Meet Timothy Bell of Cosanti Foundation in Paradise Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Timothy Bell.

Timothy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
The Cosanti Foundation was originally founded to “explore the experiential and educational benefits of combining Architecture with Ecology.” The early work of our organization was at Cosanti in Paradise Valley, a playground of sorts for those who were interested in practicing a more hands-on version of design under the tutelage of Paolo Soleri, the founding Architect. After fifteen years of experimentation, the Foundation decided it was time to take on the building of Arcosanti, the world’s prototype Arcology (architecture+ecology), which was undertaken on an 865-acre property located 70 miles north of Phoenix.

Today the Foundation manages both properties. Cosanti acts as a manufacturing and gallery space for our famous bronze and Ceramic Cosanti Windbells. We also offer two daily tours of the facility, both of which include an opportunity to watch our artisans pour molten bronze into hand-designed bell molds. Arcosanti, or the Urban Laboratory as we like to call it, houses 70 full-time residents, many of whom contribute to the project through work for either the Foundation or the bell business. We also offer Arcosanti as a venue for events, conferences, and retreats, and manage our overnight stay program so that people who want to can experience the feeling of living in an environment designed with our relationship to nature in mind.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road has been far from smooth. There have been many bumps over the 50-year history of the Arcosanti project in particular including difficulty with finding funding to achieve the vision, founder’s syndrome within the leadership, periods when the world wasn’t all that interested in an alternative urban design project, and one very famous car fire that occurred during a large festival held on our property. The most recent struggle came during the recession. Organizations everywhere had to get real lean, real fast, and we were no exception.

Still, we have persevered, both as a community and an organization, in the hopes that one day the people might come to understand the value of the ideas that the Cosanti Foundation has contributed to the world, specifically in attempting to tackle complex questions about how our build environment could be reimagined to incentivize a more holistic relationship between ourselves and the natural world.

In many ways, the slump that the recession put us it is only now being fully understood and dealt with. This is happening under the leadership of a new President and CEO of the foundation. While we’re not out of the woods yet, Cosanti and Arcosanti are in better financial and organizational shape than they have been in recent memory. Anyone who has ever been through a major restructuring knows how difficult it can be. Our biggest challenge as an organization now is to keep up the momentum of the past year and build on the work that we’ve been doing so that we can continue to play a part in the global dialogue about holistic living on this planet.

Please tell us about your organization.
The work of the Cosanti Foundation is geared towards bringing attention to our Urban Design methodology, known as Arcology. Arcology is the fusion of architecture with ecology, a comprehensive urban perspective. In nature, as organisms evolve, they increase in complexity and become a more compact system. Arcology recognizes the necessity of the radical reorganization of the sprawling urban landscape into dense, integrated, three-dimensional cities to support the diversified activities that sustain human culture and environmental balance.

Slow reformation and adaptation characterize the pace of our contemporary sustainability movement. We make incremental progress, changing consumption patterns – driving electric vehicles, attempting to recycle, or outfitting our single-family homes with solar panels. Still, we are not confronting the deeply entrenched societal and infrastructural norms at the root of our problems.

Our contemporary urban-suburban form is inclined towards materialism, individualism, and waste. It’s reported that if the 7.4 billion people on earth were to consume like the average American, we would need over four globes to sustain us. With exponential population growth, the work ahead is to learn how we can change our behavior in a meaningful and accessible way.

Small improvements, while pragmatic and available, produce only a “better kind of wrongness” that in the eyes of the rational thinker may not even be worthwhile. Arcology suggests a complete reformulation of how we exist within our environments – a new urban paradigm geared towards cultural evolution, frugal resiliency, and balance with nature.

Arcosanti is an immersive experience that brings visitors and residents into the present moment! In many ways, the people here are the experiment itself.

On top of our educational mission, we also offer Arcosanti as a location for private events, conferences, retreats, and performances. Our world-famous bronze and ceramic bells, produced both here and at Cosanti in Paradise Valley, help support the Foundation and capital needs at both physical locations.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Our work is in the long game. Influencing a moment is easy using the tools the modern world (the internet, social media, etc.) but how do you influence a generation, or generations, to change the way that they think about their impact on the planet? Functionally, that’s what our work has represented since it started. We’re asking the question “how shall we live?” without actually knowing the answer ourselves.

When you’re playing the long game, I think success is harder to define. Arcosanti and Cosanti have had many ups and downs over the years, but at the end of the day, we’re still here. We’re still working to prove that people can live in harmony with themselves and the environment through thoughtful, human-centric design.

There is a new generation of change-makers out there who are pushing back against the status quo of waste, rampant consumerism, and urban sprawl. I believe we are seeing much more willingness in people to engage with some incredibly challenging questions about what our presence on this planet is doing and how to limit our impact as a species. I like to think that, in some small way, the work of the Cosanti Foundation has informed this present eco-conscientious movement. Certainly, Arcosanti was one of the stops on the caravansary of those who seek alternatives in the 1970’s and 80’s.

As we move into the third decade of the 21st century, we hope to see continued engagement from people in the millennial and xennial generations in both our project and others that propose radical alternatives to help solve issues related to rampant population growth, the destruction of the natural world for industry, the climate crisis, and more. Arcology might not be the solution, but we’re trying something different, and I believe if we are going to make any headway on solving global systemic problems, then we need organizations and projects that are willing to be different.

Pricing:

• Workshops at Arcosanti cost between $150-$450
• We also host a week long “experience week” for $950
• Overnight accommodations run between $45 and $125 per night (more information is available on our website)

Contact Info:

• Address: Arcosanti
  13555 S. Cross L Rd. Mayer, AZ 86333
  Cosanti
  6433 E Doubletree Ranch Rd, Paradise Valley, AZ 85253
• Website: www.arcosanti.org / www.cosanti.com
• Phone: (928) 632-7135
• Email: outreach@arcosanti.org
• Instagram: @arcosantiarizona
• Facebook: @arcosanti

Image Credit:
Seth Winslow
Ray Schwartz

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