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Jimbobidybone
Joined: 18 Jun 2009
Posts: 22
Location: Derby, UK
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 Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:09 am Post subject: The Venus Project |
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Hey guys have any of you ever seen this site www.theukproject.com I'm a proud member and we are looking for volounteer designers to work on the Venus Project. We've just started the modelling phase and will soon be working on some detailed drawings for some concept house designs that we have been working on.
If anyone is interested please join the register on there, it would be great experience for any of you budding architects and current students, and is also very interesting as a bit of hobby work.
Hopefully one day soon this dream will actually be a reality.
Thanks in advance Guys
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James Pegg
Please check out my site www.jrpcad.co.uk. |
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justellus
Joined: 22 Jan 2009
Posts: 209
Location: World Wide
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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Please see this topic I created Fri Mar 06, 2009 7:34 pm on this exact project you are mentioning:
The Venus Project - Future By Design
http://www.designcommunity.com/forums/topic-24432.html
A complete presentation of The Venus Project and the revolutionary power of the same. This could literally be the magnificent solution for an optimal society. Why not start building an independent community on this model somewhere and watch it flourish and grow? How about joining in developers who wish to build ocean cities and countries out in the unclaimed regions of the planet, and start a new society based on this model there?
You will find some more revolutionary ideas as you explore this site and ours as well.
(Don't forget to check out the fascinating related topics in the New Structure Forum in these communities.)
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csintexas
millennium club
Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 2237
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 6:48 am Post subject: |
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Idealism has been around for a long time in one form or another. In my opinion they are mostly just someones scheme to make money.
Here is a more practical effort:
http://www.arcosanti.org/project/main.html
It is much easier for one person to talk about an ideal system than for a group of people to actually agree and make it happen. We can propose all sorts of fanciful structures but that does not make them practical to build and they do not make people better than they are.
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http://bcshdb.blogspot.com >
The B/CS Home Design Blog |
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justellus
Joined: 22 Jan 2009
Posts: 209
Location: World Wide
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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The Arcosanti Vision & Project Venus - An architectural, Sociological, and Economic Analysis
An interesting aspect of the Arcosanti project is the "coinage" of interesting terms, as defined by the architect. His use of coined terms is interesting, the terminology used proposes an archetype that is based on a growing list of parameters necessary for it's success. These parameters are explicitly laid out in a somewhat idealistic fashion and express the vision and interests of their sole creator.
The entire proposal may contain unique architecture features, interesting designs and hundred's of interesting considerations relating to the ideal urban city, yet the fundamental characteristic of the world today which leads to scarcity not taken into consideration.
The Venus Project, on the other hand, gets to the heart of the problem by proposing not only an interesting architecture, but a completely new social, monetary and market fabric for a new society.
An architectural proposal may consider all the environmental constraints and optimal elements necessary for an ideal city, from a pragmatic point of view. But when this proposal does not consider the inherent problem of the world today, which begins with manufactured scarcity, and an economic system based on debt, it is ignoring the most fundamental problem of all - that we are a monetary based economy that is built on the need for profit and with the members of our society being held in servitude by debt. This the root cause of all social and economic malaise. No manner of grand architectural scheme or solution will overcome the inherent greed, violence and manipulation that comes with a monetary based system, where scarcity is necessary to generate profit.
The Hyper Building Analysis
A brief analysis of the presentation of this project reveals some interesting issues:
According to the site:
| Quote: | | To avoid violent conflicts will take a lot of knowledge, experience, planning, tolerance, and hard-to-come-by wisdom, not to mention large infusions of wealth. |
This is not the case. Violent conflicts under the Venus Project are shown to occur due the nature of the cash based system and the existence of wealth, and it's conditioning impact on humans. This project makes the assumption that wealth is part of the solution to crime. This assumption is flawed at it's core. The other ingredients mentioned are essential, but in the end, under a flawed system based on manipulation by debt, the same problems will eventually keep coming back, as human greed and the desire for economic gain and superiority prevail.
| Quote: | | A generous and positive attitude by the citizens toward this urban laboratory could produce an urban effect of an enviable and germinal kind. |
So what is to create naturally this generous and positive attitude. Can it simply be "assumed" or "expected"? What type of behavior modification will be applied to guarantee that individuals do act as expected?
| Quote: | | The noble imprint of the city would be in its complex dynamism and its active tolerance. |
This as well sounds very idealistic, but lacks any backing to guarantee that this will indeed occur.
The concept of a compact, frugal city, by the way, is being applied in various forms and in various solutions thus far presented by many alternate proposals and cannot be considered to be a unique characteristic of one single project. Yet is these vary same concepts that are at the core of our previous proposals, as well as those of the Venus Project.
All the concepts of the modern suburbia, leading to a megalopolis and then a "branded" solution in this case is a natural result of the need created by scarcity of land, problems of pollution in modern cities and the like. So technology itself has called for this type of solution, which is embodied by different teams into similar related proposals. These all consider the elements of pedestrian life needing to superceed the vehicle, the need for frugality and compact cities, the impact of the technology and information revolution, new communication systems, larger scale application of efficient energy and efficient use of land and natural resources and related ideas. And the community oriented society as well is another feature of many such similar proposals. One can see the natural course of modern civilization practically calling for this basic list of elements for a more human modern future city. So it is a natural progression based on intrinsic needs defined as a reaction to the current problems of modern cities. The problems arise and natural solution results, as a natural progression.
Now, when considering the issue of terrorism, a grand concern in modern society, would such concentrated structures be protected? Certainly they would become greater and more susceptible targets, causing greater damage should they succumb to such an attack.
Another point comes to mind when placing dense tower type structures in the desert where the scarcity and availability of land is not equivalent to the constraints found in a large slowly growing megalopolis. If one could pre-design a city, then the ideal model and suggested elements would fit the need like the hand and glove. But typically cities grow due to hundreds of reasons and it is not always possible to pre-plan cities, as they are a large urban phenomenon resultant of man's slow occupation of land. Controlling this behavior in a planned effort has been the dream of many architects, yet it remains a dream.
The Secular Tower
The cathedral like proposal is interesting, and is reminiscent of Niemeyer's cathedral in Brasilia**. (Or even a less grand proposal I elaborated in college, under the same archetype of elements). The proposal considers the tower's need to exit the occupants in the most stream-lined fashion, as one would exit passengers from a wrecked flight, in a sort of post traumatic stress reaction to the 9-11 archetype of vertical steel columns susceptible to potential collapse, and the inherent flaws in the design of scrapers which do not allow for the quick ascent and descent of their occupants.
A cathedral of light is most interesting in terms of opening up the city and it's towers to the exterior environment and allowing this "umbrella" so to speak, to "flock it's children" as a mother hen.
Some interesting technologies are proposed, such as mag lev and unique vertical access devices and we can see also the idealistic nature in some of the similar proposals presented to the site committee considering various proposals at the time.
Economic Interest?
With regards to economic Interest, The Venus Project and other proposals that we have presented are far from this. To the contrary, a resource based economy works for the betterment of it's citizens and all are treated in a fair manner and the greed for profit is removed when scarcity is removed. Man is free to pursue his dreams when the resources of the earth and current technology are employed to their highest capacity with the primary intent of removing scarcity and economic disparity by introducing a resource based economy which has freed itself of money and the calamity that our current money system has imposed on the world.
A simple exploration of the Venus Project and the related links and videos on it's page reveals an enormous amount of information regarding the main problem of the world today which has caused this economic disparity an non viability of the current economic models, which invariably cause financial loss, disparity, wars, concentration of wealth and a vicious cycle of debt needed to fuel economic expansion and monetary expansion, which inevitably goes through periods of contraction, causing greater economic disparity and concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Until the world realizes we need a complete new model for society, any nice architectural vision is bound to failure in the end.
No system will be perfect and no system will be able to fully remove all the sources of our problems today. But in the current system the world operates under, the economic disparity will only grow and the concentration of power caused by an increase of world debt will only increase. Those who create this debt are also those responsible for the current failure of our leading institutions and resulting social problems. A resource based economy removes money and debt from the system, the leading causes of scarcity, social malaise and the economic failure of present models in place.*1
We don't need solely a new architecture. We need a completely new society and social, political, economic and production system. One that is geared towards removing economic disparity by fulling removing the sources of our problems.
** see the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Bras%C3%ADlia
*1 - (Watching a few of the video links on the Venus Project site will help to elucidate these issues to those who would like more information on this subject).
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J.W.B. |
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justellus
Joined: 22 Jan 2009
Posts: 209
Location: World Wide
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| Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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The Venus Project started recently with some wonderful ideas about a "resource based economy", although in practice these ideas seem a little far fetched and difficult to implement. It has further gone astray now by linking in to the Zeitgeists.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vPXc1QcmYDY&feature=related
This video exposes the errors of this group.
What started out as a good idea for a new model of economy has lost it's way in the process, by bringing in groups such as the Zeitgeists.
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