CALIFIA: Bay Area Eco-City 2015
Open Community Design Summit
Saturday, May 20, 2006 1:00 - 6:00 PM
California Institute of Integral Studies
Namaste Hall (3rd floor)
1453 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA
(415) 379-7371
click here for map
Admission:
Free, by confirmed invitation. Refreshments will be served.
Donations to pay for the space and facilitation will be gladly accepted.
Limited seating, so please RSVP as soon as possible to: info@greencenturyinstitute.org
or by joining our Meetup group.
Overview:
This workshop will bring together various Bay Area groups and experts
who are interested in contributing to the “visioning process” for
Califia, the Green Century Institute’s proposed 10,000-person Bay Area
EcoCity - as our region’s sustainable development epicenter. This
initial conceptual design stage of the project will be rooted in
convergence and consensus building. We will be working with
facilitators from the Neighborhood Assemblies Network, who will be
using the “World Café” format for the workshop. Our agenda for the day
includes overview/history, small & large group discussion, shared
vision building and action team breakouts.
Workshop Deliverables:
1. Design Spec - The primary configuration of Califia that can be used for initial conceptual design studies.
2. Strategic Plan Outline/Timeline - Basic outline of the development plan and timeline.
3. Core Visioning Community - Establish the initial core Califia
support group working with GCI on design development and strategic
planning.
Confirmed Participants/Organizations:
Over 90 representatives from various organizations, such as Bioneers,
EcoCity Builders, Livability Project, Solar Living Institute, Calthorpe
Associates, etc... and various sectors - construction/developers,
affordable housing, architecture/design, food/permaculture, energy
industry, community organizing, real estate, non-profits,
transportation, venture capital/banking, business, youth, government,
education, technology/social networks, health/wellness and media/arts.
ABOUT THE CALIFIA PROJECT
Califia is a proposed 10,000 person eco-city to be built in the San
Francisco Bay region by 2015. The Green Century Institute is developing
the general proposal for the project and seeking partners for this
world class sustainable development.
Califia
is seen as a Bay Area showcase for the best and the brightest of what
our innovative bioregion has to offer in the high-yield intersection of
social systems, information platforms, and green
technology—synthesizing the many local efforts into a focused plan for
prototyping and then replicating sustainable human habitats.
Long Term Califia Objectives:
- Create a scalable and rapidly extensible development model for large-scale eco-city projects around the world.
- Unify responsible business practices with community development, social equity, and ecological integrity.
- Projects of Califia's scale (7-10,000 people) eventually serve as
sustainable community nerve centers and urban green design laboratories
in major metropolitan regions around the world.
Goals:
1. Propagate the interdependent values of cooperation and sustainability
2. Encourage the pooling of resources and participatory decision-making
processes to maximize human potential and promote the highest quality
of life possible in the project
3. Design Califia from the ground up as an integral project with a thorough sensitivity to ecological concerns
4. Focus on self-sufficient or net-positive solutions wherever possible
in relation to energy use, food production, and building materials
5. Promote non-traditional community-based financing and social capital programs
6. Foster innovative systems design in all areas, becoming a model for future urban development
7. Facilitate inter-cultural exchanges to support the full expression
and affirmation of the world's diverse cultures, perspectives and
experiences.
Background:
The
concept of Califia emerged out of the research and development work of
the Green Century Institute as a further evolution of various first
generation eco-city design implementations across the globe, among them
GCI partner projects Arcosanti in central Arizona and Auroville
in Southern India. Drawing partially upon these eco-city
implementations as well as their theoretical backing, we envision
Califia as a leading edge eco-development joining next generation green
architectural design principles and information systems into integral
human living environments for the 21st century. Key to the design will
be the innovative social meshwork underlying it, which will be
implemented in a flexible mixed-use project combining traditional and
cohousing-style residential development – a full suite of community,
commercial, and social spaces to maximize human potential and group
interactions.
This dramatic integrated
complex will meld natural environments with dense urban spaces. Califia
will be built in several phases over a ten-year period, housing 10,000
residents when completed in 2015.
(from
left): Climate Zone 1 (1976), Arcosanti 2000 (1993), Nudging Space
Arcology (2000) - Model arcologies designed by Paolo Soleri.
(from left): Canal City, Fukuoka, Japan (1996),
Core Pacific City, Taipai, Taiwan (2001, under construction),
Santa Fe Town Center, Mexico City, Mexico (1993, proposed) -
Urban design projects developed by Jon Jerde's Jerde Partnership
International.
Proposed
Features and Components of Califia
| Location:
within 30 minutes of San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan
area |
| Space
use: 50% living, 25% commercial/public, 25% public/circulation/services |
| LEED-certified
development from the US Green Building Counsel (www.usgbc.org) |
| Sustainable
design and technology features |
| Digital
network/media infrastructure |
| "Social
capital" real estate investment programs |
| Advanced
horticulture and permaculture - farms, greenhouses, parks,
small gardens |
| Performing
arts center |
| Healing
and spiritual practice center |
| Writer/Artist
retreat center |
| High
Tech/High Touch research laboratories |
| Museum
of Information Design - sponsored by Bay Area technology
firms |
| Green
Community Network headquarters and meeting facilities |
| |
Active
Advisors
Two world
leaders in urban design, Paolo Soleri's Cosanti Foundation and
Jon Jerde's Jerde Partnership International, are making significant
in-kind contributions to the conception and design of Califia.
Other Active Advisors for the Califia project, such as Liz Burdock
and Martin Samuels, are pioneering sustainable development of
new communities through a variety of significant initiatives.
Paolo
Soleri,
renowned for his ecological design ideas, built Arcosanti in
central Arizona, a mixed-use model arcology or "urban laboratory"
as he calls it in central Arizona.
The
Jerde Partnership International in
Los Angeles, founded by Jon Jerde, is currently considered the
leading urban design firm internationally. With over 100 major
projects around the world, including several billion dollar-plus
mixed use developments in major urban centers such as Tokyo,
Taipai, Seoul, Mexico City and Rotterdam. Soleri and Jerde are
both contributing early conceptual designs for Califia. GCI
plans to involve both groups in broader feasibility research
and design development as the project's funding program evolves.
Elizabeth
Burdock, VP of Sustainable Development, Dutko Group,
Washington, D.C., former Director of PATH program for sustainable
development in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Martin
Samuels is the founder and President of GreenCity Development
Group, Inc.,
one of the premier sustainable "green" real estate
development companies in Northern California. GCDG's GreenCity
Lofts project in Oakland, California, will be the largest new
construction, green designed, green built, urban-infill, multifamily
housing development in the State of California.
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