic often takes a cultural form and has a tendency to spread through the emotional inspiration of others who come to visit, who in turn spread it to others.
In order to create a more ideal aesthetic container for human life, we need a social dynamic that starts the critical mass by which the momentum is built to create the urban effect. This critical mass phenomenon though does not necessarily have to occur in larger urban areas, it can manifest among a relatively small group of people who are very committed and effective towards promoting their ideas and making them more real in everyday life. Critical mass relates to people coming together in a powerful way overcoming inertia within themselves, between each other and the larger world. People that are diverging from the norms and values of the conventional society must somehow converge together to create a vibrant social dynamic based on common or mutual interests.
We must convince others of the hope that exists within humanity by bringing it out of us somehow in our everyday lives. While it would be nice to have a home base for such an attempt to revitalize the collective human spirit, it is possible that our lives will have to be transient, due to the very unstable nature of the world today.
Any social movement for it to succeed must foster connective bonds. Thus, the container evolves most significantly not as an aesthetic mantra of design but as an evolving social dynamic, that interweaves itself into the cultural milieu of contemporary society. Such a movement involves a process of seeing and developing a powerful sense of commonality in relation to our goals as social reformers who seek to recreate a new aesthetic and ethic to forward the aspiration towards a socially just and sustainable society. This critical mass becomes the momentum, which propels the movement of these ideas into the mainstream society paving the way for the development of an alternative consciousness that transforms the global society.
Making a Complex Language Simple
Soleri's system of referencing reality exists on a very grand scale. He is correct in saying that the cause for radically reforming the social architecture--the complex social milieu of that which is the human reality and which is expressed in the aesthetic reality of the built environment--is essentially given justification by the universal laws that guide the cosmos. While it is important to have the large and very long term views, it is also important that there be some reaching down into people's everyday lives, otherwise what is the point of thinking of all those lofty abstract ideas? It is important to connect the practical with the ideal in order to be relevant in relation to developing ideas that have substantive impacts on altering everyday realities. If you speak in a language or act in a way that people have trouble relating to, you will have limited impact. This relates not only to the fact that large sections of mainstream society are basically limited in their use of language, but also more significantly and specifically the fact that Arcosanti itself is not relevant to a large section of the people who enroll in the workshop programs and become residents.
Facilitating Social as well Technological Innovation Mandates an Inclusive System of Dialoguing
If we are creating an idea that goes beyond our immediate selves then we must seek to include outside perspectives into the process, and we must communicate in a way that is easy for people to understand. It is important to encourage the development of democratic processes and co-creative groups that encourage those within the periphery of the group to participate. As the number of people whose input is included goes up in the deliberative process of creating a social hypothesis--an idea that seeks to improve the human condition in some way or form by rethinking present conventional processes--the flexibility and diversity that flows from that original idea will increase.
The process of extended dialoguing will give rise an impetus to put those dialogues into practice. Arcosanti is one notable attempt at this though it has been met with limited success, due to the fact that it has not embraced the vital human component of Arcology theory and instead focused on the container as a purely quantitative and physical phenomenon. The fostering of a social environment where we develop accelerated and dynamic personal interactions which can then allow us to accrue the social and cultural capital is the only way to create critical mass within a social movement.
Ecocities and ecovillages will be more fully represent the urban effect, because they will design themselves--on a social and cultural level first and foremost--to be ecologically and socially consistent. The notion of socially and ecologically consistent explicitly means that we must very rapidly go from having minimal recall of how we through our past actions affect the world, to having nearly total recall of how our actions affect other peoples, the surrounding environment and the future state of things. This involves a complete commitment to integrating energy, efficiency and ecological process within an aesthetic as well as a systemic design that expresses a reverence for life. Such a design expresses a need to mimic the elegance of natural systems as they work symbiotically to regenerate and recycle all the byproducts of production within living systems, so as to create a system which is able to perpetuate itself.