Ellen, you and the other AZ folks might want to mosey on over to 'Tucson' - which occasionally posts some amazing things. I haven't been to Arcosanti, but several of my friends from WindSpirit have - that's a vegetarian, organic community on some beautiful land in Winkelman, AZ (near Globe) - their fruit trees (thousands, maybe?) were planted over thirty years ago so the place is like a jungle. they have parties on new years, christmas, thanksgiving, etc where they invite people to come up, camp out (they do have a few empty housing situations) and trip. Another good treasure is the Peyote Way Church of God down in Klondyke (near Safford and Wilcox). yeah, i've got the dope on az. I will make it to Arcosanti one day. my question, have you Arcosanti people been to WindSpirit, the PeyoteChurch or Pongovi? I'm guessing yes, but just asking...

I first heard of it back in the mid-70's(although I don't remember where now....so many years ago) I've always had an interest in architecture so it held an interest for me that way.

Although I live in Tucson (Hi, Spastic!) since 1978, I haven't made it up there YET but have been to it's sister location Consanti in Scottsdale.

I spent a couple months at Arcosanti familiarizing myself with arcological living. I really enjoyed the liveability of the space. My typical day involved waking up early in the morning and doing some farming, going to group meeting, eating some breakfast, then moving on to some construction work or computer work, and then talking to Paolo and other residents. In the early evening, we could go for a swim, take a hike, play music, chat with people, work on art projects.

Great experience. And definitely worthwhile for people wanting to explore themselves and career directions. A month at Arcosanti will expose you to construction, landscaping, gardening, architecture, community development, event planning, design, foundry work, ceramics, and philosophy. It's intense and incredibly enriching. You get out of it what you put into it. And if there's an arcology project in Northern California, sign-me up!

BTW Ellen, you have some great photos of poultry!

hi. i'm philip. i lived at Arco for about 2 months in the summer of 1996. did the workshop and worked in the metal shop while i was there.

i first heard of arcosanti at the annual AIAS (aia students) gathering in Phoenix. Paolo Soleri gave a loooooong presentation + slide show that would have put many of us to sleep, except that the ideas and photos he was presenting were amazing.

a few friends and i chose to take the tour to Arco, and i'm glad we did that rather than Taliesin. all 4 of us (in our little group) decided that we were going to do the workshop a couple summers after that, though i'm pretty sure i was the only one that followed through.

Arcosanti was both inspiring and frustrating. the inspiration is pretty well shared by many who visit, but the frustration came from living there and seeing how many things could still be improved upon (more on this later), coupled with the snail's pace of construction.

my belief is that as a first-generation attempt, Arcosanti is a success because it has inspired people to attempt a new way of planning. i don't think it will ever be finished, and i don't think it has to be.

i could go on forever, but my fingers are tired.

anyway, nice to meet you all. :-)

I have just applied to go to Arcosanti in November of 2005 for a work-excahnge and potentially internship/employment. I am really excited to spend some time there and after having read a few of these brief accounts, my excitement grows.

I am graduating from UCLA in a few weeks and look forward to beginning my own directed-education and continued learning-living experiences. Arcosanti is going to be one of the many opportunities for me to learn how to become a more helpful and creative community-oriented Human Being. My hope is to really accumulate skills and understanding of such projects so that I can create a similar, if not, smaller model of such a place.

If anyone has any advice for newbies, please let me know. I have only heard great things so far.

In Lak'ech.
I am another you.


Sincerely so,

Michael Eugene Brown

Hi, I'm Amanda. I lived at arco from 96 to 98 or something like that. It wasd 2.5 years. I managed the agricultural situations. At the time we had a couple greenhouses, a peach orchard, a vinyard, a field that i filled with native crops, and a couple smaller gardens. When i got there, the agricultural efforts were minimal and lots of work was done to make the place thrive. Now things are quite different but great to see that people are having lots of fun experimenting with things. Now i live in New Mexico. Whenever anyone used to complain at stuff at Arco, Paolo would say. "go find your own mesa" . Well, I've kinda done that. But at Ampersand we focus on Natural building and permaculture and living off of rainwater, etc.