- So dry out here.
Hi, I'm Garrett. - And I'm Niki.
- We're fascinated by how other people live.
- [Niki] So we're gonna try and find
some really interesting living situations.
- [Garrett] And live there, experiencing
a totally different lifestyle.
- [Niki] To see which ones will bring us closer together.
- [Garrett] Or push us further apart.
- This week, we're living in Arcosanti.
- It's really hard to explain.
But you're gonna get the gist of it.
(upbeat music)
- [Niki] Hello. - [All] Hi!
- [Niki] I'm Niki. - Hi Niki, nice to meet you.
- Hi, Garrett. - Shannon.
- Nice to meet you, Shannon. - Nice to meet you, Shannon.
- [Garrett] Thank you for having us at.
- Absolutely. - Arcosanti.
- [Shannon] Absolutely. - Which is.
(record scratch)
- Arcosanti, what is it? - [Garrett] I don't know.
- [Jeff] Arcosanti is trying
to demonstrate something, how to build a city
as a totally integrated, single structure.
- In the early 50's, 60's, 70's, there were
a lot of people who tried to start like,
idealized societies and this is that.
- [Shannon] Essentially, we are proving
that you can live a rich life
without necessarily being rich
and without living in a development
that is negatively impactful on the earth.
These are the vaulted arches.
So this is essentially our city center.
We meet here every morning during the week as a community.
- They've really thought very practically
about how to live in a community in a space.
- The notion of community is one that we have temporarily
lost in America and it's one that we hope
Arcosanti can serve as kindof a trigger
for recovering.
- [Shannon] The entire structure here was built
by the people who live here.
There is a fluctuating population.
Around 60 to 80 people depending
on how big our workshops are.
- I think it's like a work live situation
where everybody lives there also works
and maybe helps build it or tends to the plants
or makes bells.
- [Shannon] This one in particular is our ceramic studio
where we make the famous ceramic soleri wind bells.
The structure behind us is an apt shape
for it's passive solar heating and cooling techniques.
The sun, during the winter, will pass much lower
in the sky so this entire concrete structure
will be filled with sunlight, heating the air
inside the structure as much as 15 degrees.
- Whoa.
- So the bells fund the architecture
which supports more manufacturing
which sortof, so it's like this independent little city.
- A little bit, yeah, to take part in the Arcosanti project,
you participate in a five week workshop
which takes you through the history of Arcosanti
and then for the last three weeks of your workshop,
you come back here and you participate
in one of the departments within the foundation.
Typically, people go into construction
which if you guys are up for it,
we'll have you work in construction tomorrow.
- Awesome, here's the thing, I have a masters degree
in sustainable design and construction
that I don't do anything with
but it will be interesting to see sortof
what's going on in that field
and what these people are doing.
- The desert just seems like a scary place to die.
It seems like one of those places
where humans should not be, but if we learn
to live in the desert, maybe that will be better.
- So these are housing in here,
these are houses in here.
- [Niki] That's housing? - That's housing.
That's housing. - [Garrett] Can I ask how much
like one of the spaces would rent is?
- It's $300 a month.
- What? - $300 a month?
- Yep. - Wow.
I don't think Niki's going to like this.
Niki doesn't like meeting new people
like at all so I think she's gonna probably be running away
from that experience to a more familiar one
which is me so I think it's going
to push us closer together.
- Garrett will be the one person
that I do know and the one person
that I feel comfortable with so you know,
if he and I stick together, it'll be fine.
- You're staying in different places.
- From each other? - Yes.
- Oh. - Oh.
- On the second floor of this structure,
we have three cohousing units.
One that you're going to be living in.
Come on in.
- [Niki] Ah. - [Garrett] Oh my goodness.
This is like very modern architecture.
- [Niki] This is very big. - [Garrett] Yeah, this is
so much bigger than I thought it was going to be.
- [Niki] Same lifestyle, just a little more efficient.
- [Garrett] Yeah. - This is one
of our cohousing units, it has five people living in it.
- [Garrett] Okay.
- [Shannon] Two of which are married.
It has two living spaces, a large kitchen
and two bathrooms.
- [Garrett] Great, this is actually a very big shower.
- Will be tall enough.
- Yeah, it's fine, no shower in the world's tall enough.
- I'm worried that this is one of those living situations
where I'm just living with Garrett,
I'm living with a lot of other people.
- And you have your own space.
- Bam!
- And this is Niki's room. (door squeaks)
- Oh, oh, this is great.
Very cozy.
- [Garrett] You got file cabinets
for all your files. (Shannon laughs)
- [Niki] Yes. - [Garrett] A closet.
- [Niki] Ladders.
Okay.
Oh wow, look at that. - [Garrett] Yeah.
- [Niki] I get my own bathroom.
- You think this is gonna work for you?
- Yeah, definitely, this is great.
- I think we're ready.
- Great, have a wonderful evening.
- Thank you. - Have fun
in your brand new spaces.
Feel free to roam around and tomorrow,
you will be starting construction
at 7 am in the solar classroom.
(record scratch) - 7 am?
- [Shannon] 7 am. - Oh.
Alright. - Alright.
- Two chairs for visitors.
- This is a very nice room.
- [Garrett] This is in Italian.
(loud groan)
Architectural Digest.
- Yes. - Yes.
Okay, alright.
It's actually a great height.
- This is my bedroom and we're on the roof.
This is the view.
This is a gorgeous place, I know I said
I was kinda scared of the desert
and I still am, like this is literally
the view from my window and that's pretty amazing.
I'm kindof overwhelmed with information
that I don't really know how to reflect on this.
- So we're doing this right after the RV.
Which was a tough journey (laughs).
- Garrett and I are on okay terms.
I think we're fine but it's definitely good
that I have my own space.
- I'm sortof immersed in it and I get to meet new people
and listen to their stories.
- I watched the football game tonight
with a few people and that was like,
a great way to get to know some people
over like, something that we all like to do.
It's like easy for me to talk about football
with people I don't know.
- Here's all our friends.
That Niki's cheering on with football.
Tomorrow we're gonna be working, so,
like actually working, like pouring concrete
which I'm really excited about,
like I said, like I studied concrete design
and steel design stuff like that
but I never actually got to like do it.
- 7 am.
(guitar plays)
- There's not really anybody else here.
We're gonna be ready for construction in 25 minutes.
- It's dark and cold.
(light music)
- [Niki] Construction is not really my thing.
And I think that's okay.
All I see in here are ways I can hurt myself.
Makes me very nervous.
- These are some of those finished panels.
That I showed you for east housing, we're gonna sand.
- I've sanded before.
- [Garrett] Yeah, when?
- [Niki] Kelsey made our coffee table.
- [Garrett] Really? - [Niki] Yeah.
(saw whirring)
(scratching)
(upbeat music)
- The cement truck is here and I'm terrified.
- Truck's gonna do most of the work,
we're just gonna guide the concrete
into the friendship trench.
(upbeat music)
- [Niki] Garrett seems to enjoy himself.
I think he liked it a lot today.
I think he was like, very excited
to get his hands in that cement.
- So much fun, it's like violent and like
you're wrestling with the thing.
- I don't have work boots, everyone's got work boots.
I'm wearing sneakers.
- It's going alright, they're doing good,
they're getting in there.
(light rock music)
- Niki, how do you pick it up without it like.
- [Niki] You kinda just scrape it off the edge.
- We just finished construction.
It was so much fun, look, my pants.
My pants are ruined.
- [Niki] He looked like a little kid
who was like seeing his, like, grown up dreams fulfilled.
- [Garrett] She was like a great sport at it.
It was cool, like we did this thing
and it's gonna be a permanent part of this place.
Post concrete pour, rations, nutrients.
- For a hard day's work. - Sustenance, rib sticking.
- We're working men, now. - Yeah.
- We're working boys, big strong ones.
- Welcome to the archives. - Thank you.
It was really cool seeing the archives, today,
because understanding the history
of Arcosanti helps you understand
the future of Arcosanti, I think is the point.
- It's about reorganizing a city three dimensionally.
- Everything here seems so intentional
and so like well thought out.
- I learned that my heated floors this morning
that I thought were just like a weird surprise.
My floor is very warm.
Was like an intentionally built in thing
through architecture and science (laughs)
so stuff like that is like stuff I never think about.
And it's something that I got to experience today.
Got a little bit of free time and I'm pretty wiped out
from all that work this morning
so came back to my room, just to kinda regroup a little bit
before dinner, feel like I've already been up
for a really long time (laughs).
- I'm hanging out, Niki gets to rest alone, perfect.
I played dinky links today.
It was like fun, you get to see sortof
the community come together outside of work.
(all shouting)
- [Niki] We're leaving tomorrow
and Garrett and I haven't spent
a whole lot of time together just us
so maybe we'll hang out tonight
or maybe we'll hang out tomorrow morning.
- We haven't seen much of each other outside of work
but she loves video games and I bought a Nintendo Switch
a couple days ago.
Hey Niki, wanna play video games?
- Ooh, yep.
(light music)
It's morning of day three.
My floor's are warm again.
I got dressed, I got ready, I made myself some coffee.
And I'm like sitting on my couch.
This is my ideal morning, I'm sure Garrett
is up and about already.
- We're gonna see the foundry today.
Niki and I had a good time here.
She got to have her privacy when she wanted.
I got to join in with the hooligans
and the community when I wanted.
- We did like hang out a little bit last night,
which I think was that one on one time
that we both enjoy so it was great
that we could fit that in as well as
like participate in a larger community together.
- I had so many cool experiences here.
I got to join a construction crew
for a day, I got to talk about architecture
with a lot of people that are conversations
that I don't usually get to have.
- [Niki] Arcosanti is kindof like a futuristic city
in the fact that like, people that come through here
will be thinking about how they live in the future
because of what they do here.
I think both Garrett and I had no idea
what we were getting ourselves into
when we came here but I'm walking away
with a lot that I'm thinking about after being here.
- Okay bye Arcosanti.
- [Niki] Bye Arcosanti.
- Let's go.
- I would love to steal a bell, I won't steal a bell,
I'll buy a bell, is there a place we can buy a bell,
those bells are cool, they're everywhere.
You can hear them right now.
(light music)
Next week - [Garrett] On Home Buddies.
(shouts)
- Ranches sound like hard work.
- [Niki] We cooked dinner in the dark.
- [Garrett] This feels like the late 1800's.
- [Niki] I'm half covered in poop,
I feel like my body's falling apart.
- [Garrett] It's so hard to live out here.
Get out of here, leave me alone.
(light music)