waterman’s Recent Comments

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  There is also this alternative conference which is linked to Peoples Climat Action and World Climate Community  :

  http://climatesustainabilityplatform.blogspot.com/2009/07/alternative-conference-for-people.html

  On 100 days before Copenhagen, here are 100 things you didn't know about Copenhagen posted 2 months, 1 week ago 9 Responses

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  efficiency on what scale

  I think it is helpful here to point out that Arcosanti is an urban vision offering a different way of structuring our cities, addressing sustainable issues that go beyond the architectonical scale of a single-family house, such as commuter transport and its CO2.
  On Bridging architecture and ecology at Arcosanti posted 1 year, 1 month ago 4 Responses

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  more than meets the eye

  Dear green engineer,
  I don't think you are seeing the project for what it is.
  Arcosanti is the (concrete cast) physical embodiment of a vision. This vision was formed in the late sixties as a response to the rapid horizontal development of Phoenix and posed an alternative idea of a compact threedimensional city that is not based on air conditioning and car traffic, expanding across the landscape. It is documented in several beautiful books. The built result is almost by necessity a first draft with many faults and incomplete to boot. This may seem sad given the fact that it has been around and in progress since the early seventies.
  But you can't deny the impressive perseverance and moral integrity with which the project has been realised by Paolo Soleri, largely self-funded. Although it didn't serve to stop Phoenix from growing into one of the largest and un-ecological cities on earth, I think it has had an influence on  architects and planners around the world. And the model it offers at least in its 'ideal' drawn version is still inspiring and relevant. The built Arcosanti is offering a glimpse of this. It is a special place to visit and stay and enjoy for itself. I have participated in a five-week workshop at Arcosanti and enjoyed living and working in one place so close to the Arizonian landscape. Being an architect's unfinished project, the community never really has seemed to have settled in, as it has in other alternative communities. Still there is a lot happening and there is an interesting dynamic between the centre and the 'temporary' settlement close to the agricultural land called 'camp'.
  All in all it is an experiment, the success of which is defined by what we can learn from it, which each of us can do in his own way, but it takes more than pointing out the mistakes from a strictly enviromen-technical viewpoint.

  Paul de Graaf, Rotterdam, the NetherlandsOn Bridging architecture and ecology at Arcosanti posted 1 year, 1 month ago 4 Responses

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  The land of opportunities

  In Europe people on average use about a third of the water in the US without missing the other 2 thirds and basically living the same lifestyle. Also in this respect America is the land of opportunities... to cut down drastically without dramatically changing one's lifestyle should be possible (the same goes for energy).On Umbra on dishwashing and droughts posted 2 years ago 10 Responses

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  Hummer versus hybrid on Grist

  http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/27/124134/961On 15 Green Cars posted 2 years, 1 month ago 27 Responses