by AgaTino Rizzo*

....the article (link) is really interesting, but as architect, engineer, and planner I'm a bit skeptical about Soleri's model.

Arcology is a comprehensive device which need to be created by a top-down authority....need to have 100% consensus...in one word is not that democratic. Risking to be a bit polemic, I would say: better to have sprawl than a dictatorship...because that's the kind of project.

As architect I'm really fascinated by these pure and organic forms, but the reality is much complex and I don't see many chances for Soleri's project to be successful. Yet we can't address a problem so complex (namely, change our way of live) in such simplistic terms.

The author says " we need the other half of the genius" to make possible Arcology. I'm more interested in this aspect, whether Arcology project is worth or not. I think we need to create sustainable models for democratic research-networks across the world.

With "democratic research-network" I mean not only a network of Universities or national institutions, but a hybrid network made of individuals, NGOs, professionals, architects, programmers, universities, parties and so on.

What I think is that we need an "Arcology" at the level of research, a brain convergence in a worldwide P2P network engaged in many different sub-projects. In these terms, Soleri's Arcology, or any other proposal discussed, would be one project among thousands proposals - depending on the context (political, cultural, economical, etc.) - rather than the only one choice.

We could think that this P2P network could be a sort of worldwide task-force financed by national bodies, individuals, banks, cooperative projects and so on....In these terms it is indispensable to allow people from the second and third world to be part of this institution (I'm thinking about the O3B project).

If researchers and non-researchers from all over the world could converge in this "P2P university" (or whatever it could be) through internet and with local cells, than maybe would easier to build consensus around proposals, get funding, and implement projects (bottom-up).

We could think that this P2P university could deliver know-how just like a normal university. Yet it could provide courses, but with new trans-disciplinary subjects. The letter aspect, transdisciplinarity, it's crucial in order to create a sustainable research paradigm - what Universities refuse to do by chopping fields in narrow strands.

So far, what I want to say is that we need first to come up with a P2P-transdisciplinary task-force which is concretely engaged in the making of (open source) knowledge - challenging universities' autoreferenciality  - and then, step by step, implement projects (the proposal for Abruzzo, which is really concrete, is shaped around this idea)...

*This article is extracted from a conversation within P2P foundation newsletter. More info about P2P foundation at: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/

** The post is available also at: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/a-call-for-a-global-network-of-city-arcologies/2009/07/01

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