The Anti-Burb

Possible future of housing?

Smithsonian Magazine

“Arcosanti, a struggling community in the Arizona desert, preaches the virtues of close quarters.”

A science fiction-like wonderland of domes and apses on a desert mesa 70 miles north of Phoenix, Arcosanti is Paolo Soleri’s rejoinder to the American ideal of a house with a lawn and a two-car garage. “The single-family house is the single most consumptive and segregational habitat that we can conceive,” proclaims the 85-year-old architect, who has long fought a losing battle against suburbia and what he views as its shameful squandering of land, water, energy and (if you count long commutes) time. Since 1970, Soleri has been building his “lean alternative” to sprawl. Arcosanti (the name derives from architecture, ecology and cosanti, Soleri’s coined Italian for anticonsumerism) is a prototype community designed to provide housing and facilities for 5,000 people on 25 acres