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Pliny Fisk III: Creating a Maximum Potential Future
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PLINY FISK III CREATING A MAXIMUM POTENTIAL FUTURE
By SAM MARTIN Foreword By SUSAN SZENASY EpiZogue By DYL^N SIEGLER ,^A
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Green Masters Series: Pliny Fisk III An Ecotone Publishing Book / 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Sam Martin
All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication maybe reproduced, distrib uted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of Ecotone Publishing-an Imprint of International Living Future Institute, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copy right law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “At tention Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
For more information write:
Ecotone Publishing 721 NW Ninth Avenue, Suite 195 Portland, OR 97209
Author: Sam Martin Book Design: Erin Gehle Edited by: Fred McLennan and Michael D. Berrisford
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947351 Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-9826902-8-4
- Architecture 2. Technology 3. Philosophy
First Edition
Published in the United States and printed in Canada. Processed Chlorine-Free, using vegetable-based ink.
MIX4—„Paper from Uresponsible sources ^.^ FSC CO16245
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For Celeste. And also for Ford, Wren, and Walter.
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CREATING A MAXIMUM POTENTIAL FUTURE
I\*OBy SAM MARTIN Foreword By SUSAN SZENASY Epilogue By DYLAN SIEGLER
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ACGCE^©)WL[iDGiMENTS
It is very special in life to be a part of helping to create a movement and even more special to have people believe that this experience is worth sharing. I owe a great deal to the people at Ecotone Publishing-Jason F. McLennan, Michael D. Berrisford, and Erin Gehle-who were instrumental in putting this book together, and author Sam Martin, who patiently stayed aboard over five years and vividly captured my life of serious commotion, along with Susan Szenasy and Dylan Siegler, who graciously contributed the foreword and epilogue, respectively. Equally important, I owe more than I can describe to CMPBS staff, especially Brendan Wittstruck and Lovleen Gill-Aulakh along with the more than 250 employees, interns, and count less community members and on-site crews. I owe an immense amount as well to my wife and business partner Gail Vittori and family, Noah, Adam, Ariel and Carson, who have all put up with such a life as mine, picking up the grains of wisdom that I have been fortunate enough to summon together and take them to new and much greater heights. Finally, I thank everyone for their patience while I gathered the detailed footnotes, and for the time required for the creation ofthe AurasmaApp ed photographs and the graphics describing the Lenses for a Maximum Potential Future.
Have fun - it is a book to be used!
Pliny Fisk Ill-September 2013
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“I have gone over your various research and development projects and find them lucid, intelligent, economic and in every way gratifying.” R. Buckminster Fuller 1973
“Max’s Pot is doing some of the best, if not the best, university-related work on integrating energy systems in the United States.” The Portola Institute 1974
“We have studied many energy options after our gas was cut off last Sep tember… So far our experience has told us that the advice and work done by CMPBS is the only work that has proven cost effective, maintainable and understandable by our population.” Roberto Garcia Crystal City Energy Commission 1979
“We feel your community technology development program, adapted to our specific Navajo context, will help us to meet basic community needs while respecting the earth and our people.” Peter Deswood Director Community Development The Navajo Nation 1983
”…All we need now are Max’s Pots in every part of the continent.” Kirkpatrick Sale 1983
“Pliny Fisk is an expert at using discarded and available materials effec tively. His ideas fit right into the farmworker reality. As a matter of fact, I was amazed at the amounts and kinds of materials available that were unused. Farmworkers are experts in the habit of recycling. The idea of or ganizing around these resources fell on welcoming ears.” Rebecca Harrington United Farmworkers of America Director 1984
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“I have followed Pliny Fisk’s work in appropriate technology for a number of years…in my opinion, these topics and methodologies ought to be part of architectural educational curricula worldwide.” Donald Watson, FAIA 1987
”…(The Center s) work grows out of a literal and metaphysical map of the ecology and resources of a region. The material cycles, the energy flows, the water in a region is really what it’s all about.” Jane Holtz Kay Architecture Magazine 1991
“Once considered on the fringe, the [Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems] … is now widely considered to be in the vanguard of the country’s eco-friendly or green building’ movement.” Patricia Leigh Brown New York Times 1996
“Using his new software, Pliny Fisk sets out to build a detailed account of our material world. His house of data could be the greatest infrastructural feat human beings have ever accomplished.” Andrea Moed Metropolis 1996
“He’s given the whole movement a more technical bent and a less touchy- feely direction.” James White U.S. Environmental Protection Agency New York Times 1996
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“Ofall the environmental designers wlio studied at the feet ofIan McHarg, FASLA, at the university of Pennsylvania, Pliny Fisk is probably the most eclectic, the most radical, and the most inventive. He is also, arguably, the one whose ideas have the widest practical application to the sustainable practice of landscape design.” J. William Thompson, FASLA Editor, Landscape Architecture 2000
“The firm has used its land to try out ideas for more sustainable development, construction systems, materials and alternative sources of energy. Max’s Pot’s open-air architecture and building lab is a study in process-net conceived to impress clients, but to show how their innova tive ideas work.” Michael J. Crosbie Architecture for Architects 2006
“Before there was LEED, before An Inconvenient Truth or Cradle to Cradle or the lexicon of carbon footprints and green building, there was Max’s Pot… The vision and working invention of Pliny Fisk III trained as an architect and landscape architect and widely hailed as an environ mental renegade.” SegdDESIGN Magazine 2008
“Hang on tight when talking to Pliny Fisk: In a few minutes, the conversa tion jumps from pattern-finding software to trawling Texas riverbeds for mesquite wood to 20th century futurist Buckminster Fuller — or, as Fisk calls him Bucky…But once you getyour feet under you, it all makes sense in his approach to sustainable building, a combination of high-minded theory and grass-roots community organizing.” Marianne K. Amoss Urbanite 2009
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“I met Pliny when I began work on the AIAs Environmental Resource Guide. I always told him by the third time I heard or read something from him,Iwould actually “get” it — and it was always worth the trouble. He was talking systems thinking when others were looking for conventional LCA; his ideas on connecting data from a variety of sources to enable us to see and understand patterns are still fresh.” Joel Ann Todd Environmental Consultant; Cabin John, Maryland 2010
“Fisk had just stepped out of a university teaching position to found his non-profit Center for Maximum Potential Systems, and it was the begin ning of a remarkably innovative career that, nearly 40 years later, is still going strong.” Bruce E. Boyers Organic Connections 2013
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GREEN MASTERS: PLINY FISK ^II TABLE OF CONTENTS
i Foreword 61 First Work
1 The Revolution Will Be Designed 69 Alan Taniguchi and Architecture at the University of Texas 9 The Fits, Starts, and Success of Sustainable Design 79 Appropriate Technology and Buddhist Economics 17 Out of a Compost Heap Comes a Fertile Mind 89 Activists, Movers, and Shakers
27 Educating Pliny 101 The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems 37 Ian McHarg, Russell Ackoff, and University Life 121 The Designer-Planner as Activist
49 Captain Marble and His Manmade 131 Surviving and Survivalists in Environment Space Sequence, South Texas Part One 139 Gail Vittori
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145 The Rise of Sustainable Thinking 223 Keep it Simple, Stupid! Getting Back to Basics 153 Riding the Sustainable Circuit, the Indian Nations and a Blueprint Farm 233 Afterword: Lenses for a Maximum for Laredo Potential Future 163 The Austin Green Builder Program 269 Epilogue 171 Building on Success
185 To China and Baja With Love From Texas
195 Flexible Design and The Cycles of Life
205 ProtoScope and the Texas Coast
213 A City Called Plenitude
T
onPage 15
1I
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In 1996 when we decided to take a deep dive into sustainability, we realized that the topic was too big for just one issue of Metropolis. To give the subject its due, beginning with our September issue, we set out to ques tion everything around us, at every scale, from the largest human settle ment to the smallest object, starting with the paper our magazines cover was printed on. We were on a mission to deconstruct materials and pro cesses, human well-being and the things that connect us to each other and make a community. The fourth issue in this quartet of deep dives settled on a specific region-Soutli Central Texas. Tlie main reason for our clioice had everything to do with the two people who were doing their own deep dives-Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk III.
Even before we made Texas our focus, everyone told us to visit the Center
for Maximum Potential Building Systems, just outside of Austin. So on
a warm evening, we landed in the yard of the Center. Plinys welcome,
accompanied by crickets, cicadas, and an assortment of buzzing and
zooming insects, was gracious yet intense. Sitting across from him I re
membered one of Bucky Fullers eight-hour lectures, most of which I did
not understand, but knew that I needed to.
Pliny talked about research focused on building processes, water, solar enGreen Masters: ergy, and locally available materials that would create distinct architecture Pliny Fisk III and landscapes as well as jobs to sustain the communities, data gathering and analysis…seemingly an endless and urgent need to remake the mod ern, industrialized world into a higli tech, humane place, environmentally and spiritually connected to the cycles ofthe planet. This would, of course, take several lifetimes to accomplish. But what a lifetime I was witnessing here! Iunderstood quickly that the wiry, agile man facing me was building the foundation for the lifetimes that followed.
It was clear that we were in the presence of a unique human being: a cata
lyst, a guide, an inspiration, a font of useful knowledge all aided and abet
ted by an abiding curiosity that underlies a restless search and blessed with
a sense of humor to put it all in perspective.
The deluge of fascinating information that Pliny let loose that night
needed to be digested, and somehow made part of our December 1996
issue on South Central Texas, a region we identified as "extravagant, re
sourceful, high-tech, spiritual, individual, communal, Anglo and Latino."
We asked ourselves, "How is this intensely local place meeting the global
challenges of sustaining the environment, fostering well-being, andPage 17
building community?” In other words, we localized our global deep dive here in this small patch of land, in the second biggest state of the union.
On our way home and in the weeks that followed, we set out to digest, analyze, and distill what we saw and heard in the Lone Star state. Soon it became clear that, when it comes to Pliny and Gail’s work, you have to choose a tight focus and explore each topic as intensely as possible in tell ing the story that it deserves. We decided to highlight two of their activi ties: the experimental house and the materials research that gave it texture, form, and character as well as the water, ventilation, and energy systems that kept it functioning; and a detailed survey of our material world which we predicted to be “the greatest infrastructural feat human beings have ever accomplished.”
Through telling these two stories it became clear that we had just met one of Bucky Fullers heirs, a major player in the new generation of systems thinkers. He not only rethought the house, but made visible the complex system of materials and processes we use to build it, including the harvest ing, manufacturing, and transporting of every molecule that goes into it, as well as the many other steps it takes to build anything. In this quest, Pliny and Gail were aided by new software technologies that seemed high ly advanced at the time, but now look like tender beginnings. By Sam Martin iii;
To say that meeting Pliny was an illuminating experience does not give the moment the justice it deserves. He has helped Metropolis to build the foundation for the magazine’s ever-widening inquiry into healthier and more mindful ways ofliving, as well as connecting to the world around us.
Slowly I began to grasp the ideas Pliny put in my head on that warm Texas night. But more than that, I, like numerous others through the years, was inspired by his relentless curiosity and drive, abiding optimism, can-do attitude, and the many worthwhile accomplishments these traits have led him to. And if there is just one thing we have learned from Pliny and Gail-and that is a very big thing!-it is to become systems thinkers. They have taught us and countless others worldwide to connect the many dis tinct pieces of knowledge we have gathered and continue to collect about the natural world, the built environment, and our place in it, regardless of where we live.
-Susan S. Szenasy, Editor in Chief, Metropolis Magazine
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Download free Search & follow Go to Explore page Point your device View the Aurosma App Pliny Fisk and tap the at the image page ‘Auras’ Channel viewfinder
AURASMA
Aurosma is an augmented reality platform. It uses advanced image
and pattern recognition to blend interactive content such as text,
images, and videos with a link to websites to form 'Auras'. Explore the
cover page and all the photographic chapter introduction pages with
Aurosma to access interactive content.
EXPLORE INTERACTIVE CONTENT UNIQUE TO THIS BOOKPage 19
Download free Point your device at Find more ScanBuy TAG App the TAGs on Lens information about pages Lenses
TAGTAG codes, originally developed by Microsoft, can be used to unlock associated content by scanning the TAG image. Scan the TAGs on the Tenses for a Maximum Potential Future’ introduction pages to learn more about the Lenses.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE LENSES FOR A MAXIMUM POTENTIAL FUTURE
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•
IMAGE: ALAN POGUE
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“The notion of a gringo with Albert Einstein hair and 0 mad scientist’s bushy mustache whacking his way into the Nicaraguan jungle to teach such a proud and independent group of indigenous people how to live off the land they have settled for hundreds of years seems, at first glance, presumptuous and, at second glance, crazy.”
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Irn the spring of 1983, Pliny Fislc III landed in Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast in a beat up old cargo plane riddled with bullet holes? In his J-Lpossession: equipment for an earth lab that could test the strength ofa new type of cement he was creating from the local soil and rice husk ash for the country’s indigenous Miskito people. Some may have questioned the timing of such a project, if not the location. Nicaragua had been locked in a devastating civil war between the revolutionary Sandinista government and an organized and U.S. funded counter-revolutionary force known as the Contras. Fisk did not see that as a deterrent, even after he got rerouted to the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador where he was asked to update his pass- port (it had inconveniently expired since his last international trip). That unexpected side trip had drained him of the little resources he had, leaving him witli not much more than forty dollars and the boots on his feet.
But his determination was fixed. After landing, Fisk walked out of the heavily militarized airport and into a thick humid air where he got into By Sam Martin 3 a truck with his equipment and headed off into the war-ravaged Mosquito Coast to help the locals build better houses.
For centuries the Mosquito Coast has been one of tlie most inaccessible and autonomous regions in Central America. The virtually road-less Ca ribbean lowland landscape is a hot and humid savannah interspersed with patches of tropical rainforest where the coast loops in and out in a series of irregular lagoons. A wide and diverse parade of plant life and animals call the forest home, including zoo-foot Ceiba trees, jaguar, puma, anacondas, howler monkeys, and the beautiful and mysterious holy bird of the Mayan civilization, the quetzal. The area is constantly wet, with as much as 250 inches of rainfall per year. Several of Nicaragua’s large rivers run through the region, flowing down from the country’s inland volcanic mountain range and into the Caribbean Sea.
So remote is this triangular piece of territory between Honduras and Cos ta Rica, that the Miskito people who have long lived here (and for whom the territory is named), were largely unaffected by the Spanish conquests of the area in the 1600s and 1700s. After centuries of Spanish and Brit ish rule in the region, the Miskito still have the same political and social
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customs they have had for more than 350 years, including a icing whose royal lineage dates back at least seven generations. Many Miskitos still do not recognize the Nicaraguan government, nor do they consider them selves Nicaraguans.
Which makes what Fisk was doing even more questionable. The notion of
a gringo with Albert Einstein hair and a mad scientists bushy mustache
whacldng his way into the Nicaraguan jungle to teach sucli a proud and
independent group ofindigenous people how to live off the land they have
settled for hundreds of years seems, at first glance, presumptuous and, at
second glance, crazy. But for Pliny Fisk III, a man trained in architecture,
landscape architecture, and planning, and a professor and pioneer of the
sustainable planning, design, and building movement, overcoming such
obstacles is all in a day's work, even if it means getting shot at.
The fact is Fiskhas been called many things in his career-mad, megaloma-
niacal, impatient, relentless and brilliant among them. But the one thing
everyone agrees on is that he has had a profound and substantial influ
ence on the current boom in sustainable design and planning. The Green
Building movement as a whole, including the LEED rating system^, the
U.S. Green Building Council and all twenty-six of this country's city-level4 Green Masters: green building organizations and agencies, has in many ways been shaped Pliny Fisk III by the work Fisk, his wife Gail Vittori, and their Center for Maximum Po tential Building Systems have done over the past forty-one years. Fisk’s work in alternative building materials and building systems, renewable en ergy, resource mapping, new town planning, self-sufficient farming, waste treatment, local economics, and continuing education is beginning to in fluence a second generation of architects and city planners and has swayed government policy from Washington to Longju, China.
Fisk had become involved in Nicaragua and the Miskito people by way of
another revolutionary situation he had been involved with in South Texas
in 1977. He had been building solar hot water heaters and mesquite burn
ing heating stoves for Crystal City to help wean the townspeople off the
privately-run utility company, LoVaca Gas Company, that had recently
cut off the natural gas supply after the local government refused to pay
what they considered unfair prices. The elected officials in Crystal City
had been members of the La Raza Unida party3 movement and many had
found inspiration in the events in Nicaragua where, in 1979, the Sandinista
revolution had overthrown the country's decades-old military dictator
ship started by General Anastasio Somoza in the 1930s. The SandinistasPage 25
had subsequently begun an effort to create a more self-sufficient infra structure for the country’s indigenous people. The Contras, who were often made up of Miskito and other native people, saw the Sandinista involvement in the countryside as a way to steal traditional lands and erad icate local customs. In a twist, the U.S. government began illegal funding of the Contra effort out of a fear that the Sandinistas would create a com munist government.
It was the newly formed revolutionary Sandinista government that had invited Fisk to Nicaragua in an attempt to quell some of the friction that arose between the revolutionaries and the native people.
Tlie day Fisk arrived unceremoniously with his earth lab and his Macin tosh computer it was his second trip to the region.’ He had been hired by the Nicaraguan anthropologist Galio Gurdian to help design a prototype village system for the Miskito community-everything from building with indigenous materials and farming to creating more local jobs and reducing imports from Cuba. Gurdian directed the Sandinista-sponsored CIDCA (Center for the Investigation and Documentation of the Atlantic Coast), a group that was helping to conserve the Miskitos native culture. Fisk met Gurdian through Richard Newbold Adams, the then head of the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) at the University of Texas at Austin and By Sam Martin 5
his daughter, anthropologist Tani Adams. Project funding was supported with grants from Oxfam in England and Trocaire in Ireland.
On his first trip he discovered that the Sandinistas were urging the Miski tos to build their dwellings in a west coast style. Since the west coast of Nicaragua is colder and gets far less rain than the east coast, the new dwell ings were not performing like the locals needed them to. Also, the Sand inistas were importing cement from Cuba, rather than using local materi als. Because the design was coming from the other side of the country and some materials from out of the country, the Miskito and their well-mean ing new landlords, the Sandinistas, were effectively outsourcing work they could be doing themselves, and their local economy was suffering because of it. In the preceding years, the United Fruit Company had denuded most of the pine savannah to grow bananas, only to find that the soil type and parasites would not support banana production. So, the government invited Fisk to take a look at the situation and to develop dwellings with materials and design indigenous to Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast.
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His solution was to develop a master plan for the entire area by carefully studying and mapping local examples, including culturally and regionally relevant tropical housing that included stilted buildings and backyard gar dens. His idea was that the local people would contribute to the designs, gather the resources since they knew where they were and howto get them, and build the various elements according to the techniques Fisk outlined through interactive training workshops.
The one wild card, of course, was the war. Fisk was given the task of setting
up labs to test the strength of various materials, but he was also given an
AK-47 and shown how to shoot it. Despite the fact that the Contras were
being funded by the CIA, many Americans in Nicaragua were at a serious
risk ofgetting killed.5 Undeterred, Fisk continued his work witli character
istic conviction-until one close call.
Fisk had been rustled out of bed one morning by CIDCA's Gurdian, who
told Fisk that a small Sandinista military convoy was making a trip into
one of the more remote villages Fisk had been working with. This trip
would be a good opportunity to check in on them and see how the prog
ress was coming with a few of his new acquaintances and some of the few
lumbering operations still operating in the region, and to "ground truth"6 Green Masters: mapped information he had received from ILAS. Fisk threw on the previ Pliny Fisk III ous day’s clothes and pulled on his mud-stained boots. Before heading out the door he picked up his AK-47 and slung it over his shoulder.
There were perhaps twenty men in military trucks and old jeeps guarding
each end of the column. "Some of us were asked to provide minor mili
tary support in between," says Fisk. The convoy had barely started to inch
across the muddy and sweeping landscape, when Fisk realized he could
not go. That day was to be the final day of firing his samples of alumina
clay and to begin testing the compression strengths of a series of indige
nous cements using a combination of fired rice husk ash and alumina clay."
Missing the test would mean having to start all over again with the mixes
and the firing and it would postpone certain projects that were already
behind. He had to turn back. Gurdian agreed, so they pulled over, let the
rest of the convoy pass, and headed back.
After the day's work, Fisk was invited to a local official's house for dinner.
It was raining again and the fading sunlight under the rainforest canopy
had brought its sounds to a crescendo. Howler monkeys groaned in the
distance while stripe-breasted wren whistled into the sticky evening air.Page 27
All around giant raindrops caromed off tree limbs and giant banana leaves to the forest floor.
Just as Fisk and the rest had tucked into a plate ofgallo pinto, tomatoes and fried tortuga, there came a somber knock at the door. The official got up, answered the door, exchanged a few quiet words with the messenger and came back to the table.
“They’re all dead,” he said without sitting down.
Fisk and the others looked up from the table.
Outside in the drizzle two men were unloading fifty-two plain wood cof fins from their trucks and stacking them in front of the house.
“I’m the local coroner,” the official said.
The entire convoy had been ambushed by Contra rebels, and there had been no survivors. Had Fisk not turned back that morning, one of those coffins surely would have been his own.
By Sam Martin 7Page 30
“His ultimate goal is to allow O everyone, in arc given society, to have equal to resources/‘
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I/ Vo know Fisk and his work is to know the sustainable design move ment and all of its themes from solar power to LEED rating. As Rich MacMath, one of Fisk’s former employees noted, “Fisk is a mirror of what’s been going on in the industry for the past thirty-five years” from the earliest days of the American Solar Energy Conference to tlie creation of the National Center for Appropriate Technology to the work presently being done by the U.S. Green Building Council. Before that he was a student in architecture and landscape architecture in the late 1960s at the University of Pennsylvania, at the time largely considered the best school in both fields in the country. There he was taught by professors such as Ian McHarg and influenced considerably by Louis Kahn.
Over the years, Fisk has managed to stay so far at the forefront of ecologi cal thinking and sustainable design that most followers of the sustainable design movement will comment that he has managed to think himself about ten years into the future. His work and his ideas about how build By Sam Martin 11 ings and communities are built and organized have been revolutionary in their own right because he was one of the first to point out that in order for the built environment to be completely aware of the natural environment, everyone involved, from architects to engineers to farmers to business owners, must be a part of the plan. In other words, Fisk has never believed that consistent change in how cities plan and people build can come about through a single gestalt-like land conservation, architecture, or economics plan. Lasting change has to include all three. Because of his tireless and continued involvement Fisk is considered one of the earliest pioneers of the sustainable design movement.
Trying to pin down the parameters of any so-called “movement” is a tough chore because events are not always obviously linked. As Jason F. McLen nan puts it in his book The Philosophy of Sustainable Design, “no movement or idea has just one start, but many threads of cause and effect that trickle down through the centuries.” Indeed, the lessons of history and the in fluences of past thinkers help to create direction in any field. In the case of sustainable design-the design philosophy that seeks to maximize the quality ofthe built environment, while minimizing or eliminating negative
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impact to the natural environment7-some individuals point to pre-his toric cultures as the first to create low-impact communities. Civilizations like the Anasazi of New Mexico created tlieir cliff dwellings to minimize the intensity of the summer sunshine and heat and to maximize the win ter sun-a practice now known among architects as passive solar design? Alook at the vernacular structures of ancient nomadic people all over the world would reveal buildings that were necessarily simple, moveable, and easy to build, with little disturbance of tlie essential life-support systems that the local people also depended upon for their livelihood.
With that tip of the hat to those earliest environmentally-conscious and,
at times, environmentally-disruptive, designer-planners who would shape
the landscape far more than might be understood was a background from
which we tend to evolve the present movement. The popular assumption
about green architecture, smart growth, or any other catch phrase that has
made its way into the growing sustainable design lexicon is that building
and planning with an eye on nature has grown out of the environmental
movement. To some degree that is true, but not entirely. The environmen
tal movement that most believe was first articulated in books like Rachel
Carsons Silent Spring and McHargs Design with Nature did draw attention
to the enormous amount of destruction and waste caused by population12 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk ill growth and industry, including the building industry. Suburban sprawl and dying culture in city centers were also targeted as symptoms of a sick planet. Even before Carsons book, Murray Bookchin publislied Our Syn thetic Environmentinwhich the author introduced the idea of a “social ecol ogy” that took into account humans as part ofthe environment rather than separate from it. Peter van Dressers A Landscape for Humans suggested the same thing: that a human ecology had to be part of the natural ecology.
While certain values join the environmental and sustainable design move
ments together, they are actually quite different or at least the perception
of them in most people's minds has become quite different.
Since the original Earth Day in 1970 and the change and excitement that
followed, the environmental movement has garnered broad public appeal.
The problem, say some in the industry, is that the appeal has not translated
into significant and lasting government policy. Some point to politics as
to why this is the case. Others say that those pushing the environmental
agenda have failed to frame the argument in practical terms. There is no
question that there are many more people interested in environmental ef
forts now than before the movement started more than forty years ago.Page 33
Recycling trucks making their rounds once a week to pickup plastic, paper, and glass provided only a glimmer of hope at the first Earth Day in 1970. But the fact remains that most people cannot relate to global warming or how many tons of greenhouse gas emissions the United States spews into the atmosphere every year. Statistics predicting the end of the polar ice caps, however accurate they are, is the kind of information that is difficult to assimilate on a personal, local level, and it risks turning people away by creating an aura of dread and science fiction.
What people can relate to is saving money and having more good jobs. Framed in that language, environmentalism becomes appealing. For ex ample, being told that buying a new car or truck with a gas-electric hybrid engine is going to cut down your expenses at the fuel pump is a much more effective selling point than being told you are helping to save the planet by buying a car with lower emissions even thougli most people who buy hybrid cars like the fact that they are helping the environment.
Sustainable design, on the other hand, has found a way to appeal to the broader public. Builders, architectural firms, and developers have latched onto the marketing benefits of green building. It also does not hurt that there have been a variety of attractive tax incentives for builders to con struct houses that demand less energy from the electrical grid. By the By Sam Martin 13
same token, individuals are attracted to low monthly energy bills, healthy interiors, more parks and green space, closer communities and the conve nience of densely clustered shopping close to where they live. Even local governments have recognized the economic benefit to stopping sprawl with revitalized central business districts and inner city urban loft-style housing- all ofwhicli appeal to a growing number of people.
Of course, this design approach is a far cry from the earthships made from recycled tires and the back-to-the-land communes of the 1960s, both of which became the image of environmental architecture and “green” living at the beginning of the movement. There is no doubt that sustainable de sign owes a debt to these early pioneers, just as it does to ancient cultures. Fislc himself was plugged into the back-to-the-land movement. He read Whole Earth Catalogue and Mother Earth News, went to solar conferences, revered Buckminster Fuller, and had a beard down to his chest.
In fact, when discussing Fisk’s work and all of its highly technical, case specific, and mind-stretching approaches to sustainable design and new technology it is important not to lose sight of the fact that what Fisk is
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trying to do and has been trying to do since day one of the original Labora tory for Maximum Potential Building Systems in 1972 is to create a balance between man and nature. His ultimate goal is to allow everyone, in any given society, to have equal access to resources. That said, it is a credit to Fisk’s vision and persistence-as well as the work of other pioneers such as Tom Bender of the Ourorobos Project (1973), Sim van der Ryn of the Far- allones Institute (1974), Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute (1982), WesJackson ofthe Land Institute (1976),John and Nancy Todd and the New Alchemy Institute (1970), Steve and Holly Baer of Zomeworks (1969), David Orr of the Meadowcreek Project (1979), and eventually Bob Berkebile and Bill McDonough — that sustainable design has progressed and developed into such an exciting and mainstream possibility. Once a fringe movement reserved for hippies and solar geelcs, sustainable design is now at the cutting edge of what’s new.
14 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III
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By Sam Martin
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7,?^^^
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“There were the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans and the Fisks.” =■Gail Vittori
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prciJ he name Pliny Fisk is an odd one, though those of a certain age will most certainly recognize it. Pliny Fisk Sr., Fisk s grandfather, was, according to the New York Times, “one of the outstanding in vestment bankers of the pre-war era.” Fisk & Hatch, the New York firm that Fisk I took over from his father, Harvey Fisk, in 1900 after graduating from Princeton, had helped the Union government finance the Civil War after its inception in 1862. In the years before World War I, Fisk turned the firm, which was renamed Harvey Fisk & Sons in 1884, into the fourth or fifth largest investment bank in the country. The man made millions on the stockmarket and in other investments in pre-Depression America.
“There were the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans and the Fisks,” says Gail Vittori.
Indeed, it seems the original Fisk’s money and influence was legend ary. Along with Cornelius Vanderbilt and JP Morgan, Fisk helped fund the Hudson Tubes project in 1906, the first train tunnels built under the By Sam Martin 19
Hudson River. The Times reported that he once made $800,000 in a day through savvy stock market investments (the equivalent in todays dollars would be $10 million). He also bought and renovated a nine-story build ing at 11 East 45th Street, named it the Home Club and created the first luxury co-op in New York. Six families lived there-one on each floor-in cluding Fisk and his family who took up the eighth and ninth floors. Most considered this a perfect alternative for having to staff entire private homes in the city.9
Because of his wealth, Fisk became something of a celebrity, and the press treated him accordingly. Looking through newspaper archives, one can find articles with headlines such as “Pliny Fisk in Auto Crash;” “Pliny Fisk, Banker, Choked and Robbed;” and “Pliny Fisk Buys $450,000 Es tate.” There is even a story of how Fisk Sr., when living for a spell at the Holland House hotel on Fifth Avenue and 30th Street, tackled and sub dued Nick Moran, at the time an infamous hotel burglar who had tried to sneak into Fisk’s suite. It was the story of the month around New York’s society gatherings.
Page 40
Pliny Fisk I was also a friend and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson and, according to Fisk III, it was his grandfatlier and his grandmother, El eanor Hepburn Small, who helped Wilson come up with the idea of United States Savings Bonds.
As the family story goes, "Wilson asked grandfather to lielp get the coun
try out of economic trouble," Fisk says. "So that night he, with a major push
from my grandmother, developed the basic concept of savings bonds. The
idea was to have the people bail the country out of financial trouble rather
than ask the wealthy to build the country back up."
Fisk Sr. became well respected for his banking smarts, especially in the
world of corporate consolidations, whicliwas a big trend at the time. As
a sign of his far-reaching influence in the world of finance, the econom
ics library at Princeton is named the Pliny Fisk Library of Economics
and Finance.
The elder Fisk was married twice, once in 1882 to Mary Laura Chapman
and once in 1903 to Eleanor Small. He and Small had four children to
gether: Eleanor, Gwendolyn, Wilbur, and Pliny II, Fisk's father. When the
family was not living at the Home Club in Manhattan they were at their
enormous mansion estate in Rye, New York, overlooking Long Island20 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk 111 Sound. (The property eventually became the Warner Brothers’ estate.)
By the start of World War I in 1914, Fisk Sr. was beginning to feel tlie pres
sures associated with wealth and power. Two years previous, a congres
sional committee under the aegis of Congressman Aresene Paulin Pulo,
chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, was estab-
hshed to investigate the so-called "money trust." During his investigation
he uncovered evidence that JP Morgan along with certain "allies," namely
Harvey Fisk & Sons, had gained a dangerously large control of the nation's
money and credit. The Pulo Committee report was published in 1914
to great public outcry. The reports findings along with public pressure to
reform the system led to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Clayton
Antitrust Act of 1914.
After that, Fisk Sr. was under even more public scrutiny. In 1917 he was
investigated a second time by a Congressional committee looking into ac
cusations that Fisk Sr., among others, had gotten a private look at Presi
dent Wilson's "peace note," allowing him insider knowledge that he used
to "make a killing in the markets." '° He was ultimately acquitted after de
nying the charge.Page 41
In April of that same year, though, he was involved in a fairly serious car accident. As the New York Times reports it, Fisk Sr. had a “narrow escape from death” after he was forced to swerve off the road to avoid an oncom ing freight train.His car hit a light pole and was badly damaged. Fisk him self was uninjured, but it must have rattled him.
In 1919 at the age of fifty-eight, Fisk Sr. suffered a nervous breakdown and subsequently retired from the firm his father had started.
Tlie details of what happen over the last twenty years of Fisk Sr.’s life are sketchy but by his death in 1939, he had lost everything. After retiring, he sold his seat on the New York Stock Exchange seat for $55,000. Five years later he put the Rye estate on the market and sold it for $500,000. In the meantime he discontinued his club dues to places like the Metropolitan Club and the New York Yacht Club (he also sold his steam powered yacht) while slowly dropping out of the social world he had been a part of for so many years. The Times reported in his obituary that “the depression and later misjudgments” took the rest of his assets.
Pliny Fisk Sr. lived the remaining years of his life alone in a one-room apartment on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. He passed away at the age of seventy-eight at the Home for the Incurables on 183rd and Third Avenue By Sam Martin 21 after a brief battle with throat cancer.
****Fisk III was born in 1944, five years after his grandfathers death, and by then the only thing left of the family inheritance was the name and a fad ing but still lingering link to the country’s social elite. As a high school and college bachelor, Fisk III managed to find his way into the social circles on- and off-campus and was soon invited to a few debutante balls. Felic ity Firestone, heir to the tire fortune, was one of his many acquaintances, some of who literally bailed him out of financial straits in later years”.
For the most part, though, Fisk would have nothing at all to do with the world of which his grandfather was a part, especially not the one of banking and the stock market. Instead, it was his father’s quixotic drive to create a national network of high rate composting centers that formed the foundation of Fisk III’s thinking and future work.
Page 42
Fisk II was, in his son’s words, a “gallivanter” in his younger years. And who could blame him? Growing up on an enormous estate witli almost unlimited access to New York City social circles and a bank account to back him up, the young Pliny must have imagined that there was nothing he couldn’t do. Or, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Gatsby, “his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it.”
Stories of famous girlfriends-including Gloria Swanson, the film actress
who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Sunset Boule
vard"- and fancy cars have found their way into the family history. As has
Pliny IIs fiery personality, adept story telling, and bold idealism.
"Plinys dad used to ask him every day what he was going to do to change
the world," Vittori says.
Amedium sized man with an outsized personality, Fiskllhad gusto for life
that matched his father's stock-market bravado.
As Vittori says: "The energy of his life was a force. When I first met him
and visited his house it was like going into another world. He wore a suit
everyday, regardless ofwhether or not he was planning to see anyone. His
house and his office, which was in the liouse, had sticky notes everywhere.22 Green Masters: Everywhere. Some had bold letters with little sayings on them. Others had Pliny Fisk III little truths or facts. The place was just covered with them. The man was always doing something huge. Some huge project. Some big invention. Some breakthrough.”
Fisk II was convinced of the importance of large-scale composting, an
interest that drove him to teach himself everything he needed to know
to be a bacteriologist.!* The passion for composting began during a brief
and successful foray into the soap making business that Fisk II took on
after his father's death. During that time he discovered and patented
a way to turn organic municipal waste into a highly nutritious compost
fertilizer in a matter of days. Fisk II filed more than sixty patent claims for
his processes.
From that time on he threw himselfinto the business of making and selhng
compost. His idea was to set up organic waste composting centers in cities
across the country, use his patented method for turning it into high rate
compost and then market it to farmers. It's not clear whether FiskJr. lacked
the business acumen and investment instinct of his father or whether hisPage 43
ideas, like his son’s, were before their time. But after the family money was gone, Fisk Ill’s father struggled to make ends meet for the rest of his life.
Even so, Fisk III describes his childhood as a happy, if solitary, time. He lived with his father, mother, and brother Harvey’s in what was at the time rural Westchester County on thirty-eight acres of land off of Bap tist Church Road, a dirt thoroughfare right next to the Croton reservoir, one of the main drinking water sources for New York City. All around the house were woods, hills and lakes so that young Fisk could search and ex plore and, as he says, “never come up to a house for hours.”
At the same time. New York City-a mere forty minutes away by train-was not far. When he was not visiting the tall buildings and crowded streets he was thinking about them.
“I was absorbed by this contrast,” Fisk now says. “In one place nature was totally dominant and in the other people were dominant. That constant kind of back and forth begins to get you thinking. Why wasn’t nature in the city? Why wasn’t the city more connected to what was going on around it?”
Back home, Fisk II’s compost business was, like many small businesses, operated out of the house. A common sight outside Fisk III’s boyhood By Sam Martin 23
bedroom window were large piles of organic fertilizer his father was stor ing in the backyard. At least one time Fisk was even conscripted into his dad’s business to help get out the word on how and why compost was so great. At the 1956 Grange Fair in Yorktown Heights, New York, when Fisk was twelve years old, a local newspaper photo shows him standing next to a plastic model representing a multi-story high rate composting system, explaining how the natural process ofbacterial heat, oxygen, microbes and water turns organic waste into fertilizer. Needless to say, the Fisk house hold was flush with fresh vegetables including “tomatoes the size of soft- balls” from their unintentionally over-composted garden plot.
It was also home to a number of vintage cars, including a 1929 silver clad Rolls Royce, that father Fisk would take apart and clean regularly, and a Morgan Plus 4 that he would drive for his 75-mile commute to work. Sometimes the family would attempt drives in one of these classics. The Rolls mostly stayed parked, in various forms of disrepair, outside-and in- side-the house.
Page 44
“Dad would explain how the radiator in the Rolls Royce liolds the fins and how, in the front, you could adjust them according to how much wind was allowed to come througli to cool the radiator,” Fisk says. “There may have been a lot of nature around but there were also these beautiful machines.”^’
In addition to the Rolls, there was a 1938 Mercedes convertible with
a folding windshield and spare tires over the fenders. This is the car that
Fisk III would constantly tinker with and drive. "I never had any trou
ble getting dates," he would say. Also, on weekends, young Fisk and his
brother Harvey would race a souped-up go-kart on a track their father cre
ated ^vith a racing friend (it was reportedly tlie first track of its kind in the
northeast). In fact, Fisk II was very proud of his two sons' racing abilities
on that track.17
The machinery and the composting, combined with the contrast of
nature and the city, seems to be the key to forming the basis of Fisks cur
rent working philosophy-that systems, whether they be natural, urban,
organic or man made, are all integral parts of one whole (i.e. the planet
earth). Waste is used to grow food. The food and water (via the reservoir)
sustain the people in the city. People provide the waste to grow the food.
The city provides the economy for the people. For these systems to flour24 Green Masters: ish and sustain one another, they must remain in balance. Otherwise the Pliny Fisk III planet suffers and the system breaks down. This mode of thinking-part of what is known as systems thinking-became the backbone of Fisk s studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and it continues to influence his work and thinking today.
One other enormous influence in Fisk's early life came from his mother.
Elaine Rawlinson Fisk was a quiet lady with none of the boisterousness
her husband had. Rather than coming up with grand schemes that would
change the country, she was content to keep to herself and work on her
art. She was an amateur photographer and a painter, which she did profes
sionally for many years after attending art school. During tough financial
times, it was her work painting portraits for wealthy New York families
that would see the family through. In 1937 she entered and won a com
petition held by the United States Postal Service to come up with a bust
of George Washington for a new stamp. Her design ended up influencing
every presidential bust for the entire series of U.S. Postage stamps from
1 cent to $5. Her stamps were used by the Postal Service for ten or fifteen
years in the 1950s and 1960s. Fisk III points out that his mother's art played
a big role in his interest in the visual aspects of design.Page 45
“Mom was a big pusher for architecture school/’ he says. “Bridging moth er’s art with dad’s microbiological and mechanical interests imbued me witli a lot of the skills that became almost second nature.”
While Fisk III attributes much of his professional work to the things he observed and learned from his parents, he is also aware that the way they lived their lives helped form an attitude about life that still inspires him and drives his ambition.
“I realized at some point that I grew up in this fearless family that had no backing for anything that they were doing, financially or otherwise, but they were still doing it,” he says. “That has enabled me to at least think that I can operate in almost any direction, and the thing I’m going after sud denly might happen. Not to say that it necessarily might all be financially successful, but it will happen.”
To this day, pushing ahead and at times overcoming daunting obstacles has become something of a trademark for Fisk as he tries to change the building industry’s approach to how it does business or as he tries to affect government policy and regulation to allow for more ecological balance. He has the uniquely combined talents of being able to think of design so lutions in the broadest possible terms through visual models, drawings By Sam Martin 25 and maps-like his mother may have done-while also being able to roll up his sleeves and repair his old tractor engine or construct an experimen tal building-just like his father. For those who have known him, these combined traits have always played a role in who he is. As Leslie Sauer, a longtime friend puts it: “Pliny came out of the womb fully formed.”
By the time Fisk left home for Philadelphia and the University of Penn sylvania in 1964, he was already focused on architecture and had an inter est in the environment. Bridging the two would not become a possibility in his mind until he took a class by a fiery and brilliant Scotsman named Ian McHarg. Like many things going on in the late 1960s, McHarg’s ideas proved for Fisk and many others to be revolutionary.
Page 47
— w—»■re-• fei ;
„fo-,0
DPage 48
“There were new ideas going on all the time and there was this tremendous sense of boundless possibility. It was the 1960s. Fisk loved hd
Page 49
fter spending his high school years in both public and private schools, Fisk took the bus from New York to Philadelphia and entered the University of Pennsylvania in September of 1964:8As he tells it, he already knew he wanted to study architecture and had by the time he was four years old. That’s when he and his mother sat down to do some sketching and to his mothers astonishment he drew a doorway with a door open in perspective.
Thougli his father wanted him to go to Princeton because of family ties, Fisk cliose Penn because it had a better architectural school and because it did not have any of the family baggage that might have come with attending Princeton. Young Fisk had difficulty entering a school that had the name Pliny Fisk etched on a library door, and in the cement decor of the Ivy Club-Princeton’s snootiest eating club that Fisk’s grandfather was instrumental in starting. Penn, as it turned out, became for Fisk a sort of philosophical and educational heaven where he could flourish on his By Sam Marlin 29 own terms.19
At the time, the University of Pennsylvania was widely considered one of the best architecture and planning schools in the country. Its uniquely integrated program meshed regional planning and science, city plan ning, landscape architecture, sculpture, painting and architecture. Plus, the school employed a number of high profile professors, among them ar chitect Louis Kahn, city planner Edmund Bacon, urban designer David Crane, and city planner Britton Harris.
In the mid-to-late 1960s Kahn was nearing the premature end of his ca- reer-he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1974. However, some point out that because he took such a long time to form his signature style, Kahn’s most important work took place late in his life.2° The National Capitol of Bangladesh in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the Indian Institute of Manage ment in Ahmedabad, India, were both started in 1962 and completed in 1974 and 1983 respectively, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, was completed in 1965, the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in Exeter, New Hampshire, was started in 1965 and completed in 1972, and the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, was begun
Page 50
in 1966 and completed in 1972. Kahn received the Gold Medal award from the American Institutes ofArchitects in 1971 and the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1972. He was one of the country’s most important architectural designers during Fisk’s tenure at Penn.
There can be no doubt that during this time, Kahn's students, including
Renzo Piano-and indeed everyone in the architecture school-were privy
to some fairly well polished and revolutionary ideas about nature, archi
tecture, and the role of the designer. Unlike the Modernist architects Le
Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Philip Johnson wlio headed up the
movement toward stark minimalism and the universality of space in the
1940s and 1950s, Kahn believed in the need to honor the sacredness of
place and to celebrate light and materials-values that would become fun
damental to Fisk's design approach.
These ideas were reinforced by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and
other professors at Penn while Fisk was there/' Venturi once famously said
of Modernist architecture, "Less is a bore," in response to van der Rohe's
equally as famous dictum "Less is more." Kahn and Venturi's unconven
tional thoughts about architecture at the time led some to declare that the30 Green Masters: Philadelphia School of Architecture had formed the basis of the postmod Pliny Fisk III ernist movement.”
Other notable professors or visiting professors that Fisk ran across in his
studies at Penn, include Doshi, perhaps the best known architect in India,
Anne Tyng, mother of one of Kahn's daughters and a collaborator on some
of his projects, the Cuban architect Mario Romanach, and the French en
gineer Robert Le Ricolais, who taught with Kahn and engineered some of
his buildings. Also included in the list of notables were the painter Neal
Welliver, William Grigsby and Paul Niebank in housing and city plan
ning, Ann Strong and Nick Muhlenberg in regional science and watershed
planning, Richard Saul Wurman, who taught graphic design and commu
nication and who would go on to found the TED Conference, and Russell
Ackoff, who is widely considered to be the godfather of social systems sci
ences and operations research.
These were the young, vibrant and new thinkers in the world of architec
ture and the burgeoning field of systems thinking. Similar to the social
and political institutions of the 1960s, architecture and design was havingPage 51
a revolution of its own. And Penn, as much as any other university at the time, if not more so, was on the front lines.
“Holmes Perkins, the new dean, had basically cleaned house and turned the architecture school upside down,” says Leslie Sauer, whose former husband Rolf Sauer was a classmate of Fisks. “He had gotten rid of the old people and brought in all the hot young architects as well as Le Ricolais and Lou Kahn who ran the masters studio. There were new ideas going on all the time and there was this tremendous sense of boundless possibility. It was the 1960s.”
Fisk loved it. From nearly the moment he stepped foot on campus, Fisk felt a sense of belonging. After having come from a household of unconven tional and artistic pursuits where his father kept Rolls Royce carburetors in the house and piles of high-rate compost in the backyard and his mother painted portraits for a living, what could be more comforting than a group of men and women turning building on its ear? He could continue to hold close the values of overcoming obstacles and bucking tradition that he had learned from his parents.
At the same time, he was introduced to a lifelong interest in critical and philosophical thought. While students at other Ivy League schools like By Sam Martin 31 Princeton and Yale were getting classical architectural backgrounds, Fisk and his classmates were learning how to look at building through a brand new lens. For many, including Fisk, this was the beginning of a lasting de sire to question and investigate the mainstream. In fact, one only has to look at his years at Penn to realize how and why he became such an ar chitectural upstart in his own right. Or, as he puts it: “It’s where I got the disease of thinking the way I’m thinking.”
But Fisk’s interests at Penn were not solely focused on academia. His ques tions about the natural world and its relation to the urban world that had started in his younger years had not subsided. Plus, by 1964 Fisk, like other students around the country, was conscious ofthe budding environmental movement and what it meant to architecture.
****Page 52
When many think of the environmental movement, they think of the first Earth Day in Washington, D.C., when thousands gathered in 1970 to raise awareness. That day was deemed a success because of its mass appeal, a product of an intense public relations campaign. The individuals who organized the event, however, had been well aware of the damaging effects industry was having on the environment and they had set out to do some thing about it years before the gathering on the lawn in Washington and other places around the country, including Fairmount Park in Philadel phia. Fisk, ever the contrarian, decided rather than attend the Earth Day event he would work on his thesis on the Hackensack Meadows, preparing for the ability to act when the time came.”
"By then we were already there," says Leslie Sauer. "We'd been working at
it for quite a while."
Or at least since 1962. That was the year Rachel Carson published
Silent Spring, a hugely influential book describing in harrowing detail the
damaging affects of pesticides on human health. It managed to motivate
a theretofore ambivalent public who then began to focus on industrial
pollution as a whole, and demand broad changes in government policy.
Silent Spring, following on the heals of The Death and Life of Great American32 Green Masters: Cities byJane Jacobs, became in many ways the spark that ignited the envi Pliny Fisk III ronmental awareness that is still going strong today.
In the mid-to-late 1960s the books by Carson and Jacobs, as well as oth
ers including Our Synthetic Environment by Murray Bookchin, became
underground hits, especially among a growing number ofpeople who were
"tuning in, turning on and dropping out" of society to get "back to the
land" where they would be free from the over-industrialized and soulless
cities (Fisk and his colleagues at Penn devoured the books too, but their re
sponse was to try to understand the problems and tackle them head on).At
the time a significant number of young people began to experiment with
commune living and solar energy. The "do-it-yourself" attitude first took
hold here as people started trying out everything from barn building to
animal husbandry.
In 1968, inspired by these developments, Stuart Brand published the first
Whole Earth Catalogue, a source book of tools and information. Its pur
pose was to "power the individual to conduct his own education, find his
own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure
with whoever is interested." Not long after that, in 1970, John and JanePage 53
Shuttleworth launched Mother Earth News, which billed itself as “The original back to the land magazine.” ^4 Mother, as it became affectionately known, was a bible of projects, resources, and ideas essential to anyone looking to buy a few acres, build their own house, start a vegetable garden, and live “off the grid” with alternative sources of electricity coming from solar and wind power. Both of these enormously successful publications (the 1972 Whole Earth Catalogue sold 1.4 million copies and won the Na tional Book Award), along with many other less well-known but equally as important ones such as Alternative Sources of Energy (1972) and RAIN (1977), can be considered the first raw articulations ofwhat would eventu ally become the modern green building movement.
But while Rachel Carson, Brand, and the Shuttleworths managed to reach a growing audience in the 1960s, they were by no means the first to real ize that there was a deeply damaging imbalance between nature, industry, and big business. The International Solar Energy Society met for the first time in Arizona in 1954 to talk about creating an alternative to fossil-fuel- burning power plants. Even before then, the architect and inventor Buck minster Fuller had been searching for a way to use renewable energy and reduce waste with efficient building materials to “do more with less” at least as far back as the 1920s. It was then-long before creating the geode By Sam Martin 33 sic dome that has became synonymous with his name-that he designed his first Dymaxion house, a prefabricated dwelling that is surely the first actively conceived residential “sustainable” building ever made.
The word Dymaxion comes from three words: dynamic (DY), maximum (MAX) and tension (ION). Fuller conceived the structure as a mass- produced, affordable, easily-transportable, and environmentally-efficient house. Its structure was dependent on a central stainless steel column or mast, which supported the roof and floor using a tension suspension sys tem. The 1000 square-foot building was round so the roof and floor looked like giant bicycle wheels that were covered in pie-shaped pieces of sheet metal. The idea was to assemble each structure on the ground and then winch it up the central mast and into its final place.
In addition, the home would provide its owners with their own private electrical source-a wind turbine mounted on the roof-that would also give the silver clad building the look of a fat Hersheys Kiss. Water effi ciency was possible also through a graywater filtering and reuse system,‘s efficient “horizontally-agitated” laundry machines, a composting toilet, and a low-flow shower head called a “fogger” that misted its beneficiary
Page 54
with only about a cup of water forced through a nozzle by compressed air. Cost for a Dyinaxion house was advertised in 1945 as the price of a CadiUac (about $3,000), and it could be shipped around the world in its own metal tube.
Only two ofthe highly experimental houses were ever built-as prototypes.
The only one left in existence (and the only one ever occupied) belonged
to William Graham, an investor who bought one of the prototypes when
Fuller Houses Inc., the venture that was started to market these buildings,
went bust. The Graham family lived in a modified version of the house
from 1948 into the 1970s. It has since been moved and restored and is pres
ently on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
Buckminster or "Bucky" Fuller was considered a guru by many in the
back-to-the-land, alternative-community, and solar-energy movements of
the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was also revered by those in the bud
ding field of ecological design,26 including Fisk who has over the years de
veloped some of Fuller s ideas, including his global dymaxion grid system
and a natural resource allocation system.'' As Fisk remembers it, though.
Fuller did not think much of him after the one and only time they met.
"I was teaching at the University of Texas and just starting the Center as34 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III an independent effort away from the university,” Fisk says, “Some of my newly formed board of directors wanted to collaborate with Bucky, and even sign him up as an advisor.‘S I knew he was doing a public talk in Houston, so I sent him some of the work we were doing, which was very related to what he was doing, and I asked if he would be interested in talk ing with us during the intermission. He immediately sent me a very con gratulatory letter concerning some of the work I had sent him, and he said that he would meet with us.29 So we went to Houston. Bucky talked for three hours before the intermission, but we did get to sit down with him for a talk. He was slightly impatient because he had 800 people in the next room waiting to hear him go another three hours. So I got right down to business and told him we would like to make him an honorary member of the Centers board.” 3°
According to Fisk, Fuller then asked, "What do you do again?" Fisk talked
about how he had been tracking global resource patterns to better under
stand people and cultures, and how this informed his approach to design.
"I explained how we categorized resources in three basic ways: the land,
the people and their institutions-area, point and network resources as IPage 55
called them/’ says Fisl<. “I told him basically that we believe every place is special and that to incorporate the specialness of place in our work is key to what were about. I told him that we looked at a global scale in a slightly different way than he did-more as repeatable, natural patterns based on the biomes of the world where there was a virtual duplicate in some other place of where we stand now.”
“And he said, you mean to tell me that the idea that everyone is not getting an equal share of what the earth has to offer is part of what you’re after?’ I said, well, yes, everybody should get an equal amount, starting from where they are, not from somewhere else. Eventually he got upset, as he often did, so he got up and left the room, and that was the end of it.”
Even though Fisk did not tallc to Fuller again before the old master’s death in 1983, he never gave up on his example. As a young professional, Fisk saw in Fuller what he could become-a doer and a change agent for an industry and a planet that were at loggerheads with each other.
By Sam Martin 35Page 57
E: HACKENSACK MEADOWS
fI IN URBAN ECOLOGY Thesis Pro|ect GRAD. SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS UNIV, or PENNSYLVANIA lilN ARCHITECTURE SPRING 1970 LIN Landscape ARCHITECTURE PLINY FISK
Page 58
“The nascent environmental movement had already begun to offer scientific proof that the built environment and the natural one were not separate entities with no relationship to each other but, in fact, symbiotic partners in what Fuller described as ‘the World Game.’”
Page 59
uring his student days at Penn in the mid-1960s, Fisk’s knowl
D edge of the environment and of environmental degradation were more than just a passing fancy. The nascent environmental movement had already begun to offer scientific proof that the built envi ronment and the natural one were not separate entities with no relation ship to each other but, in fact, symbiotic partners in what Fuller described as “the World Game.” Fisk’s professors were also responding to the issue. The architecture school had begun in very small ways to investigate the re lationship between building and the environment. A class on climatology was offered one year to explore how the shape of a building and its material makeup could affect climate.
Fisk began studying the work of the New Jersey architect Malcolm Wells, who was pioneering underground buildings, and Ralph Knowles, who was teaching architecture at the University of Southern California. He was reading the British journal Architecture Design, which at the time was ed By Sam Martin 39 ited in London by Royston Landau, and was considered a radical depar ture from the typical view of the profession. One issue in particular sticks in Fisk’s mind. “Despite Popular Demand” featured the philosophy of Sir Karl Raymond Popper and the systems thinking ofJeffrey Broadbent.
Also, the Dutch architect Aldo Van Eyke was a guest lecturer at Penn who talked about the relationship between people and buildings instead ofjust buildings. Back then it was a revolutionary concept, but it fit right in with the times. In 1965 everyone was questioning everything, including the very nature of architecture.
This kind of questioning and approach to architecture and the environ ment was never more evident than in the landscape architecture division of Penn, itself one of the leading programs of its kind in the country and ar guably the world.31 It is here that Fisk spent much of his time, both because of his deep seated interest in ecology but also because it was here where he could rub shoulders with Ian McHarg.
McHarg, a tail, gaunt, chain-smoking Scotsman with a fiery personal ity, had survived both enemy fire as a paratrooper during World War II
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and about with tuberculosis before earning a degree from Harvard and joining the faculty at Penn. There he founded the university’s depart ment of landscape architecture and regional planning in 1954, starting what some call the McHargian Method, an approacli to city planning in which designers would first consider natural resources before permitting growth. For those presently living in places like Austin and Portland that idea may sound quaint but in the mid-1950s, tlie pinnacle of the suburban American dream, placing nature before man was thoroughly novel, if not downright subversive.
This unique approach to planning became the thesis of his signature
course at Penn, Man and the Environment, which was a very broad in
vestigation into human evolution and natural history. For each weekly
course, McHarg would invite a guest speaker to his class. Astronomers,
psychologists, biologists, anthropologists and theologians, among many
others, appeared in his classrooms over the years, and the course became
so popular that students from around the world came to Penn to study un
der McHarg. It was also the basis for "The House We Live In," a television
series produced by CBS in i960 and 1961.
Similar to Rachel Carson and perhaps even more so, McHarg became an40 Green Masters: iconic figure for the environmental movement. In 1970 he helped organize Pliny Fisk III the first Earth Day. The previous year, in 1969, he had published one of the seminal books of the times, Design with Nature, which spelled out his earth-friendly development concepts and created a blueprint for ecologi cally-based design.
"Here are the foundations for a civilization that will replace the polluted,
bulldozed, machine-dominated, de-humanized, explosion-threatened
world that is even now disintegrating and disappearing before our eyes,"
Louis Mumford wrote in the introduction to Design with Nature. "In pre
senting us with a vision of organic exuberance and human delight, which
ecology and ecological design promise to open up for us, McHarg revives
the hope for a better world." 3'
To his students, McHarg was something of a celebrity. "He was an impos
ing figure with a larger-than-life personality," remembers one of his stu
dents. "He was always trying to expand people's perspective and vision of
what could happen."
Fisk embraced McHarg s ideas and decided to get a masters degree in land
scape architecture in addition to one in architecture.33 He also illegally satPage 61
in on Ackoffs introductory Systems Sciences courses at Penn’s Wharton School of Business even though they were closed to outsiders. Even at this stage, it seems, Fisk was aware of the importance of creating a knowledge base of multiple fields. He felt that in order to tackle the biggest problems facing the planet he would have to take a more inclusive approach than either Fuller witli his staunch anthropomorphic sensibilities, or McHarg, with his nature-first tack, were prepared to do.
“Ian McHarg sort of supplied the big picture of where all this was going,” says Fisk. “But just as important to me was the tactile physical reality of putting things together. I got that from Lou Kahn’s approach to architec ture and from his engineer Le Ricolais, where we all had access to a won derful shop to make and test structural designs.”
Also key to Fisk’s education was what Bucky Fuller was calling whole sys tems, and what is now referred to as systems theory or systems thinking. This philosophy was started in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and W. Ross Ashby. Russell Ackoff, the systems sciences professor at Wharton, was also instrumental in the field of systems theory and how it relates to business management, which is called operations re search. Interestingly, Ackoffwas also trained as an architect. By Sam Martin 41 Essentially, systems thinking is a set of multiple procedures dealing with a given environment as a collection of operational entities that effect one another ratlier than looking at each system as an isolated set of circum stances. This holistic approacli to solving problems and gaining insights into how things work has been applied to everything from engineering to sociology. Used in the context of planning, architecture, and ecology, any system, whether it is a building, a community, a city, a region, or as Fisk would eventually discover, a biome, necessarily interacts with its sur rounding systems through a series of feedback loops. Information is ex changed, natural resources are taken from one system and used in another, and waste and pollution have cause and effect and so on. Should one sys tem falter or not engage with the other then it is a detriment to all systems.
Ackoff introduced Fisk to this general notion of systems theory and made it clear it could be applied to any discipline. Class lectures and presentations included communications theory and how the brain- one system-connects witli a receptor-another system. Cybernetics or communication between man and machine was brought up in class. As was systems ecology, operations research, and a host of other fields.34
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“I learned that just as a cybernetic system in which a person and a machine has feedback loops, an ecological system has feedback loops,” says Fisk. “All of a sudden I realized that everything I had been learning up to that point was just piecemeal, just a series of pieces. Now I had a platform to begin to weave things together. And that is a very, very important concept when you’re talking about anything sustainable. You have to be able to pick and choose and pull out and combine and reorient and bring together in many different ways because sustainability is anything but piecemeal and individualistic, solve this one thing and everything else will be solved. Sys tems theory is what now allows me to say that architecture, depending on how you spec it, is planning a country.”
Fisk was absorbing the ideas behind systems theory botli from Ackoff and
on a more general level from McHarg (and by extension from Howard
Odum, who operationalized McHargs methods). But Fisk knew early on
that McHargs notion of systems theory was limited, at least to the Fisk of
the late 1960s who saw a way to use the philosopliy to not only solve envi
ronmental problems but to create value from the pollution, the waste and
the human interaction that created it.
"Sure, we can admit that nature runs us and controls us and if we dam42 Green Masters: age her she will get back to us,” he says. “But you also have to have tech Pliny Fisk III niques and tools to create those feedback loops, to develop a way in which a city can become self-learning and self-understanding. McHarg did not do that.”
Fisk, however, did. His master's thesis targeted the Hackensack Meadows,
a polluted wetlands just across the Hudson River from New York City and
its purpose was to use a record of the changes that take place in the human
and natural environments-as a combined ecosystem in disrepair (neither
system was healthy). Fisk's approach, drawing from systems thinking, was
based on the dynamics of change and how one could manage the future
by understanding the forces at work that kept creating a series of feedback
loops. In one sense it was a McHargian investigation into the detrimental
effects of urbanization on nature. In another sense, however, the solution
Fisk came up with to deal with the problem was not at all what McHarg
would have done. It was, one might say, thoroughly Fiskian^s
"The McHargian overlay process was only one of many ways of thinking
about ecological restoration," says Fisk. "In fact, the no-touch conserva
tion procedure would not have worked in Hackensack Meadows or anyPage 63
Other highly polluted environment where extreme change had already taken place. We now had to think about time and the forces that created change. In other words, we had to think in systems dynamics terms.”
Instead of searching for a way to turn the wetlands back into its natural state and keeping the pollution and the city at a distance, which is what McHarg would have done (and in fact eventually proposed), or paving over the wetlands and developing it into one big urban entity, which was the mainstream thinking at the time, Fisk suggested that the wetlands in its present state could be used to the benefit of both nature and the sur rounding metropolis. As Fisk wrote in his 1970 combined architecture and landscape architecture masters thesis. The Hackensack Meadows-a study in urban ecology, “The apparent vast discrepancy between man’s actions in the urban environment and their relation to the natural world are looked at through a dynamic force-response energetic system which could cre ate new potential interfaces for a mutually compatible growth. Response capacities are seen from an evolutionary, time-dependent set of criteria that brings perspective and meaning to the terms constancy and change. The importance of determining degrees of operationality, moreover, sets a stage through which man might criticize his own actions relative to short as well as long-term goals.” By Sam Martin 43
Unlike the McHargian approach, Fisk mapped change, tracking where the system had been and where it was heading and how to intervene and steer that evolution.
“There was a species of plant growing in the Hackensack Meadows that was not supposed to be there-Phragmites communis,” remembers Fisk. “It’s the indication of pollution. If you’re a conservationist, you get rid of that plant, bring back your natural Spartinas in order to bring wildlife back. Good idea but under the circumstances of an extremely polluted environ ment, a very difficult idea. So, from a systems standpoint, you ask the ques tions: why was it there? It was there because it wanted the pollution. If it wanted the pollution why couldn’t you use it to treat the water?”
So Fisk began to design a system for the Hackensack Meadows that would do just that. 36
“Instead of filling in the wetlands and developing it or turning it back to nature, my idea was to bring the area into some kind of balance by captur ing that point in the evolutionary process and using it.”
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McHarg, who was known for his confrontational personality, thought Fisk was going too far with his thesis, and told him so. Fisk, who is also known for never shying from an argument, countered, “I learned that from you, Ian.” Though their relationship grew over the years out of a mutual and growing respect for each other and for ecological design concepts, McHarg and Fisk would rarely see eye to eye, even when they worked to gether professionally.
Interestingly, the Hackensack thesis formed the conceptual framework for
much of the work Fisk would end up pursuing and implementing over the
years including the Austin Green Builder Program and the national input-
output models BaselineGreen and GreenBalance for EPA, and ecoBalance
planning procedures. It was a large wetland in the midst of some of the
most densely developed land in the United States, and it had become se
verely polluted over several decades. Fisk wanted to convert it into a model
for water treatment, while also allowing it to continue as a valuable part of
the coastal ecosystem. Fisk did not know this at the time, but his proposal
was the largest wastewater wetland or "living machine" ever proposed at
the time in the United Sates or anywliere else in the world, designed to
treat the sewage resulting from 1.8 million people, using roads as control
points and the dominant phragmites species to do the treatment.44 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III “Hackensack Meadows combined the socio-political with the ecological and it accomplished this by using a systems model,” he says.
The insights to be gleaned from Fisk's thesis are important. For one, the
scale of thinking that went into the Hackensack Meadows thesis is what
Fisk now refers to as his first meta-system in a series of meta-system proj
ects that now includes work with coastal communities, the use of brine to
create a magnesium oxide-based concrete, large-scale city planning, and
more. Also, with this proposal one can see that from very early on Fisk
understood that socio-ecological patterns evolve rapidly, and in order to
solve the biggest problems associated with certain patterns, architects, de
signers, planners, and others need to scale the work they do.
In fact, the combination of the natural-social-political with the more com
mon work of an architect or planner trying to solve design issues is an im
portant clue into Fisk's life work. Like Buckminster Fuller, Fisk believes
that an architect or planner should not just offer cosmetic alterations; he
or she has the ability to educate the community and affect deep and last
ing change in the world-change that can alter the entire fabric of how wePage 65
live. The Hackensaclc Meadows masters thesis was the first step along this path.
****For tlie architecture students at Penn, life outside the classroom was not that different from life inside the classroom, save for the occasional “love- in” at Fairmount Parle in the summer of 1968. The same new ideas that were hatclied in class were talked excitedly about outside of class. As Fisk says, Penn was a “jewel box of critical thinking” where “philosophical dreams” were being lived everyday.
Though at first he had to work to pay the rent and eat-after his first year Fisk was admitted into Penn’s honors program where he received a full academic scholarship-during the summers he managed to get jobs on construction sites so that he could try out first hand what he had learned in Le Ricolaiss studios (such as welding) and materials and methods classes. Also, the general feeling around campus was that there was something big going on witli environmental awareness, and because of that there was By Sam Martin 45 a heightened sense of collaboration and bonding both between students and between students and faculty.
“Everybody-students and faculty-lived for their work so they worked to- getlier collaboratively,” says Leslie Sauer. “For starters, the age differential between the professors and the students wasn’t as great as it is today. Al most every single professor at that time ended up marrying a student. Also everyone worked around the clock. When they weren’t working they went to the same parties. It was like all being on a cruise ship that never went into port.” 37
Many of those parties took place at Fisk’s house. He had been riding his bicycle one day along South Street in what was then a not great part of downtown Philadelphia and stumbled across a three story loft building, of which the bottom two floors had been cut away. When he and a few friends moved in for a grand total of $135 a month they rebuilt the floors with subway grating and strobe lights^s
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“It was an artist studio and the entire middle section of the building had been removed to bring out a two-story-sized piece of sculpture/’ he says. “It was my first introduction to open building systems.” 39
McHarg was a regular at their evening get-togethers as was Doshi, Pe
ter McCleary, Nick Muhlenberg, Art Sullivan (Fisk's thesis advisor who
was one of McHarg's few systems-trained faculty) and Narendra Junega,
McHargs right-hand man who later was influential in Fisk being hired at
Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd. Fisk's fellow students also made all the
events. These includedJohn Davis, with whom Fisk would eventually start
his first architecture and landscape business called 9 Design, Mark Turn
bull, who would end up operating one of the largest landscape architecture
companies in his home country of Scotland, Jamini Mehta, one ofthe Ital
ian architect Aldo Guirgalos close associates, and Chris Brown, who be
came Community Redevelopment Agency Director for the City of Delray
Beach, Florida. Other students and friends were Tom Dickart, who even
tually became the Associate Dean for Research at UC Berkeley and started
the Center for Environmental Design Research there, Paul Pezotta, who
was the originator of the Urban Homestead Act, and Leslie and Rolf Sauer,
who along with Carol and Colin Franklin started Andropogon Associates,
arguably one of the best landscape architecture firms in the United States.46 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III In 1968 Fisk also met Daria Bolton, a newly arrived graduate student in ar chitecture from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In the years to come, Fisk and Bolton would marry and move together to Texas to pursue the ideas, philosophies and techniques learned at Penn and to form the under pinnings of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems.
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.ri
Dre i-ra
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” Talk about a green class room, we had animals of all kinds, fish, and all kinds of strange plants. These things obviously did not belong in a classroom. There was life and death at every moment and we had barely started the project.” - Pliny Fisk OO
Page 71
eeing and hearing Fisk talk at one of his open houses at the Center
S in Austin, you would think he was born to teach others. In his late sixties, he is of modest height and balding with longish gray hair and round wire-rimmed glasses-not so different from his appearance in the late 1960s if you imagine darker hair and more of it. Saying he looked like Albert Einstein would be an apt comparison and more than once he has been likened to a mad professor. His voice is soft though one cannot say he is ever at a loss for words.
During a late afternoon open house on a Friday in early November Fisk urges the crowd of about twenty students, young architects, engineers, organic gardeners, and interested souls, to gather around him so they can liear better. Tlie gathering begins on the outskirts of the property as the sun is going down. There is an onrush of cars on the four-lane farm- to-market state highway bordering the 18-acre property and the central Texas mosquitoes still manage to find their purchase even as the night- By Sam Marlin 51 time temperatures have been dropping. At the center of the circle around him-a place he seems well suited for-Fisk begins to explain what he and Vittori and the others do out there by telling a story of a time he took part in a sweat lodge ceremony on a Native American Indian reservation where he had been invited through his affiliations with Save the Children and his associate John Hart.
As he tells it, he was one of tlie only “gringos” in the group and he was sweating profusely, the salt leaving his body. To get the room filled with revitalizing steam, someone would put stones in the fire and then pour water over tliem. According to the tribal leaders sitting with Fisk, the ab sorptive stone-known to geologists as Zeolite-had come from a nearby sacred mountain where the tribe had been gathering it for generations. Lately though, they had been having trouble acquiring more because a mining company had been extracting the liquid-absorbing rock to use as kitty litter.
“It was a disturbing problem,” says Fisk. “You have to ask yourself, is kitty litter more important than someone’s spiritual well-being?”
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Later, as the crowd gathers around a camp fire under enormous arched structures of welded rebar, winched up on columns held up by large helix anchors and covered in black mesli, Fisk keeps the crowd riveted. Around him are a variety of test materials and remnants of past experi ments that look like the parts to a space station. A Solar Decathlon house and an Airstream trailer-turned-office sit nearby. As Fisk tells stories next to the fire, embers fly off into the Texas night sky and reflect off his glasses while his hands and arms help with the explanations as if lie were conduct ing a symphony.
He speaks with the technical jargon of an engineer combined witli the
koan-like riddles of a Zen teacher. On any given day topics miglit include
biomes, cybernetics, ashcrete, and flexible housing. In general, it is not
unusual to have a conversation with Fisk and leave witliout having the
faintest idea of what was just said even thougli you are convinced of
the importance and meaning of what you just heard. One comes away
from these open houses feeling both bewildered and hopeful. Fisk calls his
monthly open house "the church of the green movement" (there are a lot
ofreturn visitors).52 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III ****
Fisk's predilection for the lectern was not always so apparent. In the
spring of 1969 at the age of 24, Fisk had finished his coursework at Penn
and was trying to complete his Hackensack Meadows thesis and prepare
for his dual masters degree presentation before both departments at the
Graduate School of Design at Penn. He and McHarg, while not always in
agreement, had by then become close. Even Fisk's father had befriended
McHarg during a visit to Penn one semester and the two remained friend
ly for years after. Fisk and Daria Bolton were living together in the loft
building in downtown Philadelphia. Bolton, who is younger than Fisk by
several years, was still working on her graduate degree thesis, in which
she was trying to develop a participatory housing game where the compo
nents of the building were manufactured to foster user participation. Fisk
and Bolton got very involved with creating a physical model of the thesis,
and in later years Fisk developed an affordable housing concept called
GroHome™ that was influenced by ideas explored in that work.Page 73
At the time Fisk needed a job to help pay the bills until he finished his the sis (the food stamps he was getting at the time were not paying the rent). So he decided to take ajob in tlie recently formed architecture department at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, even though teaching had not been apart of his plan before then.
“Becoming a teacher was totally out of the realm of possibility,” he says.
Nonetheless, lie went to Ball State for the fall semester and his experience there proved to be thoroughly rewarding. So rewarding, in fact, that nearly forty-five years later the university would invite Fisl<back to create online courses for their distance learning initiative.
Even so, Fisk has always had a difficult relationship to academia. Fisks main beef with teaching and how he himself had been taught over the years was that too often students expected to go to class to get answers from their professors rather than to discover the right questions.
“As a teacher, do I have the right to supply all the answers before the stu dents even ask the questions?,” Fisk asks. “I mean the basic way of learn- ing-the way most of us really learn-is by delving into something and mak ing mistakes. That way you begin to aslcthe question yourself. You don’t have tlie answers supplied to you all the time until you actually try some By Sam Martin 53
thing and understand what works and what doesn’t.”
After being exposed to systems theory, cybernetics, and ecological de sign, Fisk thouglit that architecture-at least the first year of architecture school-should be less about drawing lines in a studio class than it should be about exploring the larger question of how the making of things fits into the processes around us-the culture, the environment, and the eco nomics of place.
“Often you get students whose sole purpose is to become the artist-archi tect or the designer-developer, not someone who might question whether architecture is even the answer to the problem,” says Fisk. “So the first goal of teaching is to get students to be able to ask good questions and to become problem solvers in the largest sense.”
For Fisk, architecture is not just a thing you learn; it informs your life.
“And if you don’t realize it has to do with all life,” he says, “you’re missing something.”
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With these thoughts and convictions on his mind, Fisk piled his stuff into a moving truck and drove an aging Austin Healy to Indiana. Bolton stayed behind in Philadelphia to finish her degree. There was much travel and many speeding tickets in between.
Ball State wanted Fisk to teach about the budding concept of ecological
design, but what exactly that was had yet to be completely articulated-
McHargsbook Design with Nature rolled off the press mere months before
Fisk's first full semester at Ball State. Plus, the class he was teaching-a first
year design studio-didn't give him much time or the desire to lecture. To
learn about the effects that a structure has on its surrounding environ
ment, whether urban and filled with people or rural and isolated, Fisk's
students would have to build something and find out for themselves.
And so, without anything to lose and with a fair bit of mischief (in which
he is known to dabble from time to time) Fisk and his fellow professors
introduced the class to the Electric Homogenized Environment Space Test
Sequence Part One. Teams of students first had to create a capsule that
could hold a halfpint of milk and a light bulb. Tliey then had to launch the
capsule and its payload over the flagpole in front of the School ofArchitec
ture. The two-part objective was to a) recover the milk completely intact54 Green Masters: in its pint container (the test was a simple shake-if a single drop came out Pliny Fisk III they failed) and b) recover the light bulb so that it worked after screwing it into a light bulb socket (once the bulb was screwed in it either worked or it did not-very clear cut).
As first year architecture students do, everyone got busily and seriously
to work, thinking, perhaps, that this was more than they had bargained
for when they had signed up to learn how to design buildings. Fisk, mean
while, looked on pleased as punch, guiding the students with mock seri
ousness as if he actually knew what the solution was himself.
On launching day, hundreds of students from around the university gath
ered to watch the fun. The teams involved in the project had come up with
various ways of launching their capsules from giant slingshots to catapults
as well as parachutes or inflatable mattresses to ease the landing. With the
crowds watching and laughing and taking bets on which projects would
make it and which ones would bomb, the students got their first lesson in
architecture: physical performance and human response.
"How are you going to connect to people?" Fisk asks. "What are people go
ing to think about what you build? Well, you don't know what they're goingPage 75
to think unless you test something. That means you’re doing something that has an effect on others.”
Of course, it would not be their last lesson. “Like anything in the built en vironment there is a life quite independent of what we predict,” says Fisk. “So we had to come up with a follow-up test.”
That is when they created Electric Homogenized Environment Test Space Se quence Part Two. In this test the students were told to take half the capsule and burn it and the other half of the capsule and bury it. The way Fisk remembers it, the students would try to set their projects on fire in the strangest of places, including in their dormitories.
“Burning plastic would be dripping on the floor, smoke alarms going off and all of a sudden the fire department showed up and the entire dorm was bailed out,” he remembers.
The next task did not turn out much better. Students were told to bury their capsules and dig them up in nine months to see if they had biode graded. But, of course, the unexpected happened again.
“The campus police started tracking all these students behind the bushes with shovels,” he says. By Scim Martin 55
Essentially the students were learning, albeit through highly unconven tional means, that the projects they create will have repercussions on the world around them, regardless ofwhether they are nonsensical capsules or serious buildings.
“There’s a societal repercussion, there’s an environmental repercussion,” says Fisk. “There were all these things all mixed up in what seemed to be an inconsequential project that was so small that there isn’t a chance that this had any serious effect in the world whatsoever.”
The design studio went on like this for the rest of the semester and into the next year with Fisk and his fellow first year professors coming up with ever more innovative projects. There was Captain Marble Meets Manmade En vironment Space Sequence Part One, in which students were asked to build a marble shoot where, according to Fisk, the marble (dubbed Captain Marble) had to “take the longest, most enjoyable journey ever” because as architects “we put people through the experience of going through a build ing.” Fisk got an applause meter for the presentation day with the notion that success of a student’s project would come from how his or her peers
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responded, which mimics another aspect of architectural practice: under standing the psychology of human behavior.
Some students created contraptions that flung the marble into the air,
then caught it in an off-balanced pocket only to send it across daredevil
pass. "Big applause," says Fisk. Others interpreted the assignment as hav
ing to do with time only so instead of creating an exciting environment
for tlie marble they created a safe environment in whicli the marble crept
slowly along.
"By the time they were done half the class was down at the coke machine,"
Fisk says. "Essentially, I didn't have to say anything about design."
When Fisk and his colleagues-Art Schaller, Chris Kuhner, and Dick
Pollack-could not think of anything for the class to work on they would
come up with a Stalling Project. For this one students were told to get
cardboard, straw, and various other materials and cut out as accurately
as they could many different parts according to given dimensions. The
parts eventually became the components to the Captain Marble project,
and the work was assessed from the standpoint of how much reworking
and change each component needed to actually work. The students were
learning and experiencing first hand the timing, scale pattern, component56 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III manufacturing accuracy, joinery, and material limitation that might go into a real-world project.
Still another project dealt with extending the students senses in order to
understand the limits of what smell, taste, siglit, and hearing can bring
to a project. That was called the Stetson Truthifier-a helmet that students
were asked to wear around campus so that their designs were not only
used, but were on display, just like their buildings might be.
Toward the end of the semester, the students were finally asked to create
an ecological design project, which was, after all, why Ball State had hired
Fisk in the first place (Fisk remains perplexed as to why the earlier projects
were not considered ecological designs). By this point they had learned
that in order to come up with design solutions they had to consult a vari
ety of other disciplines. For the project, Fisk and his associates separated
the class into groups: the consumers (animals) and the producers (plants).
The students were then asked to keep the two basic life systems alive for
the two weeks over spring break. If anything died, the project had a good
chance of failing. The students responded with gusto and started bringing
in all kinds of living things.Page 77
“Talk about a green classroom/’ says Fisk. “We had animals of all kinds, fish, and all kinds of strange plants. These things obviously did not be long in a classroom. There was life and death at every moment and we had barely started the project.”
Almost immediately, students began securing spots next to windows so they could have solar access. Since many came from Midwestern back grounds, all kinds of farming equipment made its way into the building, including timers, motors, trip mechanisms, and seed feeders. Some in stalled alarms that were meant to attract the school custodian, who could conceivably feed and water their project.
“The real problem, of course, was the fact that vacation was coming up and the survival of your small kingdom had much to do with whether you were going to be able to go home or not,” says Fisk.
A week into the project the smell of death was ever present. “Interestingly, no one ever admitted that nature was fine all by itself,” he recalls.
To many of the Indiana students, these design projects seemed to have nothing at all to do with architecture or ecology and some could not resist saying something to Fisk and tlie other professors. But while Fisk’s sense of humor is robust, his focus on designing with nature never wavers. At By Scim Martin 57
Ball State, no matter how wacky the studio classes got, he always managed to draw important-and effective-lessons out of them. Perhaps the most important lesson he imparted that year was that in order to be a success ful designer one has to have a curious enough mind to figure out a way to know whether your design is going to work, and how to explore all of the ecological repercussions of executing it.
“It’s important to realize that when you design something, you never know what will happen,” says Fisk. “You haven’t any idea if it’s going to work. That’s why it’s important to get people-students in particular but faculty also-into the making of something that has some measurable repercus sion. Does it work or doesn’t it? Did something live or die? Did something pollute? Did something set things on fire? Was it toxic when it did this? What was certain back then in all this was that everyone was having a very good time learning and teaching and who was doing what became more blurred by the day.”
Fisk says that students from his class at Ball State still come by and tell him that the experience changed their lives. Word of the projects he and his
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colleagues developed in the late 1960s spread to other universities around the country and professors started adding them to their curriculum. In fact, Captain Marble and His Manmade Environment Space Sequence Part One is still used in some architecture and art studios to this day, including at MIT and the Rhode Island School of Design.4°
Of course, Fisk's activities at Ball State did not go unnoticed forever.
Stories about his alternative teaching style reached Penn, where some
of his friends and professors thought it was great while others, including
McHarg, got upset.
"It was the late 1960s," Fisk says. "Questions were being aslced about every
thing. Ball State was a very new school-they weren't even accredited yet-
and at the time there were no assumptions as to what education should be.
They wanted to ask questions about what architectural education was."
Unfortunately, the way Fisk was asking the questions was not what Ball
State had in mind. Nine months after his first class, in May of 1970, he was
on his way back to Philly to finish his double degree, though with a much
brighter view of teaching than when he first got to Muncie, Indiana.58 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk ill
Page 79
By Sam Martin
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West Elevation
BUFFER: RESTRICTED GREENBELT: 300’ WIDE BUFFER: RESTRICTED DEVELOPMENT
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“This damn new town was going to sit in the asshole of the Mississippi River, al this shit was coming dowr the Mississippi River, all the toxins in the whole center port of the country coming right past usd — Pliny Fisk III
Page 83
pon his return to Philadelphia and the completion of his thesis,
U Fisk was invited to join McHargs private planning office. For Penn’s professors, working professionally was encouraged by the School of Architecture. As Fisk tells it, the exchange ofideas between class and the professional world was free flowing and, in fact, the level of think ing between the two was not all that different. For years, McHarg spent one day a week in his private office at Wallace-McHarg Associates (later Wallace McHarg Roberts & Todd or WMRT)” developing projects such as The Woodlands outside Houston and Battery Park City as part of the Lower Manhattan Plan in New York City-both of which became, in later years, two of the nations premier examples of ecological planning.
Of course, getting a job in any of those offices was very difficult and to be invited, as Fisk was as the time, was quite special. After his successful stu dent years at Penn, his association with McHarg, and his brief but colorful tenure at Ball State, he was beginning to get a name for himself. At the By Sam Martin 63 same time Fisk was earning a salary at McHargs place, Bolton, who had by then finished with her architecture degree, was working in Louis Kahn’s office down the street.
At WMRT, Fisk worked on a new town project called Pontchartrain East, after Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans. It was to be a town that would house and employ 100,000 people. The fact that it was being planned for an area in the Mississippi Delta meant that it was going into one of the most productive wetlands areas in the country. For this project McHarg made Fisk the lead coordinator between a team of engineers and the ecological parameters of the development. A big part of his job was planning for how the town would work climatically and be responsive to flood as well as how it would treat its wastewater, preferably using the wetlands as a food chain link to the Gulf of Mexico-one of the most productive fishing areas in the continent.
Fisk and fellow WMRT designer Leslie Sauer, who was steadily working her way towards a successful career in landscape architecture and plan ning with her firm, Andropogon Associates, in Philadelphia despite never having gone to architecture school, took many trips to Lake Pontchartrain
Page 84
to try and figure out what impact the town would have on the surround ing marshland. They took boat trips, talked to local officials and walked around the proposed site/^ During the trips Fisk was appalled with the pollution streaming down the Mississippi. At the time, it had long been apparent that the Mississippi, upon whose banks untold number of petro chemical plants, plastic manufacturers, and paper makers had set up shop, was serving as a kind of central sewage system for the entire middle part of the country.
"This damn new town was going to sit in the asshole of the Mississippi
River," says Fisk. "All this shit was coming down the Mississippi River, all
the toxins in the whole center part of the country coming right past us."
Fisk saw the need for action and with Pontchartrain East he also saw
a potential solution. Since the tenet of ecological land planning was to in
corporate the urban into the natural and since the new town was in need of
some form of industry to keep it going financially, Fislcborrowed from his
own Hackensack Meadows thesis and suggested to McHarg that the town
could use organic waste that was flowing down the river to create useful
materials. The collection process would create a range of job opportuni
ties and it would help clean up the river. For him, the situation demanded64 Green Masters: this kind of action. Pliny Fisk III
"Do we take any attitude about it?" he recalls asking. "Are we just a wart or
are we actually doing something that's going to respond to that stuff com
ing down the Mississippi River?"
This was more than a decade before the concept of industrial ecology be
gan making inroads into the planning sector. McHarg would not go for it.
"He wouldn't have anything to do with it so I worked on a whole alternative
plan at home, with Daria," says Fisk. "We would come home after work and
start offwith a whiskey sour, maybe two. Then Dar would approach it with
a giant plug and play space frame idea and I would fill it in with a series of
materials based on this flow of junk to create the dwelling units that were
to be plugged into these giant floating pyramids. A series of industries that
would be extracting a whole range of byproducts flowing down into the
Gulf of Mexico, one of the most important fishing areas we have in the
country. Use them, recycle them; understand how they could be turned
into a series of businesses that could actually create much of the economic
base of the new town. We could convert a portion of the organics throughPage 85
what is called pyrolysis+3and that could become one of the core industries within the settlement to supply many materials as well as energy.”
Fisk goes on: “This wasn’t just going and planning in the usual way. It was going and participating in the actual metabolism of the situation, however “polluted” it might be, and whether the hazards were natural or ones that were human induced. It was not saying that you’re going to do a new town and follow all kinds of conservation policies and then place the actual bur dens on somebody elses place next door or in the next state. It was tak ing responsibility for balancing some really big mistakes and then folding what you’ve learned into a new town-after all, the feds were paying much of the bill so why should we not confront the situation.”
While Fisk and McHarg were going head to head about this issue, Bolton was looking into teaching jobs for both herself and Fisk while working a few days a week at Kahn’s office. As she remembers it, the economy was in bad shape and the prospects for fresh-out-of-school architects were not good.
“Word had it there were 800 hundred architects walking the streets of New Yorlc so we thought, well maybe we should look around for jobs teaching since he had enjoyed teaching that one year,” she says. By Sam Martin 65
Then, during the 1970 Shirt Sleeves Conference on People Participation in the Built Environment at MIT, an architecture professor from the Univer sity of Texas who was presenting a theory on how buildings can respond to the human brain-basically cybernetic architecture-heard Bolton pres ent a paper on the evolutionary housing game idea she had investigated in her Penn thesis. After the conference, a professor by the name of Wolf Hilbertz invited Bolton to come to Austin to teach at the university. Fisk remembers the circumstances:
“She said, ‘I really don’t know that I should do this, but I’ll go down just for the hell of it.’ So she went down for a couple of days, came back, and I said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t agree with a single thing this cybernetic architecture guy is talking about, but I did meet a very interesting, magical person by the name of Alan Taniguchi.’ He was the dean of the architecture school back then. So I asked her if she showed him any of the stuff I’ve been working on. And she said ‘Oh yeah, I think you’re hired.”
Page 86
The timing was not great-he was, after all, entrenched in the new town project at McHarg’s office. Plus, Fisk wasn’t sure he even wanted to move to Texas, of all places. Having spent his entire life on the east coast, the state seemed to lack the progressive attitudes he had grown up around and been exposed to at Penn. Nevertheless, he agreed to come visit the univer sity, so he and Bolton flew down to Austin to have a look at the town and the facilities.
In the early 1970s Austin was a sleepy college town but it was also a hotbed
for the counter culture with a music scene unlike any other in the country.
The culture, combined with several of the professors Fisk and Bolton met
at the University of Texas, specifically Alan Taniguchi, swayed the couple.
They had also seen the possibility of starting up a laboratory at the school
where they could start testing the technologies and philosophies that had
been bandied about over the past several years-the first rumblings ofwhat
would eventually become the Center for Maximum Potential Building
Systems. Fisk thought there was some truth to the rumor that Austin could
become the Berkeley of the Southwest.
"This was to be the place where people would be asking real questions, and
doing so at a high level of inquiry," he says. "We thought we'd have the pos66 Green Masters: sibility of testing things the way LeRicolais did at the lab at Penn,” he says. Pliny Fisk III
And so when they returned to Philadelphia, Fisk and Bolton took a close
look at their situation. Bolton wasn't making any money working for Kahn.
McHarg and Fisk had continued to disagree about how to proceed with
the new town planning. On top of that the two hardly ever saw eacli other
because they were working so much. They decided to move to Austin.
When Fisk's alternative plan for the Pontchartrain East new town was fin
ished-complete with a blueprint for creating industries that would use the
waste coming down the river-he took it into McHarg's office to present
it to the group knowing full well that McHarg had not approved his ap
proach. The plan was a smart one but it was not what McHarg was looking
for. Shortly thereafter Fisk decided to leave the office to move to Texas
and, due to a series of circumstances, Pontchartrain East was never built.Page 87
A: Jty•*<
. 7iTwwiyi«mj»Mit wwriiipa<WM«wiB .r By Sam Martin 67
Page 90
“Fisk and Bolton’s plan was to sail the boat from its slip in New Jersey down the eastern seaboard’s inter-coastal waterway, through the Bermuda Triangle, along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico and up the Colorado River to Austin.”
Page 91
n 1971 Austin, Texas, the capital of the state, was a small college town
I just beginning to sow its musical and high-tech oats. The Armadillo World Headquarters, a venue that is largely credited with popularizing the music scene in Austin (and by extension the town’s claim as the “Live Music Capital of the World”) had opened its doors in 1970. Willie Nelson, a regular at the large Quonset-hut-like bar in south Austin, was causing a stir there with his unique brand of country music mixed with blues and rock. The crowds gathering for his shows at the Armadillo were an unusual mix of rednecks and hippies, garnering Nelson’s music the title of “redneck rock,” and the long-haired crooner himself the moniker Cosmic Cowboy. People around the country were drawn to Austin to check out the town’s original sound and many never left, drawn to the city’s cheap rents, warm climate, and progressive politics, including its environmental awareness.
For Fisk and Bolton, the young city with its antebellum and bungalow- style architecture could not have been more different than colonial Phila By Sam Martin 71 delphia. Air conditioning was far more important than heating and the mild weather made for plenty of outdoor living and activities. The access to the natural world combined with the unusual geography of the area made Austin wholly unique for the native Northeasterners.
The city is located on the edge of the Edwards Plateau in the Balcones Es carpment, an ancient fault zone that curves up from Del Rio on the Mexi can border through San Antonio and Austin. The escarpment is visible in satellite photos as a wide swath of rolling wooded porous-limestone hills, known as the Texas Hill Country. Under these hills is the Edwards Aqui fer, a section of honeycombed water-bearing limestone that acts like an enormous underground well, providing one of the main water sources in the state. This water bubbles up to the surface all along the escarpment in a series of fresh artesian springs, including Austins beloved Barton Springs, located less than two miles from downtown inside the city’s big gest public park. Numerous highland lakes also surround the city, formed by a series of dams on the Colorado River, which also feeds Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, another dammed section ofthe river that runs through the cen ter of town.
Page 92
Because it sits next to and above all tills water, the city of Austin is locat ed in a very sensitive watershed zone, long creating a point of contention between those who want to protect the environment by limiting urban growth and those who want to develop the city to the detriment of the environment-a situation that McHarg and his Man and the Environment class would have had a field day with.44 In the mid-to-late 1970s, when Aus tins population was first starting to boom, these issues started to affect lo cal politics and helped launcli a number of environmental groups. In later years, Fisk and the sustainable design movement would offer a way to bal ance urban growth and nature in a wholly original way.
On the flip side of Austins musical coin was the high-tecli economy. IBM
had opened a manufacturing branch there in 1967, followed by Texas In
struments in 1969 and Motorola in 1974. These companies along with
many state agencies and offices in the capital city gave Austin a promising
economy and a steadily growing population. The University of Texas was
the other economic anchor in town. In fact, research done at the school is
what prompted the city council to attract high-tech companies as far back
as the 1950s.
Presently, UT-Austin is the crown jewel of the state university system,72 Green Masters: which includes fifteen institutions in nine cities. The endowment for the Pliny Fisk III entire University of Texas system at the end of fiscal year 2011 was over $17 billion, the third highest in the country behind Harvard and Yale. The uni versity’s Bureau of Business Research released a study in 2005 proclaiming that UT-Austin alone provides an annual economic impact on the state of Texas of $7.4 billion. In 1971-the year Fisk and Bolton arrived-there were about 28,000 undergraduate and 4,200 graduate students enrolled at the Austin school. That was also the year LBJs presidential library opened on the eastern edge of the campuses
The University of Texas at Austins School of Architecture dates to 1910,
though not long after its inception it became a department within the
School of Engineering. UT awarded its first degree in architecture in 1913
and in 1951 the Department of Architecture became an autonomous entity,
once again claiming the title School of Architecture.
Fisk and Bolton were hired by Alan Taniguchi, the Dean of the School
of Architecture. Taniguchi was of Japanese decent and studied architec
ture at UC Berkeley before coming back to Texas in the 19SOS and getting
his first teaching job at UT in 1961. His father, Isamu Taniguchi, createdPage 93
the Japanese gardens at Austin’s Zilker Botanical Gardens and his son Evan now runs the family’s private firm, Alan Y. Taniguchi Architects.
Alan, who had been detained in a Japanese interment camp with his family during World War II when he was a 19 year-old college student, was very sensitive to social and political freedoms. He helped organize and spoke at a massive Vietnam War protest in the late 1960s in Austin. He campaigned for increased affordable housing and better educational opportunities for the city’s minorities. In the 1980s he pushed for the revitalization of down- town Austin and helped establisli the park that would eventually become a hike and bike trail around Lady Bird Lake.
According to an article in the Austin American Statesman, Frank Erwin, chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents from 1966 to 1971 once asked Taniguchi to order architecture students to get down from the 100 year old cypress trees they had climbed in order to prevent con struction workers from cutting them down to make room for the universi ty football stadium. He refused, saying the students had a right to protest.
Taniguchi’s tenure as dean of UT’s School of Architecture was marked by significant change. Having been a friend of Buckminster Fuller, he was very interested in alternative energy sources and low-impact building. By Sam Martin 73 He was also of the mind that the architecture school should be less about the profession of architecture than it should be about the bigger picture of how one approaches life. To this end, he set out to give students a far more holistic approach to the subject than the school had seen before. In addition to Fisk and Bolton, whom he brought in to teach ecological de sign, lie hired Wolf Hilbertz to teach cybernetic architecture, Al DeLong to teach environmental psychology, and Ray Parkins, a preacher, to teach in the planning department. He also invited a variety of professional archi tects and fringe groups to come speak to the students, including Ant Farm, a collective of performance artists and architects from California who were experimenting with, among other things, inflatable houses.
According to Taniguchi’s son, Evan, who was a student in the program from 1975 to 1979 the architecture school took on a distinctly different tone from the rest of the mostly conservative university.
“The School of Architecture was a totally different world than the rest of campus,” he says. “Alan had brought in all these young professors. Everyone had long hair. There were folks smoking dope and playing music out there. It was like a zoo.”
Page 94
Though social and environmental awareness in architecture was on the school’s radar back then, it can mostly be chalked up as a sign of the times rather than a new direction within the school s greater curriculum.
"The school had no idea what was going on over there," says
Evan Taniguchi.
And what they did know about, they did not like. Erwin, the Board of Re
gents chair, and Alan Taniguchi were "mortal enemies" according to Evan,
and Erwin would withhold funding "because he thought the students
in the architecture school were a bunch of misfits," says Evan. Had the
school been allocated more money, one still has to wonder how prominent
ecological design would have been anyway, at least compared to Penn
where McHargs "Man and the Environment" course had, by then, reached
a certain level of national fame. Before Taniguchis arrival, UTs School of
Architecture had been as straight and traditional as they come.
To be fair, in the Iate-i96os and early-igyos there were not many architec
ture schools in the country pursuing ecological design with the ardor that
McHarg had fomented in the landscape architecture division at Penn.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had a solar engineer
ing program46 and there may have been a few other forward-looking pro74 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III grams, but only a few.
That is not to say most architecture professors and programs were not
aware of the effects building had on nature. In 1963, Victor and Aladar 01-
gyay published Design With Climate: Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural
Regionalism^' that some say led to more of an academic focus on the subject
of energy efficiency. It also spawned the Environmental Design Research
Association, in 1968. The EDRA, now located in Edmund, Oklahoma, was
created during successive conferences at MIT and the University of North
Carolina by a group of professors, students and professional architects to
advance environmental design research. The association has remained
somewhat obscure over the years, largely staying within the confines of
the academic system.
Energy efficiency, however, has long been embraced by both academics
and architectural professionals as a way to ease the impact buildings can
have on the environment. It was a major tenet of the back-to-the-land and
solar movements, especially after the oil and energy crisis in 1973. Indeed,
lessening the amount of energy a building needs to operate effectively or
incorporating an independent power source into a building-residentialPage 95
or commercial-has been an important foothold on the upward journey of a green building and sustainable design ideal.
In 1972 after tiring of his battles with Erwin, Alan Taniguchi left the Uni versity of Texas to liead the architecture department at Rice University in Houston. He returned to Austin in the late-ipyos to take private clients and get involved in a variety of local civic issues until his death at the age of seventy-five in January of 1998.
Thougli there were individual professors discussing the role of architec ture in the environment, sustainable design issues were largely pushed to the back burner after Taniguchis departure. Dr. Charles Burnette, the dean after Taniguchi, did schedule classes dealing with evolutionary tech nologies, energy implications in design, and environmental psychology, but he also proved too controversial to the conservative-minded regents, and was forced to resign only two years later. After that the school was careful to choose administrators who would guide the curriculum and the students in a far more traditional way.
****
By Sam Marfin 75When Fisk first thought about the possibility of teaching at the Univer sity of Texas, he was aware that Taniguchi would be leaving the year after he got there and with that came some apprehension. Still, the city of Aus tin and the band of young “misfit” architecture professors the outgoing dean had assembled led Fisk to believe that he would fit right in. After his unorthodox teaching methods had been warmly welcomed at Ball State, Fisk had no intention of changing his pugnacious, hard-questioning, and unique style at the University of Texas.
As if to prove that point, Fisl<decided that rather than simply driving into town and moving into his campus office just like any other new professor he should do something far more unique. And so, in the summer of 1971 Fisk and Bolton devised a plan. Rather than drive all the way to Texas they would sail there aboard a 6s-foot long Dutch canal boat.
Nicknamed Gambo Gig, the boat had a cast iron hull and an enormous cabin above decks complete with a wood burning fireplace and chimney.48 Since it was built to maneuver in the canals of The Netherlands, it had
Page 96
a very shallow two and a half foot draft below the water line-ideal for navigating the inland rivers of the United States. The couple had bought the boat with money given to them by Boltons father, an avid sailor and a successful businessman and entrepreneur whose firm Bolton-Emerson Inc. manufactured the industrial machinery needed to produce paper and plastics.
Fisk and Boltons plan was to sail the boat from its slip in NewJersey down
the eastern seaboard's inter-coastal waterway, througli the Bermuda Tri
angle, along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico and up the Colorado River to
Austin. Once in Austin, they would park the boat on Lake Travis and live
on it. During summer vacations they would sail the rivers of the country as
a kind of floating environmental lab.
"We found we could go and reach all but seven states going up river with
that boat," says Fisk. "We were going to become Johnny Apple Seeds using
the river network. We were going to have a wind generator on the mast,
a solar desalination system, and onboard aquaculture food systems."
Unfortunately, two things stood in their way. First, they could never get
the money to create the floating lab (by Fisk's recollection, the canal boat
purchase proved not to be too popular witli Bolton's father), and second,76 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III reaching Austin by way of the Colorado River proved to be a figment of their collective imaginations.
"We spent a spring vacation that first year canoeing all the way down the
Colorado River taking depths to see if we could get this huge boat up the
thing," remembers Fisk. "It was totally impossible."
Adds Bolton: "We neglected to figure out that there were no navigable in
land waterways in the state of Texas."
And so, in the summer of 1971, Fisk and Daria Bolton loaded up a mov
ing truck and left behind the graying 19th century brick warehouses on
the industrial outskirts of Philadelphia for the bright open skies of Texas.
Gambo Gig was left in its New Jersey slip, though in the following years
after Fisk and Bolton were married with two young baby boys, they would
spend summers back home working and spending long weekends on the
boat, still hoping they could find a way to realize their floating lab. Even
back then, Fisk was interested in the concept of a maximum potential
building system, which he thought the boat could become. He would even
tually get his lab; it just would not be on water.Page 98
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“The idea behind the method is to create a situation in which any given community can create a self-sustaining economy and a means of employment through technology”
Page 101
y the summer of 1972, Fisk and Bolton became part of substantial
B changes within the University of Texas School of Architecture. The previous semester had been Dean Taniguchis last and Fisk and other like-minded professors had been moved out of the main ar chitectural building into an off-campus location that was then called the Architectural Annex. The move sounds as if the school was trying to dis tance itself from the work Fisk and his more progressive colleagues were doing, and based on the more traditional direction the architecture de partment took over the following twenty years, that assessment may not be far from the truth. But rather than feeling marginalized, Fisk felt a sense of freedom. His classes dealing with various appropriate technologies,49 regional materials, passive solar designs, and the integration of food and water harvesting, had become very popular with the architectural stu dents because ofthe fact that they were different from the core curriculum.
David Lake, co-founder of Lake|Flato Architects in San Antonio, one of By Sam Martin 81 the most high-profile firms in the state, and AIA’s 2004 Firm of the Year, took classes in the Annex from Fisk when it first opened. As Lake says, the professors teaching there were “an interesting group of people who really had a lot of energy and had a completely different approach on how to solve problems.”
Like he did at Ball State, Fisk brought a thoroughly unique perspective to what studying architecture should be. His resource mapping assignments to his students had them studying climatic zones as well as soils, minerals and crops that could be used for building materials, energy generation, and water treatment and production. Also, Wolf Hilbertz had recently started investigating how architecture should mimic the living forms of nature- a notion that has since been termed biomimicry.s° According to Lake, one of the questions he always posed to his students was, can you make an in sect build a house for you?
“The things we did were more about botany and biology and the sciences and less about design,” says Lake.
Page 102
Because of their popular success at school, combined with the growing interest in the environment, alternative energy sources, and self-suffi cient communities brought on by the just passed Eartli Day and the vig orous back-to-the-land movement, Fisk and Bolton had decided to start a laboratory at UT’s Balcones Research Center, a patch of land in Austin’s western hills, that at the time, was available to university professors who needed room to experiment. After a simple request to the dean, Fisk and Bolton were given two small shacks on the far edge of the research center, and they specifically rejected the electricity, running water, heating, and cooling with which the university had offered to supply them. Part of the challenge they wanted to give themselves and their students was to design these elements from the byproducts and the natural resources available at the research center and the region.
The idea was to create the technologies needed to develop what Fisk at the
time was calling a "full scale life-support system." Happily, students got
far more in Fisk's classes than just desk work. Projects included building
a wind generator out of bicycle parts, constructing solar air heaters out of
recycled aluminum cans that would act as solar absorbers and heat the two
buildings during winter, and devising a system to hydroponically grow
food from treated wastewater that came from a methane digester system82 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III (essentially integrating energy, food, and water into a single life-support system).si Fisk and Bolton would call their new experiment the Laboratory for Maximum Potential Building Systems, or Max’s Pot for short?‘
The fact is, Fisk was in lock step with what was going on in the back-to-the-
land movement (as well as with the global push to influence development
in third world countries) and with his lab he would become one of the indi
viduals testing its most far-fetched possibilities. At the time, with a beard
down to his chest and long hair tucked behind his ears, he even looked like
he was a commune dweller instead of a university professor. That said, he
never bought into the notion-prevalent among many back-to-the-landers
in the late i96os-that one had to isolate and distance themselves from cit
ies and government policy with Thoreauvian romanticism in order to find
success. Rather, he was and has always been more concerned with creating
a dialogue and finding a way to integrate varying elements and collabo
rate with as many different people and disciplines as possible. The thing
he did agree with was the fact that in order for the built environment, in
cluding its dependency on fossil fuels, to become more self sufficient, ar
chitects and ecological designers had to come up with a whole new set ofPage 103
technologies. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the buzz term for this idea was Appropriate Technology.
****A movement in its own right, Appropriate Technology grew out of a set of economic ideas created by the German economist E.F. “Fritz” Schum acher. As a young man, Schumacher studied economics at Oxford and Columbia University in New York as a Rhodes Scholar before returning to his native Germany. During World War II, he returned to England to escape the Nazi takeover of his homeland. There he was put in an intern ment camp, but later released after Maynard Keynes saw an economic essay he had written called Multilateral Clearing, in which he proposed a method of freeing up British currency for use in the war by offsetting foreign trade debt with a number of other “member” countries. Schum acher went on to play a key role in helping the British government mobilize financially during the war and recover once tlie fighting had stopped. After the war, he taught economics at Oxford, worked as Chief Economic Advisor to the British Coal Board, and wrote extensively about economics By Sam Martin 83
for the London Times and The Economist.
A decade after the end of the war, Schumachers views on national econo mies and employment shifted. On a business trip to Burma in 1955, he was so moved by the poor and harsh living conditions of that country’s rural communities that he developed a unique approach to finances he called “Buddhist Economics.”
“To organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of crimi nal,” Schumacher wrote in the essay Buddhist Economics. 53
Instead, he theorized that good work was essential for proper human de velopment. He also believed that the need to rethink the human inter action with the environment was important. For Schumacher, natural resources should be a locally available economic asset, not an infinite source of consumption. To him, living locally and simply was not only a way to generate a higher quality of life, but a way to promote world peace:
Page 104
As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each others throats than people depending upon a high rate of use. Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communi ties are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade.
One can not help but tliink of the many oil-driven conflicts in the Middle
East over the past several decades to understand first hand what Schum
acher was talking about. Not coincidentally, the economist did write ex
tensively about the coal and oil industry long before tlie energy crisis of
1973 and even predicted the rise of OPEC leading up to the crisis. His con
clusion as a Buddhist economist was that "production from local resources
for local needs is the most rational way of economic life."
Naturally, Schumacher wanted to translate his economic theories into real
world situations. And so, in 1966, he formed the Intermediate Technology
Development Group (ITDG) to help poor countries in Latin America,
Africa, Asia and elsewhere learn about efficient building methods, sani
tation, small business development, farming and agricultural processing,84 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk 111 and much more.54
With the launch ofITDG came the seeds ofthe Appropriate or Intermedi
ate Technology movement, which is essentially the use of earth- and user-
friendly technology that can be matched to the scale of community life.
The idea behind the method is to create a situation in which any given
community can create a self-sustaining economy and a means of employ
ment through technology.
Alternative and renewable energy providers such as wind turbines and
solar collectors were the most accessible, practical, and exciting forms
of appropriate technology in the early-to-mid 1970s when the back-to-
the-land movement and the energy crisis were in full swing. But even in
the late 1960s copies of Buddhist Economics and ideas about how to apply
technology to the various communes sprouting up in New York State and
California were being passed around fervently. Schumacher himself be
came a heroic figure within the counter culture in the United States on par
with Buckminster Fuller. In fact, in the introduction to Schumacher s 1973
classic book Small is Beautiful, in which Buddhist Economics was repub
lished, Theodore Roszak-a prominent environmental psychologist whoPage 105
died in 2011-pays a direct tribute to the audience that had taken Schum acher’s economic values to heart:
How strange that this renewed interest in ancient ways of livelihood
and community should reappear even as our operations researchers
begin to conceive their most ambitious dreams of cybernated glory.
And yet how appropriate. For if there is to be a humanly tolerable
world on this dark side of the emergent technocratic world-system, it
will surely have to flower from this still fragile renaissance of organic
husbandry, communal households, and do-it-yourself techniques
whose first faint outlines we can trace through the pages of publica
tions like the Whole Earth Catalog, the Mother Earth News, and the
People's Yellow Pages. And if that renaissance is to have an economist to
make its case before the world, E.F. Schumacher is the man.Fisk and Boltons ideas and projects at the new lab at the Balcones Research Center at UT were clearly influenced by Schumacher. In fact, in the mid- 1970s a high-ranking employee at ITDG, Andrew MacKillop, visited the Lab during a trip to the United States. Fisk later invited MacKillop to an By Sam Martin 85
important meeting held at the Tabard Inn in Washington, D.C., convened by Mary Ann McKinsey and Dick Saul of Community Services Adminis tration. McKinsey and Saul were familiar with Fritz Schumacher’s Inter mediate Technology Group in England. At that meeting they and others, including members of various energy and social activist groups, outlined the framework of what would become Schumacher’s legacy in the United States: the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT).^’
On a practical level, the work Fisk and his students did at the Balcones Lab seemed to represent for Fisk a bridge from the world of technical know- how-be it building, planning or systems thinking-to the real world ofhow human beings interact with the environment around them.
“The appropriate technology movement tried to bring in environment, people, and technology,” he says. “It wasn’t just the environment and it wasn’t just technology. It was economics and how people actually under stood, designed, and used things relative to the well-being of place.”
Bolton’s take on the first iterations of the Lab also underscores Schum acher’s influence and helps to bring its mission into focus.
Page 106
“My commitment was always to democracy/’ she says. “How can you make architecture more accessible, more participatory, more democratic. Pliny was always into the environment. And so when we put those two things together, they made a lot of sense, especially if you wed them to afford ability. If you look at indigenous materials, for example, and how they can tie into climate and adaptability and a sort of responsiveness in the local setting, and at the same time you tie this into affordability and accessibil ity, suddenly you have a whole approach that encompasses democracy as the essential tie-in.”
For botli Fisk and Bolton it seemed that through Schumacher and Ap
propriate Technology they had at last found a living example of what
they always believed and hoped to be true: that planning and design could
actually improve the health of the planet and secure the well-being of
its inhabitants.86 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III
Page 107
By Sam Martin
Page 108
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“Perhaps no other technology typifies the notion behind Appropriate Technology more than simple solar power used in its most elemental form.”
Page 111
ith the advent of the Max’s Pot lab the following semester,
W the summer of 1972 turned out to be a perfect time to do a little field research and make some contact with the few peo ple who had committed to similar pursuits-those “philosophical doers,” as Fisk calls them, who were putting ideas to work through real world building and experimenting. They were aware of Sim Van der Ryn, an architecture professor in the College of Environmental Design at the Uni versity of California Berkeley who was beginning to teach environmental design. In 1974, two years after Fisk got the lab up and running. Van der Ryn started the Farallones Institute. At Farallones, students did research on appropriate technologies, energy-efficiency, organic agriculture, and ecological design and construction techniques”
Tom Bender at the University of Minnesota was also on the radar.’? He had started an environmental design course at UM which, in 1973, would be turned into a university sponsored lab similar to Max’s Pot and Far By Sam Martin 91 allones called the Oroborous Project. In 1974, Bender and his wife. Lane deMoll, started RAIN Magazine, which would later take the name RAIN: A Journal ofAppropriate Technology, in which they wrote about alternative energy and the implications of Fritz Schumacher’s Buddhist Economics. Bender later investigated and wrote about his own thoughts on the con nection between sustainable design and economics, which he called “Fac tor 10 Economics.” Previous to Oroborous, Bender studied architecture at Penn under Louis Kahn (he and Fisk did not know each other back then). After Penn, he went to Japan on a Rockefeller fellowship in 1965, which resulted in him starting an Asian architecture program at UM. Since 2000 Bender has written a number of essays about the Chinese building practice of Feng Shui as well as a concept of what he calls “energetic design,” which is the use of Chi or life-force energy in residential architecture and com munity planning.’®
Fisk and Bolton would not get around to visiting Van der Ryn or Bender on this trip,‘9 but they would spend some time with John and Nancy Todd at the New Alchemy Institute as well as with Steve Baer and Peter van
Page 112
Dresser, two pioneering figures in the world of solar technology and self- contained community development.
So, one morning in early July, as the dew was forming on the Spanish live
oaks in central Texas and the cedar pollen had yet to be disturbed, Fisk and
Bolton climbed into a 1968 Chevy pickup truck and drove west, out of the
Hill Country and into the desert flatlands of New Mexico.
Perhaps no other technology typifies the notion behind Appropriate
Technology more than simple solar power used in its most elemental form.
By 1971, using solar power to heat a building was not a new idea. The In
ternational Solar Energy Conference (ISES) had its inaugural season in
1954, and MIT had been experimenting with solar power to use in sub
urban houses and had come up with several prototypes in the early 1950s.
Even before then, architects were experimenting with solar heat and sun
angles. William and George Keck are widely recognized as being some of
the first to incorporate passive solar designs into their buildings in and
around Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1971 ISES formed its Ameri
can section, the American Solar Energy Society or ASES. Interest in solar
power spiked in the mid 1970s after the OPEC oil-producing nations cut
off exports to the United States because of that country's support of Israel92 Green Masters: during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War between Israel and the nations of Egypt Pliny Fisk III and Syria. That event caused long lines at the gas pumps and a general sense of alarm that the country’s main source of energy was coming from the Middle East and could be tied up so easily. Solar power reached its apex of popularity in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof after allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to renewable energy research.
In the mid-1960s Steve Baer and his wife Holiday "Holly" Baer moved
from the northeast to New Mexico where they began building geodesic
domes similar to Buckminster Fuller's. The Baers modified these domes
with doors and skylights cut into the sides, often perching them atop four
walls like oversized bulbous roofs. The result was a more open aired and
beautified interpretation of Fuller's structures. The domes were made out
of car tops that Steve cut from junkyards, and they called their buildings
zomes. Steve also wrote a book called the Dome Cookbook'' and eventually
created an entire community built with these odd-looking structures just
outside of Albuquerque.Page 113
During that time Steve also began experimenting with solar heating. In time, his solution, which he patented (he owns a total of sixteen patents covering various structures, engines, passive controls and energy conser vation products), was to construct walls of water-filled barrels that would radiate heat into the home.6i
By 1972, when Fisk and Bolton were rumbling their way towards New Mexico with the windows rolled down, Baer and two other influential solar developers, Peter van Dresser and Keith Haggard, founded the New Mexico Solar Energy Association (NMSEA), a group formed out of a gathering known as the Life Technics Conference. NMSEA, like ASES and its parent company ISES, was formed at first to discuss the various technologies and how to set up a house with solar features. That technical side to sun-based energy, whicli usually involves additional mechanisms such as circulation pumps, air blowers or machines that automatically follow the path of the sun, has become known as active solar power. Its bedfellow is passive solar design, a key component of residential green building.
As a student of architecture and design, Fisk was instinctively drawn to the passive solar side of things and in the early 1970s the concept of passive solar design was just beginning to find appeal in many By Sam Martin 93
architectural circles.’^
“The idea that you could design a liouse and situate it on a lot according to the patli of sun, use breezes, and overhangs was new,” says Rich MacMath, a former employee of Fisk who first saw Fisk speak at an ASES conference in 1978 in Philadelphia. “So there began a new division of the society into the passive solar section and the hardware solar section of the conference. I was on the hardware side and Pliny was on the passive side. Ideas about sustainability grew out of the passive solar side of this conference.”
After visiting with the Baers for a few days, Fisk and Bolton drove up the highway to visit Peter van Dresser, another solar pioneer and a leader in passive solar design. Van Dresser had set up shop in El Rito, New Mexico, not far from Santa Fe after a career developing solid fuel rocket science in New York.
His first house designed to run completely off solar power-the first solar residence west ofthe Mississippi-was built in 1958. He was also a founding member of the New Mexico Solar Energy Society, along with Baer. Van
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Dresser’s Homegrown Sundwellings was published in 1977 (it was reissued in 1996 under the title Passive Solar House Basics) 63
The book is considered a classic on solar design and technology. Though
somewhat out of date now, it offers a basic overview of the hows and whys
of using the sun as a source of heat in the home. Details include passive
solar design techniques as well as how to create solar hot water heaters and
solar ovens. He even writes about the advantages of using local materials
to keep costs down and avoid having to waste energy creating and trans
porting new materials.
The book was published at the same time van Dresser had launched
one of the most compelling solar research experiments in the country
during the late 1970s. The project, known as the Sundwellings Project,
was built at New Mexico's Ghost Ranchi' and funded with $34,000 by
the Four Corners Regional Commission in New Mexico. Van Dresser
built four 20x40 foot houses out of local materials-adobe bricks, flagstone
floors, and pine wood. He also designed them in the local southwestern
vernacular, which oddly was considered a refreshing take on the solar aes
thetic that up until then had taken on the far-out look of Baer's zomes or
Bucky Fuller's domes. Each home would test a very simple method for so94 Green Masters: lar heating without using any type of mechanized system. The first was Pliny Fisk III called the Greenhouse Unit in which van Dresser attached a greenhouse to one wall of the structure. As warm air was heated in the greenhouse it warmed the wall and floor of the house, providing radiant heat.
The second house was the Trombe Wall Unit. A trombe wall is an adobe,
concrete or masonry wall built just inches behind an enclosed wall of glass
that is situated on the south side of the house to absorb sun during the day
and radiate it into the house at night. The trombe wall in this unit would
warm the air between the glass and the adobe while ventilator gaps at the
top and bottom of the wall would allow the warm air to rise into the house
and the cool air in the house to escape through the lower vents and get
heated and so on in a beneficial cycle.
Van Dresser's third structure was called the Direct Gain Unit. The sim
plest of the bunch, this unit had a large bank of south-facing windows to
allow sunlight into the house. The flagstone floors and adobe walls would
absorb the heat and re-radiate it out over a long period of time. To keep the
heat in at night, heavy curtains were drawn. The midday summer sun was
partially blocked by large roof overhangs built onto the structure. A fourthPage 115
structure-the Control Unit-was also built. It had no solar features, other than the heat absorbing adobe walls, but it was highly insulated to test how much energy the building could conserve.
The Sundwellings Project offered a number of compelling conclusions about solar power that interested Fisk tremendously. First, the technol ogy was simple and reliable-there were no complicated working parts to break and repair. Second, van Dresser showed it could be affordable to use the sun to heat a home (there were practically no additional costs to build these houses witli passive solar design). And third, the project used materi als available in the area as well as local construction knowledge. Not only were all the houses in tune with the southwestern cultural aesthetic but van Dresser had invited the people living in the area to help design the in teriors for the way they lived. All ofthese elements-availability, affordabil ity, and community-continue to form the core of many of Fisk s projects.
Van Dressers take on solar power was enormously educational for Fisk, but it was van Dressers Schumacher-like economic development that tru ly drew Fisk s interest. A Landscapefor Humans (1972), one ofthe solar pio neers lesser known books, outlines an economic plan aimed at the poor, small, and rural communities in Northern NewMexico. Van Dresser s idea was to create “a new technological, agricultural, and industrial orientation, By Sam Martin 95
stressing small-scaled and diversified primary production, adapted to the land and natural resource patterns of the region, to the ecologic balance and healtli of the total biotic community.” 65
In other words, van Dresser thought that for small communities to support themselves they needed to come up with local ways of doing that rather than by sending workers to nearby metropolitan areas. Since nature and natural resources were these peoples’ largest asset, they would provide a means of subsistence. And, in order to preserve their means of subsis tence, the local communities would necessarily take care of the environ ment around them.
“At the time he was the closest thing to an E.F. Schumacher we had in our country,” Fisk says of van Dresser.
Fisk and Boltons visit to El Rito, New Mexico, turned out to be fortuitous in two other ways as well. For one, Fisk and van Dresser formed a bond that lasted until the solar pioneers death in 1983.66 Second, Fisk was enthralled with a cafe van Dresser and his wife owned on El Rito’s tiny main street.
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Called Peters Cafe, the place was initially a way for tlie van Dressers to make some extra money (being originally from Brooklyn, they sold per haps the only authentic New York malted milk in New Mexico). Eventu ally, it became a gathering spot for solar pilgrims and a hub of information about the solar movement.
"If you wanted to know what was going on in the movement at that time
you went out of your way and visited Peters Cafe," says Fisk. "Everyone
went to see Peter but if you were lucky you'd run into someone else. Every
single innovator in the solar movement visited it at one time or another."
In fact, during the summer of 1972, Fisk stumbled into Dan Williams and
Larry Peterson, two of Howard Odom's proteges, in a booth next to his
own, drinking one of those New York City-inherited malted milkshakes.
Over thirty years later the men are still good friends. Williams later be
came the head of the AIA Committee on the Environment and Peterson is
a professor of architecture at Florida A&M University.67
Late in the summer of 1972 Fisl< and Bolton made one last research trip,
this time to Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod and the New Al
chemy Institute, a non-profit organization experimenting with ecological
design, organic farming, and aquaculture.'^ The institute opened its doorsGreen Masters: Pliny Fisk III in 1970 and its original directors were John Todd, Nancy Jack Todd, and William McLarney.
The New Alchemists, as they called themselves, are best known today for
the invention ofLiving Machines as well as for their experiments with what
they called Arks.69 Also known as bin-shelters, these large, dome-shaped
plastic greenhouses contained fish ponds, farming plots, and beneficial
insects. With the solar heated environment brought on by the greenhouse
design these bin-shelters cnuld produce year-round growing seasnns for
both crops and fish.7°John Todd and McLarney both had Ph.D.s in marine
biology and a big part of the experiments at the institute involved nutrient
cycling between agriculture and aquacultureJi
Not long after their trip to New Mexico, Fisk and Bolton wrote and pre
sented a paper to the 1972 ASES national conference entitled The Future of
Passive Solar Design: Regionalism and Appropriate Technology. In it they ar
gue that passive solar design is rarely looked at in terms of regional context
and that for it to truly become an innovative method for designing build
ings or communities, designers and city planners will have to combine
passive solar with locally available technologies, materials and resources.Page 117
The results, they wrote, will offer “lower cost implications,… lower over all embodied energy use, more local job potentials, and potentially higher acceptability by a far wider range of disciplines by virtue of its rich regional derivation.”
There are several themes going on here that are worth pointing out. First, it is apparent from this paper that Fisk had indeed taken Schumachers and van Dressers ideas of small-scale economics to heart, especially with his reference to jobs and his concern with costs. There is also a nod to the importance of regional or locally available appropriate technologies and resources, a theme Fisk would sound much more in the coming years.
The most significant concept articulated in the paper-this is the first time Fisk mentions it in his work-is the concept of embodied energy, or the amount of energy it takes for a resource to get to its final built stage, from the extraction of tlie clay to the formation of a brick to the transportation of the brick to the work site and eventually to the brick being laid in place by a mason. The term embodied energy is still used today though more often sustainable designers refer to this as the upstream part of the life cycle. Doing a life-cycle analysis on materials is a method for determin ing the sustainability of any given material and it is a procedure that Fisk returns to over and over albeit in very different approaches and formats. By Sam Martin 97
In 1972, very few people, if any, were considering this kind of approacli to community planning or building.
Just as the varying elements of architecture, environment, passive solar design and appropriate technology were starting to look like the pieces of a larger puzzle, Fisk, too, was adding to his vision and knowledge base to create the framework for his own very unique contribution to what was slowly becoming the green building or sustainable design movement. Over the next five years, through the work he would do at Max’s Pot and beyond, he would begin to complete his vision.
On the road in New Mexico and Massachusetts, however, he was focused on connecting with like-minded people as if to make sure he and Bolton were not alone.
One of the most important lessons Fisk imparts to students of sustain ability is the need to interact with others both inside their specific pro fessions and outside them. Visiting other non-profits and universities, go ing to conferences, giving lectures to audiences, or taking part in panel discussions, is for Fisk, the social equivalent to making a studio model of
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a building design-you have to find out if your ideas are going to work and how your peers respond to them before seeing them to fruition.
"The main thing that was going on [during our trip to New Mexico] was to
get peer confidence/' Fisk says. "If you have no peers or support systems,
you're not accomplishing very much. Your sails are up but you have no rig
ging. But to see what someone like Peter van Dresser was doing....I mean,
he had incredible clarity of technical thought and community. He really
influenced a tremendous number of people at the time. His place was the
place to go to learn what solar was really about.
"Tom Bender and Lane deMoll were a major influence at the time to all of
us," says Fisk. "If RAIN magazine didn't exist, if Alternative Sources of En
ergy magazine and its editor, Donald Marier,72 didn't exist, if the American
Solar Energy Society didn't exist, we'd all be sort of floundering around
out there. So all this was incredible support stuff. And that is always im
portant in any movement. Who are your comrades?"98 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III
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By Sam Martin
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wa^ Glanin ^: OR MAXIMUM
m'Page 122
“At the lab wo wanted to moke our actions transparent, and we wanted to do it within a definable boundary^ — Horny Fisk DOO
Page 123
riving out to the present day Max’s Pot, which is now sometimes
D referred to as “The Center,” or even “Plinys Place,” you have to head east of downtown Austin along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The street dips and bends its way through some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and past overgrown yards, dilapidated businesses and an abandoned shopping mail. Once you get near the Austin city limits the street turns into Farm-to-Market Road 969, a stretch of frontier-like highway that is home to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correc tional Facility, the City of Austin Walnut Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, some light industrial complexes, an organic farm, some new hous ing developments, and a charter school.73 The Center sits at the top of a hill from which you can see the downtown glass buildings, the pink granite dome of the state capital and the University of Texas football stadium and campus spreading northward lilce a red-bricked Roman-era metropolis.
The fact that the Center is located in one of Austin’s most depressed By Sam Martin 103 neighborhoods comes as no surprise considering Fisk’s longstanding commitment to accessibility or what Bolton used to call democracy. You will not find a suit or a tie in any of the six or so buildings, sheds, and Air streams in which the various employees and interns do their work and quite often live. There is no fence or password to get in. For more than thirty years Fisk has opened the Center’s doors in the form of countless open houses and seminars to everyone from students to city officials in the Austin community. Interns have come from as far away as France, Eastern Europe, and Central and South America to glean what they can from Fisk and his work. Government employees have come to take notes. Start up non-profits have sent representatives for inspiration. Some of the people that show up on Fisk’s doorstep stay for years. Others move on with a brand new take on sustainability and all its various permutations, most ofwhich Fisk and the Center have had a hand in at one time or another.
Before spending time in Fisk’s presence, it is difficult to determine what he and his employees actually do at the Center. To some, the organiza tion functions like an architectural practice. To others, it is an experimen tal laboratory for building. But even then, visitors might wonder how the
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Center’s wetlands or its bio-fuel tanks fit into the equation. Even clients or team partners wlio have worked with him on one project or another know nothing of the other things he has cooking.
"We are known through very different lenses in the field of sustainabil
ity," admits Fisk. "Some people know us because of our input-output
BaselineGreen analysis,74 and some come to visit because they thinlcwe
deal with wastewater treatment, solar technologies, or indigenous mate
rials for building. Still others know us for our flexible building systems
and planning methodology. Few people will go nearly as far as connecting
building systems, planning procedures, input-output analysis, biometrics,
and all this stuff together."
Indeed, the Center has been a mystery to many from the get-go, starting
with the name. What in fact is a maximum potential building system?
Fisk has designed and built some buildings but not many. Creating build
ings, per se, was never part of Fisk's plan, nor is that the assigned task of
the Center as a non-profit organization, which is neither an architecture
nor planning office in the usual sense, but rather an applied research and
education organization focused on influencing the built environment
through prototypes, protocols, and policies. The Center is more likely104 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III to set up the criteria for how a sustainable building gets designed and constructed than do the actual building. The Advanced Green Builder Demonstration Home, which was funded through the cooperation of five Texas state agencies, two foundations, and numerous manufacturers, is perhaps the Center’s most recognizable structure. It is now the group’s main office and sits next to the 2002 University of Texas Solar Decathlon project that was first constructed on the Washington D.C.’s National Mall (Fisk served as the project’s co-director).75
"One of the things you have to realize is that we only do buildings if they
serve a high-impact purpose to the professions of architecture and plan
ning as well as to the general public," Fisk says.
It would be more accurate to say that the Center creates sustainable
systems on a number of scales-a direct link back to his background study
ing systems science, ecological planning, and architecture. If a job takes
the shape of a construction project, so be it. Most of the time, however, the
work of the Center focuses on what needs to happen before the first shovel
pierces the ground or the first brick is laid.Page 125
Officially, the Center specializes in four distinct areas: design, master planning, policy and education, and tools (which include specification and planning methods, educational games, and the creation and testing of new building materials). However, one of the dangers of committing to discussing Fisk’s work with all its labels and technical areas of expertise is losing sight of what his true calling is and the reason he started the Center in the first place: to create the ways and means that might serve to redirect the manner in which we plan and build.?’
Fisk’s definition of Maximum Potential Building Systems reveals its inclu sive and encompassing approach.
Living Systems maximize potential. They internally program them selves to self maintain and learn from their mistakes. The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems attempts to understand and work with our past, present, and future in a manner that is very multi- disciplinary as we attempt to retrofit the ecosystems within which we work. We use this approach in all of our architectural design, landscape design, master planning, and economic and product de velopment projects. Maximum Potential, however, only represents By Sam Martin 105 a state that is never quite attainable. So we connect it to the word “building,” first as a noun, so it becomes solid and real, and then as a verb, so it becomes action. It is the dynamic process of helping to evolve our living system, from the static to the dynamic that becomes our living laboratory. To “building” we add the word “systems,” be cause we are in the business of potentializing the built environments life-support systems.??
A day in the life of Pliny Fisk is as varied as the many projects with which he is involved. When he is actually at the Center and not lecturing at a conference or presenting a project to a potential client, Fisk bounces from one building to the next taking phone calls, giving directions, and checking on various initiatives. He might start the day working with the interns. He will advise one on his information-technology-based master’s thesis, check on the off-grid wastewater treatment and rainwater harvest ing systems, and direct another doing design drawings for an upcoming sustainable architecture competition. After that he may get on the phone with a local manufacturer to check on the metal fabrication for a new
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low-impact housing kit he is developing. Next, he could be meeting with officials from the Department of Energy followed by a conference call with a design team for whom he is consulting on sustainable material usage. In between he is on his computer answering emails and developing a curriculum for a workshop or lecture series. If it is the first Friday of the month, hewillendhis days hosting another openhouse duringwhichhewill lecture for hours to dozens of people about the Center and its purpose- something he has done without fail for over three decades. But even at the open houses, which serve more as an introduction, Fisk does not have the time to go into too much detail about what he is trying to do and what he has accomplished. To understand “maximum potential” completely, one would have to take a look back.
By mid-semester at the University of Texas in the fall of 1972, the Labora
tory for Maximum Potential Building Systems had come to life. A visit to
the treeless site at the far edge of UTs Balcones Research Center would
have revealed students tinkering on a variety of technologies and projects,
and designing and planning others that represented a range of life support.
One would be atop a wind generator oiling the bearings. Another would
have been fine-tuning an organic hydroponic greenhouse garden. Still oth
ers may have been checking the solar panels supplying heat to the meth106 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III ane digester, which served as the gas source for a cooking stove as well as functioned as the wastewater treatment system for a low-flush marine toi let. Or students would have been building roof overhangs and measuring solar angles on the two tiny shacks Fisk and Bolton had requisitioned for their experiments. Emblazoned on the side of one building was a cartoon mural painted by Fisk’s colleague. Art Schaller, of R. Crumbs “Mr. Natu ral,” a squat bald man with a big nose wearing a priests gown and sporting a white beard down to his knees-a kind of naturalized rendering of God. Behind him was a star inside a circle, and he was standing on a fluffy white cloud. Under his open, all-embracing arms were the words “Max’s Pot.”
At its core, the Lab was a new way of thinking about teaching and educa
tion. Instead of discussing a set of assumptions in the classroom and hop
ing they would one day be useful, Fisk and his students could test their
ideas and hunches with the resources that were available to them. The Lab
had no utilities and no money, so students had to innovate to get what they
needed, whether that was fuel for cooking, lighting, or sewage treatment.
It was a practice that put students unequivocally in real world situations.
"If we needed water, either we had it or we didn't," says Fisk.Page 127
David Orr, who has been an influential board member at the Educa tion Foundation of America and helped that group award the Center a total of $100,000 over the years, was an inspiration to the Centers edu cational goals.
Says Fisk: “David would put it this way: ‘Literacy today is understood to be reading, writing and matliematics, but the Center has adopted a broader concept that brings intellect into direct contact with the need to design physical things in order to survive.’”
In other words, the Lab was getting the students out of the classroom, letting them experiment on themselves, and giving them the hands-on skills and thinking tools they needed for whatever the future might bring after graduation.
Of course that was not Fisk or Boltons only goal. Philosophically, they wanted their students to be active participants in helping out a belea guered world by better understanding what nature had to offer. Planning student Ken Smith wrote an article in 1973 that stated: “The Laboratory for Maximum Potential Building Systems… focuses on procuring ener gy, food, water, and shelter in ways that will bring man into a more direct and mutually supportive relation with his environment-both decreasing By Sam Martin 107 man’s destructive effects on the natural environment and heightening his understanding and sympathetic use of natural forces, rhythms, and eco-systems.” On the surface, however, Fisk and Bolton wanted a place to test out various earth-friendly appropriate technologies and, in doing so, to re-establish an appreciation for the vocational arts.
“Schumacher was a big word at the time. Appropriate technology was big,” says Fisk. “We wanted to fit this into a curriculum, get a place where students could get out of the classroom and physically make something happen.”
The program, along with Wolf Hilbertzs work, became one of the first university-sponsored design-build outfits in the country. At the time, the Portola Institute’s called it “one of the best if not the best” program of its type in the United States79 and in 1974 the Lab was featured on the cover of Alternative Sources of Energy magazine, of which Donald Marier was the editor.8°
The students loved it. One of Fisk’s ongoing characteristics and personal convictions is that in order to really find out if an idea has merit, one has to
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build it first. As much as anything, this was the reason behind the original Lab as it has been for subsequent projects right up through the present.
As the architect David Lake, who was a student at the original Lab, says:
"One thing I admire about Pliny is he always wants to build it. He doesn't
want to talk about it."
Gail Vittori, Fisk's second wife and future partner at the Center phrases it
a little more poetically: "Pliny has always said 'be the example. Get it up
and show others how it can be.'"
For Fisk, the Center is a safe place to make mistakes, like the Lab was back
in the 1970s.
"Ninety-five percent of learning is making mistakes," he says. "There
aren't nearly enough facilities in the country such as ours where, to some
degree, you're purposely setting up for failure."
A big part of that, he says, is the lack of substantial funding, "which places
us squarely into how most of the world actually functions." And that is
good and bad for the larger green building movement.
"One of the dehcate issues about, for example, LEED and the U.S. Green108 Green Masters: Building Council, is how much of that is actually on the ground proven Pliny Fisk III before you go to the next step,” he says. “We need to have the possibility of making huge mistakes and be able to have time to make them or at least create the conditions where that is okay. And we don’t have them. We go in tiny little incremental steps that are not enough to offset the powerful directions humans have assumed.”
At the original Lab, plenty of mistakes were made. The students, with
Fisk's guidance, were discovering the many elements of "self-sufficiency,"
an idea that would later morph into 'sustainability." Projects included
ways to recycle organic waste into usable compost by setting up gray-
water systems (used kitchen sink and laundry water was pumped out to
nearby gardens by wind power), and by building a bio-gas plant to supply
the cooking needs and power the refrigerator. These bio-gas plants, which
are still very common in developing countries such as India, China, and
Nepal, use human and animal waste to create methane gas, which can
then be used as a fuel for cooking and heating, or to power internal com
bustion engines. The organic fluids from the bio-gas plant were used as
a "compost tea" in an organic, hydroponic vegetable garden and green
house that, theoretically, could feed the inhabitants of the house or localPage 129
community. Because of its location, the Lab could show how land use and proportions worked in spatial terms, and students could learn about the need to integrate systems.
To this end, students would master plan whole communities. They sized wind energy systems, determined how fast materials could be renewed, and figured out the amount of agricultural land for a given population. Their final plans, which were presented to a juried panel, included all this information and data in flow diagrams based on the work they did at the Lab.81
These first experiments with sustainable building techniques were tested at the University’s Balcones Lab, a lab environment unlike any others at UT. A new building on the site was made using rammed earth techniques,82 caliche soil, and waste sulfur from nearby petroleum refiner- ies.83 Rainwater was collected off tin roofs. This was in 1972 and Fisk was twenty-seven years old.
“The place smelled all the time,” says Lake. “Every other day somebody would be doing something crazy. It was totally off the charts.”
The principle guiding all the projects was the use of locally available resources, be they the virgin caliche soil, pozzolan, lime, sorghum, or By Sam Martin 109
a collection of other reusable materials scavenged from the by-products of industry (such as sulfur, fly ash, or bottom ash). In fact, one of the main points Fisk continues to make when he talks about architecture is that the design of a building and how products are specified in the final rounds of a plan set to be delivered to a client helps determines the ecology, the busi ness, and the economy of an entire region.
But how do planners and architects know what is available to them in any given region? Fisk’s answer: resource mapping, one of the most important elements ofwhat the Center offers.
Fisk first thought about resource mapping in McHargs ecological land planning course and in his subsequent work in the office where he used maps to track sensitive natural zones such as watersheds, wetlands, and the existence of productive agricultural soils. Also, Fritz Schumacher pointed out the environmental and economic benefits of harvesting build ing materials locally because of the jobs it would create. Peter van Dresser, the solar pioneer, also saw that using what is immediately available saves money and cuts down on the amount of extraneous energy it takes to
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acquire the material and transport it to the community or building site. But, unlike McHargs top-down ecological mapping and decision-making process, which was always framed in terms of conservationism and what one cannot do or build, Fisk wanted to do what Fuller might have called a “new metabolics” and connect to industrial processes within a region that could help support the long-term economic and environmental well-being of a place.
"With McHarg we were always doing pristine conservation of the land
and then through a totally unplanned act, we would design something that
would extract and unknowingly foul up someone else s land or country,"
says Fisk. "At the Lab we wanted to make our actions transparent, and we
wanted to do it within a definable boundary."
That idea led to the creation of an inventory or a map of natural resources
so that Fisk and his students could develop design and plan scenarios that
could respond specifically to different regions of Texas, from the south-
east humid coastal conditions to the northeastern Panhandle, and from
the east Texas Piney Woods to the west Texas deserts. Tliey mapped ten
ecozones within the state and slowly developed a kind of working atlas
that could show where certain interventions might perform well and110 Green Masters: how they could be derived from highly plentiful resources that are low in Pliny Fisk III impact when used.
According to Lake, one of the things they did in Plinys class in those
early years was to use maps from the UT geology department to chart
accessible resources within a 300-mile radius of the Lab. Transferred to
a larger scale, a resource map would allow designers in any region of the
country or world to create buildings and town plans appropriate to their
particular region.
"We started years ago taking the attitude that people would love to know
where the valuable indigenous resources are," Lake says. "And so, like
solar, which is everywhere, caliche, earth material, indigenous cements,
plant species, rapidly renewable materials, mesquite wood, etcetera are
highly present and need to be incorporated into what we call a regional
resource inventory."
Fisk called it "a regional plan with an operational menu," a sort of Fuller-
esque operational manual for the planet (or in this case, Texas).^''Page 131
“The recognition that there are abundant resources beyond just solar is the first building block towards a sustainable future,” adds Fisk.
The idea behind resource mapping is simple: only use what is available to you. By creating detailed and sometimes complicated inventory maps Fisk is just attempting to define the parameters of availability. Or rather, he is simply showing what the natural world has to offer to a degree that can provide for human needs without harming the environment-sustain ability in a nutshell.
Of course, there are complications with this ideal. Nature is not one dimensional and Fisk knows it. For example, he points out that using re source mapping to guide the built environment is not exempt from good ecological land planning procedures.
“You don’t take something away when it is helping control erosion or pro vide food,” he says.
As in any system with two parts working in tandem, which in this case is the built environment and the natural one-and this feeds directly into Fisk’s ongoing commitment to systems theory-the goal is to tend to both parts and work with their component complications in order to maximize the whole. Fisk sometimes calls this “potentializing the future,” and even By Sam Martin 111
tually he established a step-by-step procedure for doing this called ecoBal ance Design and Planning. In this procedure, entire life cycles become an automatic part of the procedure of designing and engineering for almost any human endeavor. As illustrated in the summary page of the lenses, ecoBalance has three fundamental building blocks that underlie all other components of the procedure: conserve, integrate, cycle. Each subsequent stage requires the previous stage be performed.^s
“It is a fact that there are a lot of basic life support resources from materi als, energy, water, to waste-treating plants that must work together and not parlay one life support resource for another,” he says. “They’re all here. We can work to make sense ofthe land, the people and their institutions to cre ate a sustainable future at all scales from home to city to region.”
Over the years Fisk’s mapping ideas have developed to include not only natural materials but businesses and people who were extracting and dis tributing the area resources in a responsible fashion. The idea was that an architect or city planner could reference a series of maps to know what methods they could work with, another map to know where they could
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find those techniques for sale and another map to find out who they could talk to about the best way to work with those methods. Fislcbroke the maps down into three categories-area resources, point resources and network resources.
"Area resources are the maps of all basic life support resources," he
explains. "Point resources are the best examples of people and institutions
and businesses that work with the area resources within regional resource
parameters. These are the businesses, the craftsmen, the useful historic
buildings, and the vocational programs that are examples of best prac
tices. The third area-the network resources-are the all-important pro
duction sequences that represent the flow of currency, energy, materials
and information."
In years to come this mapping sequence would allow Fisk and Vittori to
articulate the structure of a life-cycle method of thinking for the worlds
first Green Building Program-in Austin.86 It also served as the basis for
a national material flow model funded by the EPA in whicli Fisk mapped
12.5 million businesses, their environmental impact, and their monetary
flow.87 And even though this kind of an undertaking had computer inten
sive results that could take several days to run, the result was a benchmark112 Green Masters: that summarized the present state of the environmental impact of any Pliny Fisk III type of manufacturing activity in the country. Fisk named the procedure baselineGreen and its corollary greenBalance, which actually set condi tions for balancing negative impacts with positive actions and product choices. The latter could establish a kind of net balance between many different life cycles and the associated quantities of materials or products.
Others in the industry began picking up on parts of this mapping proce
dure (particularly the one spelled out in ecoBalance). In 1991, John Mot-
loch, Ph.D., an early CMPBS employee and now a Center Senior Research
Fellow, published the resource mapping approach in his widely used text-
book Introduction to Landscape Design && Ball State University-the site of
Fisk's first academic job where Motloch now teaches-began teaching eco
Balance resource mapping. When Fisk became a professor at Texas A&M
for several years in the mid 2000s, Fisk folded the same procedure into
several classes.
And so maps became a key ingredient for what goes on at the Center.
Not surprisingly, regionalized design and planning has become one of
Fisk's specialties. In 1977, the Center was invited to design and constructPage 133
a building in Ingram, Texas, for the Hill Country Youth Ranch, a home for abused and neglected children. After doing an ecological land analysis of the site to determine where the best place to build was, Fisk mapped the site for resources and discovered an abundance of caliche soil, which he could mix with a small amount of Portland cement (thereby decreasing his use of that material significantly; it is one of the worlds main sources of CO2 emissions). Once the passive solar design was done (Fisk planned a long southern exposure and “solar corridors” for the buildings heat source) he began training the teachers and staff on the production of cali che blocks for the main building material.
To create caliche blocks they used several pieces of equipment including a hand-operated, earth-block manufacturing machine using a slump block gang mold approach that was able to produce one thousand blocks per day. Although this might seem quaint now-and somewhat Mother Earth newsy-these blocks were fully tested and could pass unified building codes with ease when subjected to criteria for unfired building materials.89
All this was done with the input of the Ranch’s children and counselors as well, in order to give them a “holistic ecological adventure,” says Fisk. The Center helped put together the Ranch’s basic program of self-subsis tence in which the children would grow their own food, raise animals, and By Sam Martin 113
experiment with solar and wind power. Fisk taught all this by first showing the mapping procedure he created, so the participants could see where these locations would best serve both people and nature. Interest ingly, when site locations for various camp activities were established using the maps, they often found camping sites of the original Native American inhabitants.
“That was a nice find because it convinced our client, Gary Priour of the Hill Country Youth Ranch, that our methods were sound,” remembers Fisk.
An all-caliche building using no firing technology had not been built in the southwestern United States since the Native Americans did it hun dreds of years ago. For Fisk, the project proved that regional land analysis could work. Over the years, Fisk has pushed the idea of mapping to greater heights. While area resource inventory continues to be an important refer ence point for the Center, the type of maps the Center develops are now mostly based on biomes, an ecological term that generally refers to those regions around the world that have similar geography, flora, fauna and
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climate. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature there are thirteen major types of biomes in the world and each has a series of sub-systems. These biomes and sub-systems repeat around the world. Central Texas, for example, is part of a temperate grasslands biome that can also be found in Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, and portions of Asia and Europe. Charting biomes became the Centers contribution to the field of bioregional mapping, a technology that was first promoted by David Haenke, who became a good friend of Fisk’s and started tlie first Ozark Area Community (Bioregional) Congress in 1977. As one can imag ine, being able to compare a particular region or biome to another biome half way around the world opens up what could become what Fisk calls “the underlying ingredient to sustainability.”
"Bioregional mapping is a totally opposite concept than what the WTO
or NAFTA is presenting, which is an exchange of goods and money only,"
says Fisk. "What we re talking about is a knowledge exchange, a learning
system that uses nature s patterns to define bio-techniques that could be
come responsibly shared worldwide."
In a 1989 article written for Whole Earth Review, Fisk describes the Cen
ter's new approach to what he called Biom-Metric™ planning:114 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III
We still use the term "appropriate technology" to describe what we
do, but now we use the context of the bioregion-its potentials and
constraints-and the framework of sustainability as fundamental
guideposts. An "appropriate technology," in our current lexicon, is
a method of using the material resources of a bioregion-its water, its
soil, its minerals, flora, and fauna-in such a manner as not to exceed
that bioregion's carrying capacity (i.e. its ability to sustain its health
and resource yield through natural means of growth and renewal).
By essentially combining area, point and network resource mapping with
bioregional mapping Fisk and the Center had a truly global perspective
on sustainable systems. This global perspective became a valuable tool
when Max's Pot started doing work internationally in the 1980s and 1990s
in places like Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia and China.9°
"If we look at the biomes and subsystems of Texas then we know when
we look at the biomes of China we can find definite correlations-a kindPage 135
of learning system from the past to the present/’ says Fisk. “So what were doing and discovering as successful sustaining methods here in Texas one would say that is what we should share in parts of China under the same or similar conditions and vice versa. The things that are done in China over time in history are the things that we could be doing if they are found to have true ecological relevance to our own part of the planet.” This ap proach to planning, design and construction, although more recognized today than at the time, attracted praise for Fisk and the Center when he made a new town presentation to the Planning Minister of Beijing and the Vice Minister of Construction for China. According to Fisk, they told him that it was the first indication of true caring between their countries and an attempt to understand China and not just sell them products.
One of the particular challenges Fisk faces often in his forward thinking career is finding a way to communicate his ideas to design and planning professionals, government officials, academics and other interested par ties. In a sense, communication is the bridge linking his idealistic notions to their practical applications and because of that Fisk spends a lot of his time at the Center planning detailed presentations buffeted with color- coded charts, grids, and architectural drawings. These types of informa tion graphics often end up as fascinating as the idea itself. By Sam Martin 115
When Fisk is creating a project plan based on resource areas-a new village or complex, for example-he uses a unique set of color fields and icons to represent food input and waste output, material life cycle, economic op portunities, transportation methods and more. These icons create what Fisk calls a “comprehensive and interdisciplinary language” that helps the planner, architect or any other person working on the project to perceive all the environmental relationships involved.91 In that way everyone can see how what he or she does affects others and it creates a more interactive decision-making process.
Fisk’s efforts in translating his ideas from theory to reality have grown into a mini-industry of their own at the Center. The mapping efforts alone have garnered several types of interactive interfaces, the latest of which is a game called ecoBalance that users play to balance out what they are do ing with the environment as they plan.
Almost as soon as the Center sputtered to life in 1975, it started to get fund ing to do small research projects, including a resource atlas for the state of Texas. “The Appropriate Technology Working Atlas” for the state of Texas
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is considered the Centers first in-house publication.^^ According to Fisk, the atlas was funded “under the rug” by Andy Sansom, who was the head of the Energy Center at the University of Houston.
The goal of the publication was to show how the performance of small
prototypes being built at the Lab and later at the Center, such as earth
walls using waste sulfur as a binder, could plug into a larger relevance on
the regional level depending on resource patterns. The atlas mapped the
location of four resource types in Texas: locally available regional materi
als such as adobe, caliche, sulfur, and volcanic ash and the accompanying
technologies to use them; various water sources and how to collect and
treat them using eco-technologies; various climate systems; and various
adaptive architectural strategies. These maps also placed the use of any
resource into a context of natural occurrences such as average rainfall,
average temperatures, drought conditions, evaporation rates, and average
wind energy.
In the booklet, Fisk and his young staffers also described the recipes and
techniques needed to make use of each resource along with a bibliography.
For example, adobe was linked to local manufacturing techniques and
businesses that either sold the equipment or the blocks; rainwater catch116 Green Masters: ment systems were linked to those manufacturing cisterns in the state. Pliny Fisk III Lastly, as a further form of reference, the maps they created pin-pointed any historic or current buildings that actually had used or were using the technologies described in the atlas.
On the heels of the Working Atlas, Fisk and his students created an eco
logically friendly alternative to the building product catalogue Sweets Cat
alogue. They called it Sweet and Sour Unsweetened Sweets Catalogue where
they compiled manufacturers and sources of solar hot water heaters, solar
stills, wind systems, rainwater collection materials, pumps, and so on-all
the things needed to build and operate like they were out at the Lab.
During this time Fisk also started to feel the limitations of being under
the aegis of the University of Texas, which is not surprising given his in
dependent background. He had inherited his mother and father s self-
employment gene and can-do attitude and had always chafed under the
watchful eye of authority. His run-ins with Ian McHarg as a student
at Penn and his disregard for traditional teaching practices as a teacher at
Ball State and the University of Texas are evidence of that independence.
Fisk had so embraced this rebellious streak that by the time he discoveredPage 137
his true calling at the Lab, his anti-establishment, pro-change outlook had become a driving force behind his experiments. And, indeed, it would be come a defining and appealing characteristic of the Center in later years.
Back in the mid-1970s when he was first finding success, he started to feel as thougli the university was limiting his potential. The way he saw it, being affiliated with UT or any university for that matter kept him from being as creative and far reaching as he needed to be.
In 1974, Mrs. Dominique de Menil, heir to the Schlumberger oil services company fortune and one ofthe leading art and architecture patrons in the state (Philip Johnson designed Dominique and her husband John’s house in the 1950s), had heard about Fisk and his work at the Lab, and she in vited him to Houston to present to the Menil Foundation some examples ofwhat he was advocating.93
“Mrs. de Menil was very interested in the future of technology and archi tecture,” says Fisk.
Also, she had recently hired Renzo Piano, a student of Louis Kahn’s when Fisk was at Penn, to design a museum for her modern art collection94, so she was familiar with Fisk’s background. After the presentation, she ba sically told him, “if you ever decide to leave the university, let us know.” By Sam Martin 117
She would be happy to fund a non-profit organization that could push the boundaries of environmental architecture. She and Fisk both knew that could not happen as long as The University of Texas was paying Fisk’s sal ary and ultimately controlling what the Center got involved with or did not get involved with. According to Fisk, de Menil’s attitude was “get out there, start doing things, shake it up and let it happen.”
And so in 1975, Fisk took the first step towards independence by declaring the Lab a non-profit organization and changing its name to the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, with Fisk and Daria Bolton Fisk as its co-directors. The two would stay on as professors at the University of Texas, and they would continue to make Max’s Pot part of their curricu lum. They did, however, slowly start to dismantle the lab at the Balcones Research Center and move the experiments to what Bolton remembers as a “stone, sheep herders cottage” on Bee Caves Road in west Austin. That is also where they lived, though that did not prevent them from bringing students out to build wind generators and trombe walls.
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Meanwhile, early in their UT stint, Fisk and Bolton had been contacted by a former UT architecture student, Juan Cotera, who had taken a job as head of a planned housing development in Crystal City, an impoverished town of roughly 10,500 people in the Middle Rio Grande River Valley in Soutli Texas. He wanted them to come see how the town was organized and how much the citizens were participating in the new plan. When they went, Fisk remembers being amazed.
"They would drive a semi-truck into the baseball game and the entire plan
for that part of the community was painted onto the semi," he says. "Then
the town officials would say, were planning to renew or tear down these
peoples houses and these are the new streets going in that are going to
cause some disruption over here, and these are the new utilities. What do
you think?' It was a most astounding model for the future."
What was also astounding was the fact that the local government of Crys
tal City was run by an upstart third-party political group of Mexican-
American activists known as the Raza Unida Party (RUP). In the coming
years. Crystal City and Max's Pot would get swept up into a nationally re
ported revolution that would shine a spotlight on appropriate technology
and land Fisk in jail.
1l8 Green Masters:
Pliny Fisk IIIi
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By Sam Martin 119
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“We distributed and installed something like 800 to 2,000 stove within a period of six to eight weeks and basically turned the entire community of ten thousand people over to renewable energy.” — Pliny Fisk IIO
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rystal City, tlie seat of Zavala County, Texas, is located in the
C Middle Rio Grande River Valley and is known around the state as the winter gardens for its lush farm lands and year-round pro duce. Spinach is and has always been the biggest cash crop for the mostly Mexican-American inhabitants ofthe small town. So prevalent is the leafy green vegetable that in the 1930s city leaders declared the community the “Spinach Capital of tlie World” and erected a statue of Popeye in front of City Hall. Even today, with the crop continuing to support most families in town, the residents of Crystal City still tip their straw cowboy hats to the world s most famous spinach consumer as they head into the fields.
Though farming has long been the town’s calling card. Crystal City has been host to a number of political and social events that seem out of place for a town sixty miles from the nearest interstate. In the 1940s during World War II, it had the dubious distinction of being home base for one of the largestJapanese internment camps in the country. Alan Taniguchi, the By Sam Martin 123 former dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture, was impris oned there as a nineteen year old along with the rest of his family.
Then in the early 1960s, Hispanic leaders successfully organized the town’s Mexican-American citizens politically, winning all five seats on the city council in 1963. In 1969 after the local school board refused to address discrimination charges brought against it by one hundred high school students and their families, Hispanic students went on strike, even tually drawing the interest of the U.S. Department ofJustice, that ordered the school board to change their policies. These events became known as the Crystal City Revolts.
Crystal City is also the birthplace of La Raza Unida Party, an important political arm of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970S.95 Politically, RUP never challenged the state’s two party rule like they had hoped to, though in 1970 their candidate for governor prevented the win ner of the election, former governor Dolph Briscoe, from claiming a popu lar majority-the first time that had happened in the 20th century. Socially, though, Mexican-Americans in South Texas, especially those living in rural areas like Crystal City where the inhabitants were earning yearly
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wages far below the poverty line, had found a party that would fight for their needs first.
By 1975, the year Fisk and Bolton first visited the town to check out
some progressive city planning initiatives, RUP held the majority of city
council seats as well as a county judgeship under La Raza leader Jose
Angel Gutierrez.
The fact that Fisk was associating with these "socialist revolutionaries"-
as Texas state governor Dolpli Briscoe thought of them96-did raise some
eyebrows at the University of Texas where he was still teaching. But he
and Bolton continued to visit Crystal City with bus loads of students to
show the value ofgrass-roots participation in city planning. It was not until
1977 that things began to escalate. In September of that year, just before
a cold winter, the company that had been supplying the city with natural
gas turned off the town's supply and along with it their source of heating,
cooking, and hot water (without gas to fire up hot water heaters, every
house was left with cold water only).
The events leading up to this dramatic event began several years previ
ous when the supply company, LoVaca Gathering Co. increased the cost of
natural gas to Crystal City from 35 cents per thousand cubic foot (which is124 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III the amount of gas an average family used every three days)97 to $2 despite a previously-agreed-to-contract. Local officials took the matter to court, but the panel of judges ruled in favor of LoVaca.
After that. Crystal City officials refused to pay, and the town's residents
backed them. Eventually, the city built up a debt of more than $800,000,
and after a long litigation process, LoVaca terminated the flow of natural
gas into the small town.
Coming during the 1970s when the OPEC oil crisis and higli fuel prices
were at the forefront of the national debate. Crystal City's predicament
provoked nationwide media attention. The Washington Post and the New
York Times both ran multiple stories on the situation in South Texas.
National circulations like the Christian Science Monitor also did stories as
did the Associated Press. PBS had film crews documenting the scene for
a national television production. Meanwhile, with winter only weeks away
and no relief in site, the local leaders had to come up with a plan to keep
residents warm and provide them with a means to cool<meals^s That's
when Max's Pot went into action.Page 145
As Fisk tells it, what happened in Crystal City set off a series of events that became a turning point for him and the newly declared non-profit Center. At first, he says, the Raza Unida Party’s attitude was “shut us off and let the commotion fly.” In other words, if they could not pay the gas prices then why not see if they could free themselves permanently from their depen dence on outside energy companies like LoVaca and move toward a more self-reliant economy. The notion plugged into Schumacher s Buddhist Eco nomics perfectly and Crystal City was, in effect, poised to become a work ing model for appropriate technologists around the country.
The first thing Fisk did was to consult the mesquite maps and then try and set up some simple local manufacturing of wood stoves. He realized that the extent of the problem needed rapid response: Winter was com ing. Fisk petitioned the Department of Defense to release to the city two hundred wood-burning “tent stoves” left over from the Korean War. These army-issue stoves had been piled up gathering dust in a warehouse in San Antonio after fighting had ended in the Korean War. They were round metal cylinders with no legs and flat tops with provision for long stove pipes that could poke through the top of army-issue canvas tents. Army enlistees used them for cooking and as space heaters.
In Crystal City, most of tliese stoves were initially put in backyards rather By Sam Martin 125
than inside the house where people’s roofs would have to be altered to fit the chimneys, but with winter approaching soon, Fisk formed crews to retrofit the town’s homes so that the stoves could be inside. For cooking fuel they would use the abundant mesquite wood that grows like weeds in South Texas. That decision, in itself, created a cottage industry of gather ing, chopping, and selling or trading cords of firewood.
“Some of the city yards were being totally converted into cutting and distribution centers for mesquite wood,” says Fisk. “And all this happened in a very short amount of time. We distributed and installed something like 800 to 2,000 stoves within a period of six to eight weeks and basically turned the entire community of ten thousand people over to renewable energy.”
In addition to wood, Fisk also planned to use solar power. After the stoves were passed out and the wood distribution system was up and running, Fisk and his team began building solar hot water heaters constructed of locally available waste materials to provide hot water to the town’s homes’
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partially to help reduce what was rapidly becoming an air pollution issue due to wood burning.
His original design included using all recycled materials, including old
hot water heater tanks scavenged from the very homes that were cut off
from the gas supply. By surrounding an old tank with cleared out fluores
cent light tubes and mounting it on a flat metal plate that was attached to
a frame to distribute the weight, Fisk found that water in a thirty gallon
tank could be heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit virtually every day.99 Some
of the tanks were also hooked up to the wood-burning stoves to further
heat the water, which was pumped into the tanks from the house and grav
ity-fed back down into showers and kitchen sinks.
To increase production and meet the immediate needs of the town, Fisk
had the idea to start a solar hot water heater factory-again taking a page
from Schumacher's Buddhist Economics by combining self-sustaining
technology with jobs that would help the local economy. The National
Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT), which had just been cre
ated in 1976 with a $3 million plus federal grant through the Community
Services Administration (CSA), had recently arrived in Crystal City from
their home base in Butte, Montana, to try and get in on the action. When126 Green Masters: the city council told NCAT that they already had help (i.e. Fisk and his Pliny Fisk III crew, including Jeff Lanza and former student Tom Teasdale), officials at NCAT decided to help fund Fisk with about $12,0,000 to build his solar hot water heater factory. With a five man crew, the factory was able to produce about five to six solar collectors per day.
Granted, not everyone in Crystal City was thrilled with wood-burning
stoves and solar hot water heaters. As the New York Times reported, the
now non-RUP mayor would much rather have used the newly remodeled
$i million gas supply system the town had recently paid for and he advo
cated for further negotiations with LoVaca.i°°
Still, the possibility of what could happen in Crystal City with Fisk lead
ing the way was exciting to quite a few people both nationally and locally,
including The Zavala County Economic Development Corporation, the
local county agency run by members of the RUP. They decided to petition
the CSA in Washington for an $850,000 grant to start a cooperative farm
to actually use some of the crops they were growing and picking for the Del
Monte canning company in town.Page 147
At that point, all of the produce the community grew and harvested was packaged and shipped out of town, making the very spinach the town made its living off too expensive for them to consume. After seeing that it was possible to free themselves, however rustically, from the natural gas supplier, why not gain some independence with their farming? The CSA granted the money. Then, in March of 1978, President Jimmy Carter got involved.
According to Fisk, Governor Dolph Briscoe, still suspicious of the RUP and their independent leanings, stepped in to make sure the money would not get to Crystal City.
“First of all, the U.S. government thought that this bunch of Mexican- Americans was about to take over south Texas,” he says. “And Crystal City was right next to the King Ranch, which at the time was the largest and wealthiest ranch in the country. So I think Briscoe went to Carter and told him to stop the money.”
Whether that is actually what happened is up for speculation, but the Pres ident did take the unusual step of blocking the money. Public perception of the affair was that Carter was trying to placate the Texas governor and win over members of the Texas Congressional delegation. By Sam Martin 127
When Zavala County was denied the CSA money they filed a civil lawsuit to have the White House release a number of memos the President alleg edly wrote in whicli he referred to the situation in Crystal City as well as to a meeting his aides had witli the head of the CSA. Carter opted to claim executive privilege, and the memos were kept secret. Eventually, the mat ter faded away, though not without a dustup in the national press?°i
Meanwhile, Fisk and the Center were beginning to go into debt. At the same time, other small towns in South Texas and some neighborhoods in San Antonio were also starting to lose their natural gas supply because of similar reasons to Crystal City: they simply could not afford it. Again, South Texas became a national example of the effects of the ongoing en ergy crisis that had been sweeping the country since the OPEC embargo in 1973. Fisk’s solar factory started producing solar hot water heaters for other towns in the region. Some, like Brownsville, Eagle Pass, and Cotulla even initiated their own solar water heater factories based on Fisk’s opera- tional design.
Page 148
At about this time, Fisk was invited by the Department of Energy to tes tify about his work at the Center to their Office of Consumer Affairs, whose director, Tina Hobson, was interested in the environment and appropriate technology/”^ While in D.C., Fisk took the opportunity to try and get funding for liis work in Crystal City. Hobson, for one, was thoroughly impressed.
"Tina loved what was going on in Crystal City," says Fisk. "She told us
what we were doing was the hottest thing she had heard of yet and that she
was going to help cover our expenses."
So Hobson gave Fisk a list of people to see inside the Department of En
ergy to try and get funding for his ongoing efforts in Crystal City. He was
turned away by six different people before he and Hobson realized that the
issue was too hot and no one was going to talk to him.
"The President had already said no when he invoked his power of execu
tive privilege," says Fisk.
Because of that reality, Hobson told Fisk she could not do anything unless
he could get some letters from some important people vouching for his
work and the importance of what was going on in Crystal City. Within128 Green Masters: the week Fisk had managed to get U.S. Representatives Barbara Jordan Pliny Fisk III out of Austin, Mickey Leland out of Houston, and Bob Krueger from New Braunfels to write letters to the Department of Energy, who later is sued Fisk enough money for him to pay off his debts and keep his work in Crystal City going.
"Jordan and Leland saved my ass and the Centers ass," he says. "Without
that money, the Center never would have made it."Page 149
By Sam Martin 129
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“Fisk ended up on his stomach on the hood of the sheriff^! police car with his arms behind his bock and handcuffs around his wrists/‘
Page 153
BB C uccess is a funny thing because you never know what direction it might lead you/’ says Fisk inside his office, which is a part of the University of Texas Solar Decathlon entry from 2002 that sits among several structures on the grounds at the Center. The doors and windows are open and the solar-powered fans are whirring. It is an August morning in Texas and the temperature is already creeping into the 90s. The afternoon will bring triple digits again, but inside the Solar D build ing, it stays comfortable with no air conditioning.
Out front, shirtless interns wander by the windows on their way to some ongoing project. One or two poke their heads in to ask questions, and Fisk gives advice and directions before settling back into his chair to tell the stories and the history that weave all this narrative together.
During his adventures in Crystal City, which lasted for three years, Fisk was sleeping on couches and borrowed floors and staying away from Aus tin for months at a time. While the Center had made an auspicious start, By Sam Martin 133
it was still a new non-profit organization and money was tight, especially because in 1977 right when the commotion started in South Texas, Fisk and Bolton had resigned from their professorships at UT.
Looking back, Fisk had slowly begun to distance himself from the Uni versity. He and the new dean, Hal Box, who had just taken the position in January of 1977, did not get along. Fisk and his classes were pushing the limits of architecture more and more while Box had come in to rein in the curriculum and focus it more on traditional studies. Also, Fisk’s reputa tion and the reputation of the Center had grown significantly, leading him and Bolton to think that they could actually make it on their own. Support from the Menil Foundation was nothing to shake a stick at either. The fall semester of 1977 was his last at the University of Texas/°3
So, when the work in Crystal City began to wind down, Fisk was in a curi ous position. He had received recognition for his work in South Texas, but his days as a nationally recognized professional were still some years off. Plus, the political climate in the early 1980s (the Crystal City work was coming to a close in 1980) was foreboding. Jimmy Carter, the President
Page 154
who had put solar panels on the White House roof and who had allocated funding for alternative energy sources, had not been reelected to a second term, and the new President, Ronald Reagan, had already talked about re directing those funds back to oil and gas exploration.
Nevertheless, the first half of the decade brought plenty of adventure for
Fisk. The recent activist fieldwork had spread beyond Crystal City to
several towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, so Fisk was getting some at
tention. In fact, the work earned him a feature spread in Texas Flyer, an
in-flight magazine for Texas International Airlines that had a significant
readership in the state. At the time, it was great exposure for Fisk and the
Center, but not much came out of it.
"We got exactly two phone calls," says Fisk. "And one was from a survival
ist who was convinced the federal government and others were on tlieir
way to 'take over.' I needed the money, so I agreed to meet with him."
A couple of weeks later Fisk and a crew were in Carizzo Springs, Texas,
just up the road from Crystal City in Dimmit County, and they were
working on a project with funds from President Carters U.S. Department
of Energy in which they had planned a regionalized building approach
that included everything from caliche walls to bamboo reinforced conI34 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III crete to sawdust insulation. The idea witli the Carizzo Springs building, as the project is now known, was to create a passive solar building for the local Girl Scouts (it would be a demonstration that the rest of the commu nity could model), and to create local jobs and a local economy creating caliche blocks.
Fisk and his team were on the roof of the new building finishing the
detailing of a reradiating night sky cooling system when they heard a horn
honk. It was the survivalist, driving a huge Lincoln Continental. Fisk
had forgotten the appointment-or maybe he thought the guy would not
actually show up. But there he was, so Fisk clambered off the roof, and
the two men went inside the almost-finished Girl Scout headquarters to
talk details.
"He wanted 25,000 linear feet of 20-foot-tall earth walls build around
a compound of family houses in McAllen," says Fisk. "He wanted them
two feet thick-thick enough to withstand 'enemy fire.' I explained to him
that he was talking about four miles of wall, but he was convinced the en
tire economy was going under and they wanted the walls for protection.
He also had the money to pay me."Page 155
The irony of the situation did not escape Fisk. The two men were, after all, sitting in a federally funded building. Nevertheless, Fisk listened and it did not take long for him to see a greater benefit to him than just getting paid.
In 1980, he had just returned from his first trip to advise the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and one of the things they were interested in was the durabil ity of the earthen building construction Fisk was pitching to them. The Sandinista war against the dictator Somoza had been successful in part because they had been able to use native materials-namely street cobbles- as barricades.
Fisk’s new survivalist client could help him test his earth walls for wartime conditions, and when do you ever get that chance? So, Fisk turned to the client and said, “I’ll do it, but we are going to shoot at the walls at vary ing distances to see how many rounds of ammunition it would take to get through, and I want all the data when we are done.”
“The guy stared at me for a second or two, before saying, ‘sure, whatever.’”
Over the next few months, Fisk designed a mix of indigenous materials that he would use to build test walls among the mesquite trees and low brush of South Texas. Once they set up, he would fire rounds at them to find out which caliber bullet and the distance it would take to penetrate By Sam Martin 135
the structures. He used various mixes and found that the strongest one was the earth mix that could hold the largest quantity of sand and still stay structural. It ended up being good preparation for his upcoming Nicara guan adventure.
Fisk’s next visitor to the Carizzo Springs project was the sheriff of Crys tal City, and this was not about wanting Fisk’s building services for a new police station. The officer had come to inquire about equipment that was missing from the Crystal City Solar Collector Factory the night before. In fact, Fisk had gone to the factory the previous day and removed all the equipment. After all, it had all been paid for by the federal government as part of a contract they had with the Center.
But that subtlety was lost on the sheriff. As far as he was concerned, there was equipment in the warehouse in the morning and it was gone in the afternoon, and here was a guy who admitted to taking it. Fisk ended up on his stomach on the hood of the sheriff’s police car with his arms behind his back and handcuffs around his wrists. The charge was grand larceny theft. Next stop: the Crystal City jail.
Page 156
Apparently, the political leadership of Crystal City had changed, and they wanted nothing at all to do with the past. Or, as Fisk wrote in an article for Whole Earth Review in 1989, “Our former patrons in La Raza Unida had been hounded out of office, and their successors had branded the Center as part of the short-lived socialist insurrection.”
If Fisks crew thought he was eccentric before then, who knows what they
thought now. Nevertheless, after three days in solitary confinement in
a small jail cell, Fisk was moved to the main holding tank where, to his joy,
he found one or two of his old crew members from Crystal City. Togeth
er, they had installed hundreds and eventually thousands of stoves and
solar systems.
"In that jail cell we were so ticked off," Fisk said, "We started drawing
on the cell walls a plan of the whole town with all the work we had done
together including names of residents and businesses who helped during
those snow-covered days of the gas being turned off."
Fisk's bail was set at $10,000. His one phone call was back to the Center.
Gail Vittori phoned what was left of the Crystal City Community Devel
opment Corporation (most everyone had been pushed out), and she man
aged to notify a few of Fisk's old friends that he was in the local lockup.136 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III Within a short time they posted bail, and Fisk was out, promising that he would cause no more trouble. Eventually, the charges against him were dropped. Soon after getting out he would leave for Nicaragua to work with the Sandinista government and the indigenous Miskito people to create more self-subsistent lives.
Page 157
By Sam Marlin 137
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Page 160
“I got dazzled with the thought that we could actually have a philosophical, sort of political worldview and hove a way to actually apply that In a tangible manner to a community.” — G@iQ Vif^toro
Page 161
or Fisk, the commotion going on in the late 1970s was not confined
F to South Texas. Back at the Center, life was also in a kind of up heaval. Not only had Fisk resigned from UT, but he and Daria had decided to separate and she had taken the children back to Massachusetts. Meanwhile, the Center was operating on a shoestring budget and its lease on Bee Caves Road was tenuous.
And yet, there have always been a group of key individuals who have supported Fisk and his work-individuals who would cycle in and out of projects for decades-some who continue to pop up to this day-and indi viduals who would stick with him to the last. Gail Vittori, Fisk’s wife and business partner, has been a key member of Fisk s life and work for almost thirty-five years by not only supporting him, but by embracing the tenets of sustainable design and planning to such a degree that she has become a key figure in the movement on her own.
Vittori first heard about Fisk and the work at the Center from a friend, By Sam Martin 141
and after attending an open house she decided to attend a seminar Fisk was teaching on appropriate technology at the University. The noontime seminar was purposely open to the local community-similar to how Fisk started offering open houses at the Balcones Lab and then at the Bee Cave location of the Center for students and anyone else who wanted to go. Vit tori was twenty-two years old at the time, and she had just moved to Austin on a whim after spending most of her life on the east coast.
In fact, Vittori, the second daughter of Doreen and Fran Vittori, was born in Washington, D.C. According to Vittori, her father was a “visionary kind ofperson” with lots ofideas. After a briefjob in the State Department, Fran Vittori decided to get into real estate, which took him and the family to several cities during Vittori s childhood, including Arlington, Charlottes ville, Fairfax, Erie, and Syracuse, before settling outside of Boston when she was about to enter sixth grade.
After high school, Vittori admits to being uneasy about the transition to college, mostly because there had been so much pressure for her to attend an Ivy League university.
Page 162
“I was tired of touting the world of pretense and elitism, which wasn’t really my personal world,” she says.
So she decided to attend the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to
her guidance counselors "complete horror."
At U Mass she was a bored economics major. International politics was her
real interest, but even that was not enougli to hold her attention for long,
and after her third year she left school to seek out something new. After
taking jobs at a macrobiotic bakery and the University of Massachusetts
Legal Studies Program, on a lark she picked up on an opportunity to drive
to Austin in 1975 with a musician housemate who was heading there. After
that, she decided to take a chance and move there in the summer of 1977.
A mere three weeks after she arrived a friend told her about the Center (or
as her friend put it, "this cool place"), so one Saturday morning the two
went to one of Fisks open houses out on Bee Caves Road. Riglit away, Vit-
tori knew she had found something special.
"I basically got dazzled," she says. "I got dazzled witli the thought that we
could actually have a philosophical, sort of political worldview and have
a way to actually apply that in a tangible manner to a community. I had142 Green Masters: previously studied economics, and I had gotten extremely frustrated with Pliny Fisk III that perspective. But, at the Center they were talking about basic human needs, and how to develop a whole approach so that people control their energy, control their water, control the fundamental materials needed to build and survive. I just thought that this was the big missing piece that I had been searching for.”
That fall Vittori attended the two-day-a-week seminar that Fisk was teach
ing. In the seminar, Fisk and his students were analyzing a local Austin
food co-op named Woody Hills and drafting a plan to make it a more en-
vironmentally-friendly operation by doing things like tightening up their
energy systems and designing water catchment and conservation meth
ods. Vittori would do research and help with calculations. Before then, she
had not had much exposure at all to the design process. But in Fisk's class,
she was working with engineers and architects, and found that she could
be a valuable asset to the problem solving they would go through in class.
"I just loved it," she says. "I ate that up. I knew it was what I wanted to do."
Vittori liked it so much that she quit her job at the law office where she
was working and went to work for the City of Austin as, according to her.Page 163
the city’s “first energy research specialist.” She was in charge of assess ing the effectiveness of the Federal Weatherization Program, which was a program started by President Carter through the Community Services Administration that essentially gave money to residents of low-income houses so they could better seal windows and doors, and add insulation to try to cut down on energy consumption. Vittori spent a lot of time go ing door to door talking to residents, and then compiling her findings into reports and slide shows.
When that job dried up (it was only a year-long contract), Vittori and five female friends started up a group they called the Austin Womens Appro priate Technology Collective.
“We spent about six months teaching ourselves basic construction skills like how to saw and how to hammer nails straight and that kind of thing,” Vittori says.
The women also taught themselves the basic theories behind appropriate technology and passive solar energy. Before long they landed a contract with a local high school to design and construct a solar greenhouse and teach five continuing education classes that Austin Community College was offering through the same school. By Sam Martin 143
“Before I knew it, there I was being an instructor for passive solar design,” she says.
During all this time whenever questions popped up she would use the Center as a resource, often getting answers directly from Fisk who was by then bouncing back and forth between Austin, Crystal City, and several other towns in the Lower Rio Grande Valley where he was doing commu nity development work organized by the United Farm Workers’ Rebecca Flores Harrington and Cesar Chavez’s brother. Then, in 1978, the Center moved to its third and present location in east Austin on Farm-to-Market Highway 969. When an opening at the Center for an office manager came up in 1979, Fisk asked Vittori if she was interested. She did not hesitate.
Page 164
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“The word ‘sustainable’ however, was not used at the time and, for the most part, the Ideas behind what would eventually become the sustainable design movement were still confined to the fringe.”
Page 167
fMaxs Pot is a boat and Fisk is its engine, Bolton and then Vittori have ; been the ship’s rudder, steering Fisk’s ideas back into more chartered waters from the unknown seas he prefers to navigate. Before Bolton left in 1980, she was the person at the Center who got the community in volved, or found various groups to network with. When funding groups or conferences would call, she would be the one to explain the Center’s mission and then set up meetings or schedule presentations. Her interest was always in trying to make Fisk’s ideas as accessible as possible because she believed that in order for environmental architecture and planning to succeed, there needed to be a broad collaboration. Though Fisk was and still is the face and voice of the Center, Bolton helped to get him in front of tlie right crowds. The same can be said for Vittori, who began work at the Center first as office manager, then as treasurer and, ultimately, as Fisk’s peer and colleague. In many ways, Vittori has the day-to-day business sense that Fisk does not. By Sam Martin 147 When Vittori came to work at the Center in 1979, the concept of ecologi cal design had made good headway in the previous decade, at least at uni versity architecture schools and through a committed but small group of individuals sucli as Fisk, Sim Van der Ryn, Tom Bender, Don Watson, and a handful of others. The concept of sustainability was still unformed but all these people, including Fisk, had been toying with the idea of a new way to build and plan through systems thinking and experiments with appro priate technology and renewable energy. In 1975, when Fisk was putting together an appropriate technology atlas for the state of Texas, he refers in his final report to the need to rethink the building industry.
“Until now we have been shown where and where not to build,” he wrote. “Hopefully, we can begin to develop tools to help us decide howto build.”’°4
The word “sustainable” however, was not used at the time and, for the most part, the ideas behind what would eventually become the sustainable de sign movement were still confined to the fringe.
One exception was the idea of energy efficiency. Carter’s Federal Weath erization Program pumped a significant sum of money into the residential
Page 168
building industry for tight windows and doors and highly insulated walls, roofs, and floors. By sealing up your house, the program promised, you could use less energy and save money on monthly bills.
"After the oil embargo of the 1970s, the mainstream response was tighten
ing up houses," says Vittori.
In an unfortunate way, tight building envelopes eventually led to a focus
on indoor air quality (lAQ) and the concept of healthy buildings. With the
best intentions, designers sealed windows and doors but forgot to increase
the amount of ventilation. That design oversight, combined with toxic in
door building materials such as pressed board or plywood cabinetry that
uses formaldehyde-based glue or wall-to-wall carpeting manufactured
with an array of damaging chemicals, started to adversely affect peoples'
health. No one thought about the possibility that the glues and chemicals
would continue to cure and off-gas unhealthy odors after the materials
were in place. Toss in carcinogens from cigarette smoke and faulty heat
ing systems and harmful airborne particles from asbestos-based materials,
and there was reason for concern.
Office buildings have been the target of mucli scrutiny since the 1980s
after employees began suffering from nausea, headaches, irritated eyes148 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III and throats, and undue fatigue-all symptoms of what became known as Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). Once SBS was diagnosed, workers and their employees began to focus on things like ergonomics, proper kinds of lighting, and window ventilation to improve the workplace and, by exten sion, the work production. These concerns slowly began to find their way to the forefront of architectural design.
Still, the 1980s were a thankless time to be involved in the environment
in any capacity. With Reagans presidency, federal tax credits for solar
power were eliminated, and funding for groups like the Center dried up
as well. Instead, the oil industry and nuclear power were subsidized by the
government, bringing gas and oil prices back to pre-energy-crisis levels,
and interest in conservation to much lower levels. In general, the consum
er-driven 1980s were the antithesis of conservation.
Against this backdrop the Center pushed on through with what Fisk calls
"hard, hands-on work and real-life experimenting" in countries other than
the United States. After Crystal City, Fisk was hired by a number of "revo
lutionary" governments, first in Nicaragua, then in Grenada and eventual
ly as a member of a delegation to Cuba/'s He also spent time in the SovietPage 169
Union during the 1980s with others who were shaping the early days of the green building movement, including Greg Franta.
With a client list like that, one cannot imagine that Fisk was on the best of terms with the U.S. government in the 1980s. One could also speculate that Fisks CIA file is larger than most. The truth is that Fisk’s affiliation with these countries and their governments-all of whom the United States not only opposed politically but acted against militarily-was perhaps a reason for him not getting work at home during those years.
“No one wanted to touch us,” he says.
And according to him, had it not been for his continued work with these governments, there would have been no work at all.
“That was our funding at the time,” he says. “Otherwise, there was noth ing. No jobs. No one would have us do a solar house, or school, or any of these things.”
Even UT Architecture gave the Center the cold shoulder.
“I heard they were discouraging students from visiting the Center back then because they were worried students would be viewed as visiting some left leaning radical group,” recalls Fisk. By Sam Martin 149
It is curious that Fisk’s work with appropriate technology and indigenous materials were so attractive to new and idealistic governments and not his own. Even so, it is not hard to conjure up images of oppressed people fighting for control of their own destinies. Just as the residents of Crystal City said “no” to the behemoth energy company, the citizens of Nicaragua, Grenada, and Cuba resisted against dictatorship and economic imbalance. Creating self-subsistence through independent sources of power, food, and jobs is what Fisk and appropriate technology was offering and it went hand-in-glove with the revolutionary spirit. According to Fisk, it was also a way to start fresh and try not to make the same mistakes with the envi ronment that many industrialized nations had made over the years.
“These revolutionary governments were all after exactly the same thing,” says Fisk. “They wanted to control their destinies with their own resourc es, without making the same mistakes the United States did in the past.”
In Nicaragua, Fisk helped the Sandinista government and the Miskito indigenous people create building materials from their own natural resources (wood panels made from sawdust and wood chips, fired clay
Page 170
products, and cement made from rice husk ash and lime are a few exam ples) while designing more appropriate homes for the hot, wet rain for est of the Miskito Coast. In Grenada, a tiny Caribbean nation, Fisk was brought in to assess the possibility of creating a system of wind power for the island nation. That was in 1982. In 1983, the United States invaded Grenada and removed the government out of a paranoia that it was becom ing a Cuba-like socialist regime. Many of the people Fisk worked with in Grenada were killed.
A decade later, he would travel to Cuba along with his friend Paul Hawken
as part of a U.S. delegation representing sustainable development and re
newable energy.
Back at home in Austin, Vittori was holding down the Center s day-to-day
operations, while also caring for her and Fisk's first child. During these
tough times, Vittoris support and practical sense helped get the Center
through narrow financial straits. She worked some part-time jobs and, on
Sunday nights, she oversaw the Center s bingo operations at a local dance
hall, an effort that had the promise of bringing in some cash.
"We had one child home at the time and Pliny was in Nicaragua," remem
bers Vittori. "I'd take our son to a babysitter and go run the Sunday Bingo.150 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III On a good night we’d pull in two or three hundred dollars-little did they know that our main work at the time was in a Central American war zone.”
Page 171
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“If the beginning of the 1980s saw Fisk accepting projects with survivalists and sketching out master plans on the wall of his jail cell, by the middle of the decade he was lecturing around the country, receiving awards, and getting invited everywhere.”
Page 175
/”^^ f course, Fisk was not gone all the time-his work in Nicaragua Q )and Grenada occurred from about 1981 to 1984. After that, he stayed busy writing articles and bouncing around to various national conferences, most of whiclihad asked him to present a paper or speak. Even then, he was something of a celebrity in the industry.
The annual American Solar Energy Society (ASES) conferences were a regular stop for him and the Center. He was also invited to the New Eng land Solar Energy Association Conference, the American Planning Asso ciation’s annual meeting, tlie Regional Conference on Earthen Building Materials in Tucson, Arizona, the Harvard-MIT Symposium on Sustain able Enterprise Development, and the University of Oregon’s Center for Housing Innovation.
As is evident from the names of some of these conferences, the word “sus tainable” was beginning to replace “appropriate technology” as the lan guage of choice. Also, in 1985 a young architect named Bill McDonough By Sam Martin 155}
had designed the renovation of the Environmental Defense Fund’s New York headquarters to reflect that group’s commitment to the environment.
The renovation was one of the first to address Sick Building Syndrome and McDonough specified non-toxic interior paints and finishes. He also added plenty of windows for natural lighting and ventilation (the employ ees could open the windows themselves, a simple but theretofore forgotten element of big building design). The building got a lot of press at the time. McDonough was dubbed an “environmental architect” and the newly ren ovated structure was called a “green building.”
It was the first time earth-friendly building techniques had been cast in a fashionable light and the first sense that architecture could be both environmentally sound and aesthetically compelling. McDonough went on to be one of the most outspoken advocates of sustainable design in the country and one of Fisk’s peers on the AIA’s Committee on the Environ ment where Fisk and McDonough, along with Bob Berkebile, Greg Franta, Hal Levin, Randy Croxton, Gail Lindsay, Harry Gordon and Bob Gilman among many others would engage in provocative side discussions.1°‘
Page 176
If the beginning of the 1980s saw Fisk accepting projects with survivalists
and sketching out master plans on the wall of his jail cell, by the middle of
the decade he was lecturing around the country, receiving awards, and get
ting invited everywhere. Some of the invitations did not amount to much,
but one or two turned into some of the biggest adventures of Fisk s career.
In one such instance, Fisk got a call from a community activist by the name
ofJim Parker. Parker had seen Fisk receive the 15th year National Center
for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) award at the United Press Club in
Washington, and he thought Fisk (and others, including Tom Bender)
would be the perfect fit for his new project. Parker, who had funding from
the NCAT and CSA, was recruiting a team of "circuit riders." Just like the
religious preachers of old, Parker and his team would travel the country to
spread the good word, but instead of pushing the bible, they would preach
the gospel of self-subsistence and sustainability.
Fisk ended up going to five states with rural energy problems and people
in deep economic distress. At each stop, in the most rural areas of the156 Green Masters: state, he would run workshops to help people living in mobile homes cope Pliny Fisk III with impossibly cold conditions by showing them how to encase trailers or old buildings in straw bale-a practice he borrowed from other activists in New Mexico. At one workshop in the Texas panhandle that was done in coordination with former Max’s Pot board member Mary Emeny, he and the participants used straw bale building methodologies to trans form an old corrugated farm building about the size of a double-wide trailer into a passive solar super-insulated home with an attached green house and other amenities. At the time straw bale was a new frontier, and not many knew how to build with it. Fisk was one of the few in the country in the mid-1980s who had worked with and tested it extensively as a building material.i°7
While he was on the circuit, each time Fisk created something new, he
would tell the next town stories of the work to let the residents know that
they too could find peace and comfort in his appropriate technology ser
mons. After the great Texas retrofit, Fisk traveled to Oracle, Arizona, to
a gathering of activists. James Kalin and Matts Myhrman organized the
now well-known get-together and the guests included David Bainbridge,
BiU and Athena Steen, David Eisenberg and Fisk, all of who eventuallyPage 177
became big names in the straw building movement. At that workshop, the organizers had decided to build a load-bearing straw building demo with compressed bales. Fisk was horrified because no one had yet tested straw bale as a load bearing material (this exact type of structure would crush a family in Canada several years later).
At the time, the problem was that no one except Fisk had very much ex perience building in straw at all. They certainly had not put their building concepts through the rigor Fisk was putting his through during his work with the state of Texas on some buildings in Laredo and his work in the private sector for projects that had to be engineer-approved to meet local building codes. The latter included the fly ash and light-straw-clay Car penter Residence he built with an old student, Steve Gerdes, in Austin, and a post and beam building he helped design with Gary Zuker that ended up in the pages of Fine Homebuilding Magazine.i°8 In 1994, four different but safe straw building methods were published in The Straw Bale House (Chelsea Green). All four techniques had been developed by Fisk. After that, David Eisenberg and others created engineering and code certifica tion standards for this type of building.
Fisk’s circuit days also led him to make interesting new friends and run into old ones. Don Watson, a one-time professor at Yale and former Dean By Sam Marlin 157
of the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, sent Fisk and Jeff Cook, a well-known name in the national solar movement, to advise representatives for various Native American Indian Nations, in cluding the Navajo, the Sioux, and the Apache. It was part of a program Watson had started within another initiative called Save The Children. This work, in turn, led to more opportunities working with Indian com munities. John Hart from the Live Oak Fund in Austin brought Fisk to private Indian gatherings where they stuck out like two white thumbs?°9
Some of these circuit rider days turned into consulting contracts that be came significant in several ways. For example, when Fisk was brought to Window Rock, Arizona, the administrative center ofthe Navajo Nation he discovered, to his surprise, that his old friend Paul Jones was the director of the Navajo land planning office.
Fisk and Jones had met at Peter Van Dressers old Life Technics confer ences and had run into each other over the years at earthen building materials conferences at the Arid Lands Institute at the University of Ari zona in Tucson. Jones had become a trained planner. By the time the two
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ran into each other in the mid-1980s in Arizona, Fisk had already started convincing a number of other Native American nations of the importance of mapping their resource base, and he was able to do the same with Jones. Subsequently, for the first time all the resources for the entire Navajo na tion were recorded. Jones’s maps would inventory the plants and soils on the Navajo land, its geology, slope, and solar aspect and solar intensity ac cording to slope orientation. He was also mapping water resources (both surface and ground), and many other natural materials that could be use ful on an everyday basis. In fact, when he was working with Don Watson on the Save the Children project, Fisk and others started using these maps to create community-building and economic-development scenarios.
Unfortunately, just when the Navajo project was taking off, and the Indian
council was preparing to renew their support, there was a tribal election,
and the new people in charge did not favor the work Fisk and his crew were
doing. In fact, the resource maps were stolen by the opposing political par
ty and didn't turn up for several more years.
"I saw this kind of thing happen all the time among several tribes," says
Fisk. "Here was this group that was in great need to self organize, and they
would start bickering internally, only to get taken advantage of externally.158 Green Masters: If the Native Americans were really able to plan their own destinies, they Pliny Fisk III could become great models for all of us.”
He saw the same thing with the Sioux nation when he was asked to coor
dinate with a newly formed GIS department at Oglala Lakota College on
the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. There he worked with Dennis
Sun Rhodes, one of the only Native American architects Fisk ever knew in
all his years working in the field.
Sun Rhodes was very well respected by the Pine Ridge Sioux, many of
whom remembered or were present at the many protests that occurred on
the reservation in the 1970s, including the Wounded Knee Incident in 1973
in which members of the tribe occupied the town of Wounded Knee for
seventy-one days to draw awareness to their very poor living conditions,
rampant unemployment, and chronic health problems. The occupation
turned into an armed standoff with U.S. federal authorities and several
people were killed. Even though the occupation came to an official end,
the animosity between the Sioux and the federal government extended
long after, with federal informants infiltrating the councils and execution
style murders making national headlines. Trials for various killings lastedPage 179
well into the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The last took place in 2010 in relation to the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian activist whose body was found on the Pine Ridge reservation in 1976.
If Fisk was not aware of the violent history behind Pine Ridge in the late 1980s, he would have found out quickly when members of the tribe put him up at the home of Russell Means, one of the best known activists from the Wounded Knee Incident. The home had been turned into a defensive stronghold-one that Fisk’s South Texas survivalist client would have been proud of.
“The land around the house was totally trenched in,” says Fisk. “I had to literally cross small foot path bridges to get to the house because it was completely surrounded by a system of military moats. And these were not neglected trenches. The Sioux had them stocked and ready for action. They were all attached to certain entrance and exit hatches in the house, and there were mined areas everywhere to deter trespassers. It was no place for sleep walking.”
The Pine Ridge Sioux may have been ready for war, but according to Fisk they had “no clue” how to plan or organize their land. Their “basic needs” were being met, but Fisk saw so much potential, especially in the wind and By Sam Martin 159 solar resources available to them. Years later the DOE would launch the Indian Energy Resources Development Program, a funding and assistance effort to spur renewable energy development on Indian reservations, but it still has not reached its maximum potential.
“I was talking to my old friend and confidant Bob Gough of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy in Rosebud, South Dakota, and he said-and he’s right- that there are enough renewable resources of this type on Native American reservations that some Indian nations could be the suppliers of a significant portion of the entire U.S. energy supply without even consid ering petroleum,” says Fisk.
As with the Navajo, the experience with the Sioux was good, but Fisk was ultimately unable to make much of an impact. Really, the most effective and lasting work Fisk did in the greater Native American community was his work on the Save the Children initiative with Don Watson-as Watson himself can attest. The following is a quote from Watson that appeared in a book published by the Center in 2010.
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“The two best examples I knew ofin the development field was the latrines in Africa that I was involved with from an international development per spective and the work done by Fisk and Cook witli the Apache.”^”
****
In the late 1980s, Fisk's work took another significant turn when he was
invited by Andy Euston, the Director of Urban Design at the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to present a paper on sustain
able cities to the MIT Center for Real Estate Development. The topic he
discussed was "Urban Design & Sustainability" and his report was called
City Gates: Enterprise Zones Using Metabolic Planning. In it Fisk describes
the failure of cities to control their local economies by importing materials
and goods from afar and by too readily welcoming businesses that do not
have the long-term survival of the city in mind as much as they do their
own bottom line.
"The economic vitality of the city," he writes, "is more and more at the
mercy of those whose interests are not so much what becomes of the city160 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III as whether it serves a frenzied global economy.”
Instead, Fisk suggested that just as medieval city gates used to physically
control what came into cities of the past, metaphorical "city gates of the fu
ture" needed to be established in order to control what comes in and leaves
the cities of the present in order to "fit the city to its region."
In this report, which was written in 1988, one sees McHargs Design with
Nature, systems thinking and the idea of feedback loops, small-scale eco
nomics a la Fritz Schumacher, resource and bioregional mapping and fi
nally the concept of self-subsistence, that holy grail of appropriate technol
ogy that had since been re-named sustainability.
This work was particularly relevant to Fisk at the time because of the work
he was doing back in Texas in the small town ofLaredo on the U.S.-Mexico
border. He had been working with the Texas Department of Agriculture
and Laredo Junior College (with major funding from The Meadows Foun
dation) to create the Laredo Demonstration Farm or the Blueprint Farm,
a prototype building system designed specifically to explore a sustainable
design for Texas farmers.Page 181
What Fisk and the Center were trying to show with the multi-acre State of Texas Laredo Demonstration Farm was how farm buildings can aid agri cultural efficiency and success. In Fisk’s words, it was “an industrial ecolo- gy-permaculture-food-and-material-systems-integration model” created through Fisk’s metabolic planning procedure.”’
The entire farm was laid out on a 3ox3o-foot grid; posts held up a mas sive shade structure and also served as the supports for the buildings that had been sited so that they could aid in the growing process by afford ing immediate access to drying, refrigeration, and storage facilities. The buildings’ large roofs were also part of rainwater catchment systems to aid in irrigating crops and washing equipment. Each building (there were five) also acted as anchors to support large mesh shade houses so that some crops could be kept out of the harsh Texas sun and have a longer growing season.
“Laredo was like a large checker board,” says Fisk. “Inside each 30-foot square we could plan a process that helped link other cells. The degree of integration ofthe farm between the various cells and the various functions was the key to what we were doing there.”
The structures were made out of locally available materials and byprod By Sam Martin 161 ucts, including baled buffel grass, to help farmers rid the land of this inva sive plant species. The gigantic grid was made of stem pipe recycled from unused drilling rigs that had made their way into local scrap yards, and this grid was tied together using telephone pole guy wires. Along with the buildings on the Farm, the grid served as the anchoring system for the large shade structures. Also, the buildings were made with updraft and downdraft thermal chimneys built into the roofs, assembled on the ground, vertically winched into place up the oil-drilling stem, and then pinned into joints that were manufactured by the local trade school (Fisk treated this school as a local business in need of real world employment). The thermal chimneys combined with the passive solar design displaced cooling energy input, making the farm very energy efficient.
When it was complete, the Blueprint Farm was featured in the first green issue of Architecture magazine along witli Biosphere and a proposed com munity by Sim Van der Ryn in California, and Fisk and the Centers work on the project would be the trigger for success in the following decade, which would see the breakthrough of Fisk’s work and ideas into the mainstream.”3
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IGreen t,uilding- /hat’s in it for you?
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“The City of Austin called us up and asked If we hod any ideas, and of course we didA
- Pliny Fisk IIO
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,7 n June of 1992, the city of Rio de Janeiro was the center of the sus tainable universe when it hosted the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), otherwise known as the Rio Earth Summit. Official representatives from 172 countries and 17,000 people in total traveled to this Brazilian city that winds along the bright southern Atlantic beaches under lush green mountains. The U.N.’s mission for the summit was to “help Governments rethink economic de velopment and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet.”
Sustainable development had hit the big time and Rio was the perfect place to explore the concept. Not only is the city one of the most densely popu lated places in the world, but high above the samba beats and groaning cars one can see the peacefully outstretched statuesque arms of the 100 foot tail Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer. The world, it seems, had come to the right place to try and make up for decades of environmental neglect. By Sam Martin 165
At the time, Brazil was no stranger to the concept of sustainability. In fact, the city of Curitiba, Brazil, was known at the time as one of the “most in novative cities in the world.” Urban planners from around the globe have considered it a model since the 1980s when a group of architects and engi neers were elected to the head of the city’s government.11+ They put in place recycling policies, waste treatments and public transportation initiatives that were way before their time. Now mayors from around the world come to Curitiba to learn from its success. Fisk himself and the Center have been consultants to the city of Curitiba on and off since i995.”s
Among the crowds in Rio that year were representatives from the City of Austin. They had come to present to the summit attendees their newest creation: the City of Austin Green Builder Program, the first official sus tainable city program in the United States, and one of Fisk and Vittoris signature projects. If the Center and the City of Austin were anonymous when they arrived, they were not when they left. Only one award was given out to the United States that year (out of twelve total awards) and it was for Austin’s program for what the U.N. gathering called “an exemplary local environmental initiative.”
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The idea that such a city program could exist had been batted around since the late 1980s witli the eco-village movement. Andy Euston at HUD had entertained similar ideas, as had Fisk, who had started articulating the no tion that a city could organize and become more sustainable in both his “City Gates” paper and as part of a proposal he submitted to John Lambie at The Florida House organization in Sarasota, Florida. What made the City of Austin program unique was that it focused on the concept of life cycle as a framework for a building-related rating system, particularly resi dential building, and for that it was a breakthrough.
In the mid-1980s Austin had launched what they called the Austin Ener
gy Star Program in order to help promote energy efficiency. Residential
builders who participated in the program were encouraged to use energy-
efficient designs to exceed the standard set forth by the new city codes. In
return they would receive an Energy Star Rating of between one to three
stars and free marketing from the city. By 1989, the program was showing
signs of success, and the city began looking into other opportunities to ex
tend its environmental muscle when city staff came across an opportunity
to submit a proposal to The Urban Consortium. One of the groups they
called to help with the proposal was the Center.I66 Green Masters: “The City of Austin called us up and asked if we had any ideas,” says Fisk. Pliny Fisk III “And of course we did.”
At the time Fisk was out of town so Vittori gathered some past work
together and presented the city with a few possibilities, one of which
they accepted.
"The Austin Energy Star Program was limited to energy conservation and
performance," says Vittori. "Our idea addressed more of tlie total flows
of inputs and outputs to a building which we summarized as the flows of
energy-water-waste-materials in a life cycle context."
As soon as Fisk got back into town, he and Vittori fleshed out the concept
with funding from the city. Rich MacMath had joined the Center and had
a hand in the creation, as did Lawrence Doxsey, an energy conservation
activist who had been working at the Center, and Doug Seiter, the manager
of the Energy Star Program.
The starting point for the program came from a systems model diagram
in Ross Ashby's book about cybernetics called Design for a Brain. In that
book, Ashby describes a homeostatic system in which an organism couldPage 187
function with information from its surrounding environment as long as that environment was subjected to certain limits. If those limits were over what they should be, the organism would adapt, but the organism also had certain influences on the environment. Eventually, the feedback and evolution between the organism and its environment gradually estab lished a balanced system.
For the Centers purposes, “the environment” was represented by the City of Austin (which also represented the public good), and “the organ ism” was represented by the private sector (which may or may not adapt to what the city was telling it). How did this work in practice? Fisk and Vittoris idea was to take advantage of the City’s forty-two citizen-run commissions that represented everything from energy to water quality to solid waste. Each commission had limit ranges and people on these commissions would report to the city council regarding how things were going. In theory, the city council would respond with recommendations for the private sector to change their existing approach and practices. The private sector could earn incentives for their work depending on whether the work received a high or low rating in four areas of sustainability. Their ratings could then be used by the private sector to promote the green at tributes of their projects. By Sam Martin 167
Buildings in the program would get a rating of one to four stars depending on how they performed in those four categories (energy, water, materials, and solid waste), which was based on a list of specifications set forth by the program. Things like passive solar designs, efficient appliances, day- lighting, low-flow toilets, xeriscaping and rainwater collection were some of the details that would determine the rating (the more stars the better).
By 1991, the City of Austin Green Builder Program was up and running.”’ Seiter became the first program manager and Doxsey the first program coordinator. The Green Building Program was even given a marketing budget, and the city rented billboards along Interstate 35 advertising the fact that if you were planning to live in Austin, you should look for green ratings and the builders and designers who have become successful.”7
Almost immediately after Austin won the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit Award other cities around the country, like Portland and Seattle, began calling to get advice on how to start their own programs. It was a huge success, and still is. Presently, there are dozens of cities in the coun try with green building programs that in some way have been modeled
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after the original Austin plan; more than 10,000 homes in Austin have been rated since the program formally began in 1991.
168 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III
Page 189
By Sam Martin 169
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“I remember just wanting to deal with Pliny ail the time; when you ask him a question, it’s like you turn this faucet on and all these ideas come out = David Lake
Page 193
uring the last decade of the century Fisk became something of
D an eco-celebrity” to a new generation of architecture students, journalists, and professionals. His appearance at green build ing conferences, of which there were many in the 1990s, would inevitably spark some of the younger attendees to gather around like groupies at a rock concert. But according to one friend, instead of pushing Fisk for his autograph or his guitar pick, they would blurt out things like “where can I find ashcrete?”
Stories like these, humorous as they may be, are a testament to the excite ment that had been building around the idea of sustainable design. They are also a reinforcement of Fisk’s compelling and, at times, mystic-like thoughts about the future of the planet. As it is for anyone with the ability to challenge the status quo and foster change, people feel a natural attrac tion and a desire to learn what it is these iconic figures are talking about, even if they are difficult to talk to. By Sam Martin 173
“Plinyhas been a kind ofpure thinker,” says Vittori. “Plus he’s difficult, and I think that the combination attracts people, even though it’s not always comfortable. For Pliny, nothing is ever enough, but then again no one else is really pushing to challenge what were now kind of comfortable about.”
“I remember just wanting to deal with Pliny all the time,” says David Lake about his student days at UT in the early 1970s. “When you ask him a ques tion, it’s like you turn this faucet on and all these ideas come out. It’s just remarkable how creative he is. It’s enlightening to be around someone like that. You feel energized. You get energy from him because he has such great energy. But more importantly, he challenges you to think in a differ ent way about solving problems.”
For Fisk, the 1990s represented a watershed decade in which his life and work started reaching a significantly larger audience. By 1996 his name began to show up in several popular magazines from Popular Science to Landscape Architecture and Architecture magazines as well as Steve Lerner’s Eco Pioneers (MIT Press, 1997), Chris Zelov and Phil Cousineaus Design Outlaws on the Ecological Frontier (Knossus Publishing, 1997), Taschens
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Contemporary American Architects (Taschen, 1998) and James Wines’ Green Architecture (Taschen, 2000).
According to Fisk, the reason his work became better known (in addition
to accolades he received for the Austin Green Builder Program) was be
cause of his involvement with the American Institute of Architect's Com
mittee on the Environment, a sub-section of tlie AIA that had been formed
by the architect Bob Berkebile with funding from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in 1990 to study the ef
fects of building on the environment. Like the City of Austins program,
COTE wanted to look beyond energy efficiency and into material use, re
source conservation (especially water), and human health.
Like many of Fisk's opportunities, he discovered COTE-or rather, they
discovered him-by traveling out of Austin, away from the Center, and en
gaging the larger design community.
The introduction happened not long after the Rio Summit, when Fisk was
invited to present a paper called Toward a Theory and Practice of Sustain
able Design at the 1992 AIA National Convention in Boston. In his talk,
he spelled out to an audience of professional architects his theory of bio-
regional mapping and the use of area, point, and network resources. He174 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III discussed the concept of Biom-metric Design and Planning, an interac tive, icon-based language he had recently come up with. He also talked about life-cycle analysis and what he calls the Life Cycle Ladder, the meta phoric rungs which are the various forms of expended energy it takes for a material to get from the earth to the work site. Also in the paper were references to the rating system he and Vittori had suggested to the City of Austin for its new Green Building Program.
The report caused a stir among the crowd, many of whom were just begin
ning to grasp the potential of this new approach to building and planning.
Berkebile, in particular, was moved by what he heard. At the time, Berke
bile was a founding partner of BNIM Architects in Kansas City, Missouri.
In addition to founding COTE, he had been its first chairman. Berkebiles
path to COTE and sustainable design was different from Fisk's. He had
studied under Buckminster Fuller at the University of Kansas but did
not embrace the ideas behind sustainable design until mid-career when
a pedestrian walkway he had designed for the Kansas City Hyatt Regency
collapsed in 1981, killing more than one hundred people.Page 195
The shock of the incident and the subsequent media attention and legal fallout prompted intense introspection from Berkebile into the role of the architect and architecture. After a long night at the site of the accident helping to pick through the rubble for survivors, he basically decided to walk away from traditional architecture and begin a passionate explora tion of the just-budding green building movement. He is now considered one of its most accomplished visionaries.
Berkebile had met Fisl<the previous year during an interview session with Landscape Architecture magazine, and he had read about Fisk’s resource mapping and his work on the Laredo Blueprint farm. After the AIA con ference it was clear to Berkebile that Fisk needed to be a part of COTE.
“Pliny was more obscure than he should have been at that point,” he says. “He needed more voice and we needed his input.”
In the 1990s COTE played a significant role in the green building move ment by helping to organize the first serious dialogue on the subject. With Fisk on board, the idea of sustainable building was also able to move beyond the boundaries of pure architecture, especially after he pushed Berkebile to invite professionals from other disciplines to the table, in cluding physicists, teachers, engineers, economists, and sociologists.”’ By Sam Martin 175
“Sustainability,” says Fisk, “merges a lot of different languages and topics.”
The resulting networking and affiliation with COTE did manage to raise Fisk and the Centers profile, as Berkebile had hoped. He met a variety of individuals, including people like Bill McDonough, who, by then, had become one of the more recognizable names in the movement. And there were many “fertile discussions,” as Fisk called them. For example, he remembers talking to McDonough one day during a walk along the busy streets of Manhattan about an experiment lie was trying on his land where the City Gate concept was evolving.
“I mentioned to Bill the idea of businesses intertwining with each other,” he recalls. “The outputs and waste from one business would become the food for the other. I told him how I brought in a compost business that literally fed the native plant nursery, and how our bee business thrived on the nursery as well. And I explained how we shared equipment so that the front-end loader would help the caliche earth block business, the nursery, and the compost operation. I said that someone from the State of Pennsyl vania asked me if I knew about Robert Ayers from Carnegie Mellon and
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that what I was referring to was called industrial ecology. Bill seemed un familiar with the term but was very interested in its significance.”
COTE also provided Fisk with more entrees into work. In particular, he
began talking to the EPA (who was helping to fund COTE) about his re
source mapping ideas, and they decided to fund a project with him called
Baseline Green.
In design circles, a baseline is essentially the first thing you look at before
getting started on a project. If you are going to build a house in Austin,
Texas, for example, then you might study the climate and the locally avail
able materials before deciding what the building should loolc like and how
it sliould perform. The EPA wanted Fisk to create a resource for architects
all over the country that would "map out," in great detail, how the federal
government or anyone else could use peer reviewed criteria for making
green decisions based on irrefutable scientific research. The approach
was based on the input-output model of the economy-overlaid with the
environmental impact of every business in the country-that Fisk learned
at Penn from the economist Walter Isard. Fisk and his associates' model
represented the energy, currency, employment, and pollution flow for over
12.5 million businesses in the United States. In tlieory. Baseline Green176 Green Masters: would allow any business to improve its operations while also becoming Pliny Fisk III a model for the whole country. It was a huge undertaking.
For a project like this, Fisk could not work alone so he put together a team
that, along with Vittori and MacMath, included Bill Bavinger, a creative
geographic information systems (GIS) professor at Rice University, Greg
Norris, an MIT-trained industrial ecologist who, at the time, was consult
ing for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Hal
Levin, a building ecologist, andJoelAnn Todd, a life cycle specialist work
ing on the AIA's COTE effort. James White was the EPA project manager.
The result was a model that was able to show the relationship of green
house gases, criteria air pollutants, and other toxic releases for practically
every business in the country. In particular, it could focus on those busi
nesses that dealt directly with building (a total of approximately 25 out of
489 sectors ofthe economy).
With this resource, agency officials could determine which materials were
appropriate to which regions as well as which businesses were distributing
those materials. Research would also determine how material waste was
being dealt with in various parts of the country. The goal was to use whatPage 197
Fisk and his team came up with as a base from which to create a national policy for sustainable building. The EPA awarded the Center $250,000 for the job and gave Fisk three years to do it. Berkebiles firm collaborated in the initiative s later stages.
“The simplest way to describe our work with the EPA is as an input-output GIS-based life cycle model,” says Fisk. “With it you can bring together the hundreds, if not thousands, of actors that make even the most com plex building into a set of generic typologies. What that means is if you are specifying laboratory hoods for a building, you can find that all hood manufacturers in the country had a set of environmental impacts reported to the EPA, and whose monetary throughput was represented by the Bu reau ofEconomic Analysis (BEA) and ifyou wanted to claim that you were more green than the next guy, or just green, period, then you could point to this base condition for comparison.”
In other words, you could baseline it, which in turn offers a generic ref erence point for anyone wanting to create a better laboratory hood. For a federal institution like the EPA, this solution was a perfect fit.
“It was a peer-reviewable approach that was rigorous and had enough science behind it that they could defend why they were taldng certain By Sam Martin 177 specification directions in the design of major federal facilities,” says Fisk. “The model, in turn, could be used by anyone, anywhere in the country. The downside was computer run-times and the expense of cranking it up- back then, it took forever. Today, it would be much easier.”
Another job that Fisk was approached to do in the mid-1990s was the Advanced Green Builder Demonstration Home, a 2,000 square foot struc ture on the Centers land that has become his most recognizable project (and most photographed, as evidenced from the numerous newspapers, books, and magazines it appeared in once completed in mid-1998). As Fisk tells it, he had put together a grant proposal for the building and submitted it to the State of Texas Governors Energy Office some years earlier where it sat on a shelf gathering dust. Then Fisk had given a talk in Washington, D.C. to a group put together by Marvin Gorelic at the Department of En ergy about cement and its relation to global warming. Someone in the au dience was impressed enough with the ideas in Fisk’s talk that this person subsequently called the DOE’s Texas office after Fisk had left and asked if they had seen any of his building projects, to which the officials said that
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they had not but they did have a proposal for a recycled content home that included his cement options.
"The DOE said can you please take that off the shelf? We'd like to fund
it,'" says Fisk.
Subsequently, the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) provided the
seed funding to the Center to get the project built.
In a sense the Demonstration Home was a dream come true for Fisk.
After twenty-plus years of preaching the benefits of appropriate technol
ogy and testing its various components, here was a chance to put them
all on display at his own Center as a demonstration to the public. With
SECO's backing in leveraging additional foundation support from The
Meadows Foundation, the Educational Foundation of America (with
David Orr's assistance), and city, regional, and state agencies, Fisk had
a significant amount of money to create the model he had wanted. The
proposed building specified a large variety of different technologies and
materials that represented Texas. Even the landscape design, which Fisk
planned in partnership with his close friend Lucia Athens (now the City
of Austin's Chief Sustainability Officer), mimicked various regions of the
state. There was dry west Texas on the west side of tlie building, south178 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III Texas coastal wetland plants on another side, and fertile east Texas fruit producing plants in yet another area. They were all appropriate to the Tex as biome and resource areas, and Fisk had tested and re-tested them many times over, starting in some cases as far back as 1973 at the first Laboratory for Maximum Potential Building Systems.
His square footage and energy calculations for the house would be based
on the needs of an average family of four (though as a demonstration
home, the Center would use it as its office and meeting rooms only). The
structure would have rainwater catchments and holding tanks calculated
to provide water through the historic pattern of worst drought condi
tions over a thirty-year period to supply every water need from flushing to
drinking, on-site wetlands for wastewater treatment and filtering, climatic
design using a traditional dog-trot entryway, and solar photovoltaics that
allow the building to pump energy back into the grid. Materials used in
the building would come from regional resources and from agricultural or
industrial waste. Straw bale, fly ash cement, caliche block, recycled-glass
and sulfur-based tile, concrete made from bottom ash and fly ash, and 98
percent recycled steel rebar are a few of these materials.Page 199
Also, the entire structure of the building was made of a system of erector set-like frames-a Fisk original. Named GreenForms, this endoskeleton, as Fisk likes to call it, is made of hollow post and beams made out of folded plate ferrocement and welded rebar (90 percent of which came from recycled cars). The structure is plenty strong enough to support the weight of the building, but it also allows for hollow cavities in whicli to run electrical wire and plumbing. The rebar posts can be filled with fly asli concrete, covered in wood or plastic or left alone. Inside, ta bles, entertainment centers, shelving or benches can be welded into place inexpensively. The best part about the frame is that it can be easily taken apart. Walls can be moved or added onto to create larger spaces or extra bedrooms. Upper stories can be easily built.
This design allows the house to be flexible and adapt to a family’s evolving needs, which was a way for Fisk to address the enormous problem ofbuild ing industry waste and building something that can last for generations. Prototypes for flexible building systems have become yet another well- known element of what Fisk and the Center offers, although now they are more efficient to ship, build, and develop.
The AGBD, as it is sometimes referred to, was a special time for Fisk be cause, for the first time, here was a project that involved his whole family. By Sam Martin 179
“My oldest son Noah was becoming an artist with a lot of skills, so in stead of hiring just anyone, I lured him down to Texas for the summer with a paying job,” Fisk recalls. “We put his welding know-how to work and he ended up fabricating about 50 percent of all the rebar structure in the building. He’s the one who built the iconic box truss that rises above the building. I believe that’s the detail that got us published in so many books and magazines around the world.”
Fisk’s second son, Adam, and his daughter, Carson (then age 9), were put “in charge” of the iconography that explains the building, with their fa ther’s guidance. This aspect included “the infinite grid” that is now a cen terpiece of the entrance. Fisk refers to this gridded 18-acre site as “one big game set for simulation,” to be shared and played with others.
Adam was also “in charge” of making sure the water harvesting system actually worked. Ariel, his third son, was, at the age of 14, the worksite aid to the many laborers and interns who worked on the building, some of whom became friends, including Simon Couchman from Australia,
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Jesus Bendezu from Peru, Brian O’Brien from Ireland, and Yosef Farbiarz from Colombia.
"I remember a day when we had to set a sump pump inside a hole," Fisk
says. "We were building the wetland wastewater system. Ariel was the only
person who could fit in the hole, so the crew held him upside down by his
ankles and lowered him down to set the pump. The only way I could con
vince him to do it was to tell him that he was going to help grow all those
beautiful Texas flowers he loves so much. So down he went."
Two material elements of the Demonstration House-namely, concrete
made with fly ash cement, the industrial by-product of coal burning power
plants, and straw bale, literally bales of straw mixed witli clay-have be
come widely accepted building materials because of Fisk's experiments
and discoveries with them in the 1980s and 1990s (see Chapter 16).
For years, Fisk has been aware of the incredibly damaging effect Portland
cement manufacturing has on the atmosphere (at last count the EPA es
timated that for every ton of Portland cement made, a ton of CO2, the
most damaging greenhouse gas, is released into the atmosphere). Accord
ing to Fisk, this one industry is responsible for 6-7 percent of all CO2 that
contributes to global warming, and for fresh water use equivalent to thel80 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III potable water consumption of some nations. Because of that negative im pact, he has made it a point to look for and test alternatives to Portland cement, which is the main binding agent in a concrete mixture of sand, water, and aggregate. And he has been very successful, starting during his years as a professor at the University of Texas and continuing to the present day where he is developing a magnesium oxide cement made from brine. But, even in Nicaragua, he was studying the use of rice husk ash and fired clay as binding agents.
When he found time to delve into fly ash concrete testing he discovered
that it had more strength per square inch than concrete made with Port
land cement. Subsequently, collaborating with a team of structural engi
neers and chemists, he was the first person in the country to successfully
create a concrete material made with 100 percent fly ash, which he prompt
ly trademarked Ashcrete.
"Discoveries happen when you are inquisitive and when you gather people
around you who are also asking questions and who might even have an
swers," says Fisk.Page 201
The straw bale in the Demonstration Home had also been developed and tested over a number of years. As the story goes, when Fisk first cre ated bioregional maps of Texas back in the early 1970s, he realized that straw and clay were in abundance in that climate (Texas is part of the largest temperate grassland biome in the world). He also discovered that some cultures around the world were still using an ancient construction technique of mixing water with clay and straw to make a building mate rial that was sturdy and had decent insulating qualities-in Germany it is called leichtlehm.
Fisk and his employees and interns began to experiment with these mixtures at the Center. After discovering the right consistency, they would place the straw and clay mixture in a building form with a pitch- fork, leave it to dry overnight and find it the next morning in the shape of a well-formed wall. At first, though, the bales would sprout new green grass seedlings over its entire surface and, if left to grow, would cover the material like a green, hairy carpet.
One day when a client was coming over to check out Fisk’s new straw clay discovery, a new batch of samples were particularly bushy so Fisk trimmed them back with some garden scissors. By Sam Martin 181 “I didn’t think they literally wanted a green’ building,” he remembers.
When the client saw the straw clay walls they were thrilled, and hired Fisk to assist them on an owner-builder residence.
What was Fisk going to do when they started sprouting all over again?
Stumped, he serendipitously encountered a German builder who special ized in earthen building techniques and visited the Center who told Fisk that the sprouts were a necessary part of leichtlehm building. Their roots weave through the straw and clay and help strengthen the material. Plus, the sprouts draw water out of the bale. When they turn brown and die, that is when you know the wall is ready to be stuccoed. By leaving the sprouts in place, the stucco became, in effect, rooted into the wall.
Today straw bale and fly ash concrete are a small part ofwhat Fisk and the Center does, but they underscore once again Fisk’s experiential approach to design and planning. It is his unique contribution to the industry.
“There are a few people who do bioregional mapping,” says Bob Berke- bile, “but I don’t know anyone other than Pliny who actually goes back and
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harvests a material, then uses the chemistry and the physics to actually produce stuff.”
182 Green Masters: ‘Pliny Fisk III
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By Sam Martin 183
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“Everything cycles back around; it is the nature of a systems approach to design and planning, and it is the nature of any project Fisk does/‘
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A t the turn of the new century, Fisk was getting significant recog- nition, but not enough work, and he was impatient as ever, even 4 A\»though during the early years of the decade he had received two national awards that would have satisfied most in the profession: the Pas sive Solar Pioneer Award given by the American Solar Energy Society, and the now-coveted Sacred Tree Award from the U.S. Green Building Coun cil. And yet, Fisk wanted that big breakthrough project.
Luckily, impatience has been a motivation for Fisk since his boyhood in upstate New York. Back then he longed to leave behind the countryside to discover the promise of the city. In the early 2000s, it drove him from Texas to two corners of the world: China and Baja, Mexico.
In these two places Fisk found the first of several of what he now refers to as “meta systems” projects, and both tied together past work that Fisk knew intimately: wastewater wetlands, whicli is what his master’s thesis at Penn dealt with, and organic compost, which his father advocated for and By Sam Martin 187
tried to develop a business around for years. No matter that his exposure to both subjects came decades before. One thing to know about Fisk is that no work he does is ever a one-and-done deal. Everything cycles back around; it is the nature of a systems approach to design and planning, and it is the nature of any project Fisk does.
“We learn by building, waiting, observing, and sharing what we discover,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if the result is a success or a failure. This is how a movement evolves.”
In 2002, the mayor of Longju City in China’s central Szechwan Province had called the U.S. Department ofEnergy looking for help. Farmers in the region could not support themselves and were abandoning the fields, even with the governments policy of donating land to families in return for pro ductive farms (food shortages are a real problem in China, which is why farming is a high priority). The resulting fallout was causing economic hardship for Longju City. In response, the mayor wanted to see if the DOE could come up with a model sustainable village that could encourage farm ers to stay.
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So, the DOE put together a team that included Fisl<, consultants from the Rocky Mountain Institute, members of Cascade Earth Services (a large- scale waste processing firm that uses tree plantations as the processors) people from BNIM Architects (Bob Berkebiles firm), and the Civil Engi neering Researcli Institute out of D.C. This team was joined by a Chinese contingent, and the two groups worked collaboratively to develop a proto type village in the agricultural heart of China just outside of Longju.
The experiment was to be a prototype for one of 7,000 sucliefforts within
the agricultural sector of the regions central government planning depart
ment. The government wanted to create villages to inspire and support the
local agricultural community by creating a new kind of sustainable farm
village environment.
In preparation for the planning, Fisk had managed to both impress and irk
the Chinese delegation. As usual, he wanted to be prepared, so he brought
with him as much information as he could find, including an atlas of China
that he had obtained before leaving the United States that included a series
of bioregional resource maps. He needed to understand the place where
he was asked to work. The Chinese were a little perturbed that an Ameri
can should have such a detailed atlas of their country, but their displeasure188 Green Masters: soon abated when they saw what Fisk had uncovered. Pliny Fisk III
The geological formation of the province where the new town would be
built gave a very clear picture as to why the region had such fertile farm
ing soils. It was surrounded by mountains that for millions of years had
been draining their rich minerals into the gigantic basin that made up the
region's farmland. This depositing had been happening for millennia so
that the minerals being washed down from the mountains not only created
a rich, fertile soil, but the organic matter that grew there would eventually
be covered by layer upon layer of new soil. These layers of carbon deposits
eventually became coal. And indeed the group was able to confirm with
other geologic maps that the largest area of surface coal deposits in China
was beneath the country's best, most-highly-productive agricultural land.
When this information first came to light, Fisk was almost frozen with dis
belief. Should he say anything at all about the coal to the local officials?
Surely they were well aware? And yet, if they did know, then why were they
planning this intentional new village? If his maps were right, this was one
of the largest agricultural regions of land in the country and the coal wasPage 209
within striking distance of the surface. There were many who might want the coal-the farming be damned.
But that was not the only thing piquing Fisks concern. Why would such fertile soil be in such close proximity to coal in the first place? At first blush, the two would not seem to be a symbiotic mix. But Fisk knew bet ter. He remembered his fathers composting business and how his dad had always suspected that coal could be used to create a rich fertilizer. He had gotten close to proving it. Then Fisk found an article in Acres U.S.A, an alternative agriculture journal, that showed how organic compost was able to break down the mineral structure of pulverized coal. Then the macro and micro trace elements in the bio-remediated coal combined with the organic compost could produce a very rich organic fertilizer. If this could be done in the agricultural basin of Szechwan Province, the farmers of Longju would have an endless supply of rich fertilizer for their crops if they could mix it witli the city’s organic waste.
After this realization, Fisk told his partners at the DOE one evening when they went to dinner at a restaurant chosen by the Longju City mayor-an unexpectedly opulent site decked out for an evening of food and entertain ment, albeit in the backwaters of China. Fisk did not know how the news of the coal would be taken. Nor did the group have any idea about Fisk’s By Sam Martin 189
idea of using the coal for its trace element potential to improve the organic fertilizer (as usual, Fisk had come up with a plan to build into the master plan a special kind of coal pulverizing and bio-remediating manufactur ing facility to create the fertilizer and bioremediate any toxic constituents such as cadmium and mercury).
But Fisk gave the mayor the news of the coal that night. Jack Jenkins from the DOE and Huston Eubanks from RMI were listening and watching with great caution. After Fisk came out with it-‘you might have one of the largest coal deposits in the world under all this farmland “-there was a small silence as everyone looked at the mayor and the mayor made sure he understood what they were saying. Then there was a titter of laugh ter from the mayor’s wife, which made Fisk and his team laugh nervously. Soon the whole room was giggling and toasting the news. Then, in his overly enthusiastic manner, Fisk sprang the news that the coal could be fertilizer as well.
Unbelievably, the mayor was himself something of a compost enthusiast, and had started a large composting operation in town before he rose to his
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current political position. He and Fisk hit it off immediately, and the idea of a new kind of composting plant was added to the master plan.
In the end DOE paid Fisk separately to finish the master plan, but his fer
tilizing manufacturing plan was never executed because the DOE felt that
it was politically awkward for that department to be sponsoring a coal to
organic fertilizer solution. It was simply not what DOE was all about (the
visit was also supported, in part, by the U.S. coal industry).
Even so, Fisk packaged up tlie plan anyway and presented it in a paper to
the American Solar Energy Society, long a friendly and inviting audience
for Fisk. In that paper he spelled out the possibility that coal-of all things-
could provide a second chance to the planets over-farmed and over-used
land. Ifproven, coal, the black gold, the scourge of air quality environmen
talists, could actually be used to re-mineralize and repair the earth s soils,
and allow that soil to grow all our food and even new types of fuel and
chemicals made from corn and other plants.
Years after Fisks proposal, a U.S. firm contacted Fisk after reading that
paper. They shared with him that they were able to show, in great detail,
that coal could indeed be used for the fertilizing purposes that Fisk had
somewhat casually presented; eventually, Fisk learned that company was190 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III granted a world-wide patent.
The other "meta system" opportunity Fisk became involved in came from
the School for Field Studies (SFS), an academic institution that was build
ing campuses around the world to train young college students."' They
asked Fisk to design and engineer a master plan for the Center for Coastal
Studies near the ecologically rich Bahia Magdalena in Baja, Mexico, one of
five campuses that SFS operates. SFS wanted to establish itself in the area
to study the gray whale breeding grounds in the Sea of Cortez and duck
migration in the nearby Ojo de Liebre Lagoon as well as the numerous
plant and animal species on the ground that are found nowhere else on the
planet. They wanted Fisk to create a design plan and a series of buildings
that would reflect the principles of sustainability they were teaching to
their college-aged students, many of whom were headed towards careers
in the biological sciences and were coming to the Baja campus to build
their resumes with actual field work.
For Fisk, the project represented an important opportunity-one that
could have worldwide impact, much the same way the Longju coal project
could. Because of sprawl and urban development close to oceans aroundPage 211
the world, humans have destroyed so many of the coastal wetlands that connect us to marine food chains. In Baja, Fisk could design and test a means to incorporate salt water wetlands into the treatment of wastewa ter on the coastal areas of the world. This kind ofwork would not only save the wetlands but, more importantly, create new ones.
The Center team, which included Fisk, Rich MacMath, and Peter and Sally Struble, was charged with planning the entire campus with class- rooms, a dining hall, a commercial grade kitchen, laundry rooms, homes for eight faculty members, residences for fifty students, and an indigenous plant landscape.
Fisk loved the project because it fit into so many things he was familiar with, including climatic design, wastewater treatment, and the use of local building materials. The only caveat was that SFS wanted the design, plan and all building construction done in nine months time and on a budget of $400,000 (the Center s contracted fee was a paltry $30,000). Vittori justi fiably discouraged him from taking the job, but Fisk threw caution to the wind and went for it anyway.
“It was an absurdly small budget and an absurdly short period of time and we should never have done it,” says Fisk, “But the campus was planned for By Sam Martin 191 such a delicate zone on our planet that not taking on the job would have been irresponsible no matter what the time period and what the money.”
Of course, the biggest challenge turned out to be water conservation and wastewater treatment. The Baja Peninsula is part of the Sonoran Desert with an average yearly rainfall of less than six inches. The nearest fresh water source to the site ofthe campus was an aquifer fifty-eight miles away. Simply getting enough fresh water to the site would be a challenge before they could even find ways to conserve it.
After a morning when Fisk ran his hand over the hood of a truck and collected i/8th of a cup of water, he proposed collecting the abundant amounts of early morning dew in the air to offset reliance on potable water from the aquifer (the heavy coastal fog along the Pacific shore of the Baja peninsula produces enough early morning dew to sustain the rich plant life in the area). His suggestion was to catch the dew on vertical mesh-like shade cloth with a gutter on the bottom as long as the breeze angles were set up for the fog to go across them?2°
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The client would have none of it, so Fisk shifted his focus to the waste- water treatment, and he convinced the client, Jim Elder, to at least have a halophyte landscape and to potentially use salt water instead of fresh water to flush commodes. Composting toilets may have worked but since there is a high risk offlooding in coastal areas, this solution could have been a potential health hazard.
Once he got the green light, Fisk set about trying to get confirmation that
a salt water, wastewater wetland would be technically and legally pos
sible. He reached out to John Todd, Michael Ogden, and Woody Reed,
all of whom were well-known in the constructed-wetland and plant-based
wastewater treatment field. No one had any information. At the time, no
one had tried wastewater treatment using salt water. In fact, there was
no data for even a saltwater wetland of any kind anywhere in the world oth
er than University of Florida ecologist Howard Odum's original work in
Texas using a coastal Cypress species. There was nothing Fisk could find
to prove that human waste could be treated in a regular saltwater flush and
wetland system.
"I still don't know how it is possible, especially with all the commotion
that's been made of saving wetlands over the years, nearly 20 percent ofthe192 Green Masters: world s population or about 2.2 billion people are within one hundred kilo Pliny Fisk III meters of a coast line and they’re still flushing with fresli water,” says Fisk.
Back in Baja, Fisk persisted and he finally found a wastewater wetland en
gineer back home who would approve the drawing that he and MacMath
put together (they had to take into account that feces float in salt water,
meaning that certain parts of the system had to be rethouglit).
And yet, it was all for naught. The drawing and the approval process was
completed about four weeks too late, and the client decided not to pay all
of the agreed upon sum.
"He said it wasn't on time and that we should not have spent the effort on
the wetland landscape," recalls Fisk.
In the end, every part of Fisk's master plan for the SFS was built, including
the saltwater wetland, but the school quickly abandoned use of the waste-
water treatment solution because they could not handle its everyday op
eration, and they put in composting toilets after all.
"So, the only example that we now know of on the planet of a wastewater
wetland made entirely of saltwater is built but is not operating," says Fisk.Page 213
“This is the kind of work that can mean a lot to the world. The school would have received enormous amounts of publicity. But as they say, no such luck.”
For now, the only place the project is mentioned is in Michael Ogden’s book on wastewater wetlands.”’
By Sam Martin 193Page 215
D
UJPage 216
“If one of our ideas doesn’t cycle back
would keep going untethered info the wild blue yonder.” — Phny Fisk ill
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n 2005, Fisk, Vittori, staff members, and friends celebrated the Cen ter’s thirty year anniversary by lowering a time capsule into a hole in J-Ltlie ground on the back of the property and covered it with ten feet of dirt. The Center’s grounds had been decked out like never before for the party, and there were signposts and lights pointing the way to plac ards posted in tlie ground with QR codes where guests could read about past projects and various prototypes under construction. Interns old and new, and other Center alumni traveled to Austin from around the world. There was food and drink. A comedian good-naturedly roasted Pliny and the Center for staying in business as long as they had. Afterward, a band played long into the night.
A crowd gathered to watch the lowering of the time capsule, which con tained drawings new and old, some photos, several papers and magazines, a few ashcrete samples, and sketches of Fisk’s recent projects. The speech Fisk gave at the ceremony, as three decades worth of colleagues, friends, By Sam Martin 197 and supporters looked on was about the importance of connections-the human connections one makes over the years and the ecological con nections he has made in his work. The idea that Fisk had pursued and prototyped since Penn-that there are patterns and recurring cycles and meta systems between the built and natural environments-had become as clear to him then as it had ever been.
“The evolution of things is critical,” says Fisk. “If one of our ideas doesn’t cycle back I get worried because without that connection or feedback then we would keep going untethered into the wild blue yonder.”
In the first decade of the new century Fisk began to revel in a number of reconnections that would lead to the Center’s most ambitious building and planning ideas to date, including plans to help rebuild coastal disaster zones in Galveston and Haiti, the development of a new type of cement made from magnesium oxide derived from brine, and a master plan for a new city called Plenitude that Fisk would propose to associates of the royal family of Morocco.
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Back at the Center on the night of the 30-year anniversary party, Fisk unveiled a new building system he had been working on called Gro- Home. The GroHome-part of a broader program Fisk calls “Community- Supported Architecture,” a riff of the well-known farming initiative called Community Supported Agriculture, whicli was created as a way for communities to support local farmers while cooperatively supplying food to neighbors-was conceived of as a way to offer communities a locally- resourced pre-fabricated housing solution. GroHome can be deployed and built quickly in case of natural disasters. It can also provide residents with enough flexibility to expand their living spaces as families grow, and do that affordably and quickly witli minimal waste and impact to the local environment.
GroHome was born out of many years worth of prototyping flexible
building systems. The Center s Green Builder Demonstration Home is the
most obvious example, but there are others, including the GreenForms
open building projecti'2 and the 2002 Solar Decathlon project^'B Fisk led
with a team at the University of Texas. But GroHome marked a turning
point in the evolution of this idea because it was the first as a pre-fabricated
housing product that could be shipped pre-packaged and assembled with
relative ease.I98 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III It is also important to understand that GroHome is more than just a building system. The Center’s mission always encompasses more than buildings. Fisk’s prototypes encompass ideas involving community plan ning, access to food and water, the local economy, locally sourced materi als, and a means of producing or capturing energy in a low impact way. In that respect, the GroHome system is more a way of life.
One of the first applications of the GroHome system was for Fisk's second
Solar Decathlon entry in 2007, which he organized with four departments
from Texas A&M University, including Architecture, Landscape Archi
tecture, Construction Science, and Visualization. To underscore the fact
that a sustainable design ought to be more than the materials it uses, Fisk's
students and fellow professors Mark Clayton, Jeff Habrl, Jody Naderi,
Leslie Feigenbaum and Dean Tom Regan, a major supporter, called the
project Design for Life-Solar Decathlon. It included an evidence-based
economic analysis to indicate how a typical central Texas family's money
was spent each month. For Fisk, it was a way to tie in his fellow A&M fac
ulty member Roger Ulrich's recognized work on evidence-based design.Page 219
The key component of the GroHome system was the FatWall, a thick wall that can be cantilevered off the sides of a GroHome or positioned inside the frame for closet space, a home office, or even a bathroom.
Fisk got the chance to partner with Texas A&M on the Solar Decathlon in 2004 when the university hired him as a tenured associate professor. Ap propriately, he had more than one role at the university. The official titles given to him were Signature Faculty in Sustainable Urbanism, Fellow in the Center for Housing and Urban Development, and Fellow in Health Systems Design, and he was assigned professorships on the faculties of Ar chitecture, Landscape Architecture, and Planning.
Texas A&M provided a good salary and some new friendships, including those with Jody Naderi in landscape architecture, Michael Neuman in planning, and Jorge Vanegas, Phill Tabb and Peter Lang in architecture. But teaching there came at great risk to Fisk’s mental and physical well- being, mainly because of the boom in new projects being fielded at the Center. He was getting pulled in many different directions, and demands on his time were pressing. It did not help that he had to drive one hundred miles to Texas A&M from Austin three days a week. Inevitably, he spent a lot of time on a cell phone, paid less attention to his driving, and got to know the highway patrol between Austin and College Station better than By Sam Martin 199
he would have liked to.
“I thought I was saving money by getting forty-five miles per gallon with the biodiesel VW Bug,” says Fisk. “But the speeding tickets and the in creased insurance premiums blew that.”
So Fisk did the only natural thing: he bought a plane. The double seat model he found got about the same gas mileage as the VW, but by using it he could “thumb his nose at the cops” as he flew over them. The only prob lem was that he was not a pilot and had no license. No matter. Fisk found a friend who could fly, got him a job at A&M, and the two of them set out to make their commute by air a reality.
Randall Notgrass, the Center s longtime shop fabricator, groundskeeper, and mechanic, fired up the Max’s Pot tractor and carved a 1400 foot run way on the back of the property (the strip crossed over two parcels that did not belong to Fisk; it was a minor detail). Notgrass also carved out the airplane’s cockpit so Fisk’s friend, who was a large man, could fit into it. In the end, neither the plan nor the plane ever took off.
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In many ways, the Solar Decathlon project and the fabrication facility Texas A&M had built for things like this was part of the reason he tool< the position.
"The university wanted to build a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility,
and they enticed me into the job by promising to allow me to specify the
equipment and lay out the space," Fisk says. "It was going to allow me to
moclcup and test an entire home production system that was sort of my
Dymaxion House dream, and the solar decathlon project was a way to pull
many concepts together at once."
Similar to how Henry Ford created an assembly line for cars, Fisk created
a system in which a core housing unit could go down a line and compo
nents like Fatwalls, which were being independently manufactured on the
side, would get added onto the core. At any time during the process, Fisk
and his team could literally plug into the housing "chassis" (to keep with
the Henry Ford analogy), and test the various systems built into the house.
This chassis was a critical component to tlie solar decathlon project be
cause the Department of Energy had very strict energy inputs and outputs
required of these projects.
In true Fisk style, the Texas A&M Solar D house was not the only outcome200 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III of his and his students’ efforts. In the making of the house he had to leave behind something useful. In this case, it was the chassis that formed the centerpiece of the production line manufacturing process. It was made from “mothballed” FEMA trailers that had been ditched after the re sponse to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Fisk cleverly devised a way to weld together two trailer chassis-one on top of the other-using steel columns to create the volume necessary to align with competition requirements. This was central to the production line manufacturing process.
"Other FEMA trailer frame components, including the axles, wheels, and
carefully dissected steel remains were all transformed," he says.
Fisk and students carefully studied the frames to understand how to cut
them without destroying their structural integrity. The work was all coor
dinated to what Fisk calls the future protocols for green building-Design
for Disassembly, Design for Open Building, and Design for Manufactur
ing. He was hoping that these approaches would someday be embedded
into Texas A&M's architecture and engineering curriculum.Page 221
After two years the Texas A&M Design for Life project was complete and Fisk’s team set it up on The Mall in Washington, D.C. The project took home five awards that year, including EPA’s Design for Disassembly Na tional Award, The AIAS First Place Award, NAHBs Curb Appeal Award, and DOE’s Appliance Efficiency Award.
It also helped Fisk articulate an idea that he had been thinking about for some time-what if sustainable design and human biology were connected in a much more profound way? The Solar Decathlon project had, in fact, become an example of how to design for life cycle behavior, which is the idea that buildings need to be in tune with people so that the entire life cycles of water, food, energy, and materials are completed on an everyday basis.
Just as the Texas A&M project was getting underway, Fisk presented this idea and technique at a Biophilia consortium retreat in 2006, at a Yale uni versity event at the Whispering Pines Conference Center in Rhode Island. Some of his old friends like Tom Bender, Bill Reed, Bob Berkebile, Bill Browning, and David Orr were part of the two-day symposium, as were old acquaintances like Janine Benyus, James Timberlake of Kieran Tim berlake, and Richard Louv, who wrote The Last Child in the Woods. E.O. Wilson, the godfather of Biophilia himself, was the convening speaker. By Sam Marlin 201
During his talk, after going long as usual, he presented the group with an idea that he called “The Greening of the Brain.” His theory about what was actually occurring in the movement towards a sustainable architecture and planning was a direction that the neocortex wanted. In other words, what if, in fact, our brains needed it, so that this movement might be inevi table like cell phones or computers or the Web were inevitable? He even suggested that if we understood the advanced part of the brain better, we could design and plan better, and make faster progress.
“Let’s just imagine that the neocortex loves a fast-paced, squashed-time world,” he told the audience. “There is plenty of proof that patterns within patterns, operating at light speed within the brains neuro-circuitry, are the only things that keep that part of the brain occupied and developing. And yet, nature contains a very slow evolutionary pattern. How we bring humans and nature together is the real problem.”
Much ofwhat he showed the crowd that day was the result of experiments done by Al DeLong, an environmental psychologist who taught at the
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University of Texas in the early mid-1970s and was one of the faculty mem bers who inspired Fisk to come to Texas in the first place.
"Al pretty well proved that if you understand the brain from a behavioral
standpoint, you come to realize that space and time are very different con
cepts than what we think they are from a physics standpoint," Fisk told the
crowd. "It means that given small spaces and more action, the brain can
connect and learn faster. It actually craves this interaction."
He showed a slide of a movie on an iPhone screen next to the same movie
on a drive-in movie theater screen and showed results from how a human
brain reacts to both.
"The activity in the human brain actually correlates to the size of the
screen. If the screen is i/6th the size, it reacts to information six times
as fast."
He then showed the slow natural successions of the hydrologic, food,
material, air, and carbon cycles, and he pointed out that what was being
done in the sustainable design movement was actually having the effect
of quickening these cycles within and around buildings themselves. This
perspective is in contrast to the biophilia hypothesis that simply encour202 Green Masters: ages more view to nature so that human biology can better sync with Pliny Fisk ill nature s rhythms.
"Just imagine if sustainable design was actually shrinking life cycles and
making them faster because the brain wanted it that way," he says. "In oth
er words, it's possible that advancements in the sustainable design move
ment such as life cycle or ecobalanced experiences' in building systems
are actually quickening the food, water, air, energy, and material cycles in
order to appeal to a brain that is craving more quickened events-life cycle
immediacy. Not only that, but we, as designers and planners are doing
what we do unconsciously in order to fit into the brain's reality."
Fisk's ideas on sustainability and the brain were captured in an essay con
tribution to Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing
Buildings to Life by Stephen Kellert, Judith Heerwagen, and Martin Mador.
The book was inspired by, and largely produced out of the talks at Whis
pering Pines in 2006.Page 223
By Sam Martin 203
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“If he could use salt water to make cement, then coastal communities would have access to the critical material they needed to survive while also creating fresh water, another key human need, through desalination/‘
Page 227
lexible housing would come into sharp focus again in the years after
F 2005s Hurricane Rita during which the city of Galveston was badly damaged. Soon after Rita struck (which was the same season that Hurricane Katrina nearly wiped out New Orleans), Fiskbegan thinking of how flexible housing and community planning could be deployed in the aftermath of natural disasters.
Then, in 2007, Fisk and Vittori were in Venice, Italy, with Peter Lang from A&M and Teddy Cruz from California, giving a presentation to a group of international designers who had gathered to help the architecture school at the Technical University at Delft in the Netherlands re-think their en tire building-every chair, table, slide, book, periodical, and journal had been destroyed by a fire that flattened the building. On that trip, Fisk real ized something important.
“There I was with a group of other individuals and we were being asked to build a library of knowledge for an entire university,” he says. “But where By Sam Martin 207
do you start? You can get lists from the great libraries at Cambridge and Oxford. But how do you know you’re providing the right information for the right group? It made me think about the work we do, or that other non- profits like us do. We re always prototyping building systems or materials or planning methods, but what everyone is missing is a prototyping guide. How does an NGO or anyone else with a focus on sustainable or envi ronmental design and planning know that they are addressing the most pressing problem?”
What was also influencing his thinking at the time was his friend Paul Hawkens book Blessed Unrest, in which the author describes his collection ofbusiness cards that he had collected after years oflecturing and present ing on environmentalism and industrial ecology. Hawken had thousands of business cards stacked in dozens of shoeboxes, and each card held the contact information for an individual who was working to improve the en vironment and promote social justice.
After doing some research, Hawken estimated that there are potentially millions of individuals, non-profits, and organized groups around the
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world focused in some way on the same subject-and yet they had no idea of tlieir connection to each other. In his view, there was a massive and passionate social movement underway that he wanted to recognize and contextualize. This idea forms the thesis of Blessed Unrest.
Back in Venice, Fisk realized that often, the people who wanted to tackle
pressing planning and design problems didn't know which problems they
should address.
"During the gathering in Italy, after my talk, the university's student presi
dent inspired my thinking on this," Fisk remembers. "She said, 'there is
only one thing worth saving, and that is neutral space that no one owns
not the university, not the community, not industry. It's where the most
important prototypes for the community could be tested in idea form first.'
She told me that it was an idea that Winy Maas ofMVRDV had helped her
and her fellow students come up with."
From this inspiration Fisk decided he wanted to create a framework where
people could develop responsible prototypes.
"Design and planning professionals need a resource that defines proto
cols. Ifyoure prototyping a new building system or solar array, how does it208 Green Masters: impact your local area-and how can it have global implications? What Pliny Fisk III does ‘local’ have to do with a much bigger context in the world? Presum ably, a university is in the business of proposing the future and what it wants to be, so it too is in the prototyping business, especially a school of architecture.”
Fisk called up Hawken, told him his idea, and asked if he could use what
had now become his Blessed Unrest database called Wizer Earth. Hawken
said yes, so Fisk got to work. He overlaid Hawken's human network with
biometric statistics, maps, and databases that were identifying repeated
global patterns. He then collected pattern-finding organizations and
people using algorithms that could correlate data according to the four
contexts the Center has always worked in: air, food and water, energy, and
materials. He called the method protoScope.
"To me protoScope is the next level of Baseline Green" Fisk says. "We fo
cused on the United States, with that, but now we can expand it beyond
this country and add to the scope. protoScope allows us to connect to
other people's work that is relevant to our own and vice versa. It creates
a kind of armature for understanding patterns and statistics on a globalPage 229
scale so that we can find out where and how the work being done is or is not balancing out the most pressing environmental problems. Your work site—everyone s worksite—actually becomes a prototype for others to look at and follow.”
As an example, Fisk took the work he was doing with flexible housing and the Texas coast (Galveston in particular) and looked at it from a proto- Scope context. Disaster housing came into sharp focus after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, but the bigger pattern he saw had to do with the fact that the world s coasts, which also contain the world s richest bio and ecologi cal diversity, were being threatened more than ever.
“Coasts and islands are being bombarded by an environment that we humans have had a large role in creating,” Fisk says. “Right now, there are stronger winds and storms, saltwater intrusion, and rising seas. It’s a problem that crops up over and over, and it’s only getting worse. We find repeated patterns worldwide.”
When Fisk began to dig deeper, he found more. First, he noticed that many coastal communities around the world were combating coastal erosion and the intense weather using concrete, which seemed to be the only mate rial that could withstand the onslaught. Concrete buildings were often the By Sam Martin 209 only things left standing after hurricanes and tsunamis. The problem was that the concrete was all being made with Portland cement, long known by Fisk to be one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gases to the environment. Coastal communities were winning some battles but they were losing the war.
Fisk connected these observations to a new type of cement he had been prototyping that used magnesium oxide (MgO) as its main ingredient. MgO is naturally occurring metallic salt that can be either mined or de rived from brine or salt water which, of course, there was an abundance of on the coast. Brine is also a waste by-product of drilling for oil and gas as well as for inland desalination plants (one of the largest in the world is in Qatar and many others are in similar saline zones, such as El Paso, Texas).
Fisk saw the connection. If he could use salt water to make cement, then coastal communities would have access to the critical material they needed to survive while also creating fresh water, another key human need, through desalination. Not only would the creation of MgO ce ment provide a local economy with new jobs for coastal regions, but it would close the loop on brine as an industrial byproduct. The more
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desalination plants created fresh water, the more cement the local com munity could have.
The work Fisk and the Center did for Galveston evolved to include this
research. The GroHome system witli its FatWalls had developed into
a very compact, lightweight, sophisticated flexible housing system that
could be shipped as a cube-like container. Material for the Galveston units
would be specified out from hurricane waste. The creation of these homes,
along with community support, would be phase one of the larger recon
struction effort-Fisk called this protoOne. Phase two would be called
protoTwo and it would involve the mineral extraction of MgO from the
oil and water-purification industries, and the creation of a very hard, very
smooth cement.
In protoOne, the MgO cement would be mixed and prepared so it could
be sprayed onto existing housing to create a stronger method with which
to combat storms. protoTwo was a soup-to-nuts method for creating a very
durable concrete monocoque shell.
The prototype for the Galveston master plan became a new feature on the
monthly open houses at the Center. Fisk was also preparing the project
for entry into the 2008 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. During one open210 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III house, Sheridan Mitchell Lorenz, daughter of George P. Mitchell, the Texas natural gas billionaire and sustainable design philanthropist, joined the group. Afterward, she approached Fisk and asked him to present his Galveston plan to her father. George P. Mitchell grew up in Galveston and the Mitchell family, including Lorenz, was committed to rebuilding and restoring the town.
At the time, George Mitchell was over ninety years old, and it was not the
first time Fisk had run across the man. Mitchell was the developer behind
the Woodlands and had hired Ian McHarg to design that master plan. He
was also the benefactor for the Mitchell Prize, one of the earliest attempts
in the United States for creating an award for ecological development and
design, an effort that far preceded its time.
Fisk was in a near state of bliss as he described the meeting. Mitchell was
a man who, along with his family, actually understood where Fisk was
coming from, and they could fund his most fully realized project to date.
"There are interesting circles within circles," says Fisk. "I count on them!"Page 231
So Fisk made his way down to the Texas coast and met with the Mitch ell family and a gathering of local developers, architects, and community advocates in The Tremont House, one of Galveston Island’s most elegant and liistoric hotels (the Mitchell family had bought and restored the build ing in 1985). Would Mitchell fund the project? Fisk sat directly across from the elder philanthropist while the rest of the room looked on and Fisk gave his pitch.
“I told Mr. Mitchell I had a way to take his energy-producing byproducts from all his wells before it went to the refinery and help build everything in his communities,” Fisk says. “Roads, sidewalks, aerated block, everything. I gave a full demonstration of the idea, with scale models, a slide show, and samples of the MgO cement. I was even prepared to mix a batch of the salt water based cement right in the room, but when it came time to do that, I lost my cool. I noticed the perfectly restored room and the antique rug I was standing on, and I imagined the cement spilling out onto that rug-and this product sets within minutes to a point of 90 percent strength. It would never come out. I looked at Gail, and she shook her head in agree ment and mouthed the words I was thinking: Don’t do it.”
In the end, Mitchell took a great interest in the work, but he declined to fund the project. According to Fisk, there was a disconnect for him be By Sam Martin 211
tween conservation ofthe environment and resources and Fisk’s eagerness to use the byproducts of industry. It was the same philosophical conflict he had confronted witli McHarg almost forty years ago during his Pon- chartrain East new town project.
“There are still a few people who seem to be stuck on conservation and who never quite jumped into the new paradigm that the future will be built on a new understanding ofwaste,” says Fisk. “Waste becomes food for oth er industries in which byproducts are as important as the core product. In that future, industry itself eventually becomes a much bigger part of large regional cycles.”
Mitchell also wanted proof-rightfully so-that Fisk’s cement was made from brine and not mined materials-proof that Fisk could not immedi ately show them.
The Galveston project was submitted to the Buckminster Fuller Chal lenge as part of protoScope in 2008. But more than that, the research and the early prototypes Fisk created would potentially open another big door halfway around the world.
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Page 234
“The fast four-person carrying pods from the tower would be a pretty steep vertical drop until you leveled out. Not for the faint of heart”
- Pliny Fisk HI
Page 235
n 2009, Fisk was part of CNN International’s Going Green Eco Pio
E neers series. He was one of four individuals on the program, which was hosted by Sara Sidner out of CNN’s New Delhi bureau, and the show focused on “innovative ways to tackle today’s environmental challenges.” Fisk was the only person on the show from the United States; the others were from India, Chile, and Australia. Each segment ran for ten minutes and episodes were broadcast in over two hundred countries.
Fisk’s episode focused on his cement research work and his Galveston ini tiative. Filming toolc place at the Center, and showed Fisk and his team spraying a housing pod with MgO cement while Fisk spoke to the CNN reporter about his plans for rebuilding disaster areas with pre-manufac tured housing coated witli a strong exoskeleton of concrete creating in what is referred to in structural terms as monocoque construction. It was excellent exposure, and after the show, Fisk and the Center got hundreds of emails. By Sam Martin 215
“I had so mucli feedback, and so many people asking me to come visit,” says Fisk. “After CNN it was basically, ‘Where in the world do you want to go and what do you want to do?’”
By the late 2000s the sustainable design movement was blending with an array of industries and practices.124 Design in general was enjoying a re naissance, and designers were being hailed as both problem solvers and social engineers capable of tackling everything and anything from archi tecture to the HIV crisis in South Africa. Global businesses began embrac ing design as a means to a successful end (Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive at Apple, more than anyone, proved the power of design before Jobs’ death in 2011).125 Companies also embraced design as a way to show the world a form of corporate social responsibility and progressive thinking. In many cases, sustainability and design went hand-in-hand.
Cities also began drawing considerable attention in the late 2000s as the United Nations published several reports investigating the growth of ur ban centers.126 In 2008, for the first time in human history, more than half the world’s population was living in cities, and the phenomenon of the
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“mega-region” was emerging. According to the United Nations State of the World’s Cities: Harmonious Cities report from 2008-2009, mega-regions oc cur when several large cities blend together to create massive cities that are home to more than 100 million people and cover areas that are hundreds of miles wide.‘27 The Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China was declared the first such mega region. It is home to 120 million people.
Fisk had been interested in urbanization and urban planning as far back
as his Hackensack Meadows master's thesis at Penn and his Pontchartrain
East new town planning work he did in McHargs office in the early 1970s.
As the Galveston project got under way, Fisk renewed his interest in urban
planning and he focused his protoScope filter lens on urban areas around
the world.
"With protoScope, the Center started choosing problems so we took the
conditions found in Galveston and we drilled deeper into cities and urban
ization," says Fisk. "We called it protoCities, and the goal was to find out
how we learn about certain cities and how they have handled similar envi
ronmental issues as our own within the same context. After we put cities
into this grid, we found patterns all over the world as well as protoPartners
that could help us."216 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III It is important to note that the databases Fisk was able to tap into to dis cover the patterns and resources for this project were neither exclusive nor obscure; they are, in fact, fully available to everyone and include the databases of the World Wildlife Fund, the IUCN Red List for Threat ened Species, National Geographic, the World Soil Survey and Catalogue (WOSSA), the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Koppen cli mate classification.‘zs
What was unique with Fisk's approach was the set of queries he put into
each resource. In every search he looked for ecological, hydrologic, climat
ic, and geologic conditions.
The results gave the Center insights into non-profit organizations around
the world who were doing similar work-these are the protoPartners
and it gave Fisk and his team a much closer look at the cities that were
trying to tackle related problems going on in Galveston-he called these
protoCities. The cities they studied included Santiago, Brisbane, Monte
video, Shanghai, Cairo, and Mumbai, and these protoCities allowed thePage 237
Center to get very specific in its research and preparation for the entire Galveston initiative.
After the CNN show, one email he received particularly piqued Fisk’s in terest. It was from the personal advisors to the royal family of Morocco. The family, in partnership with the nationally-owned phosphate mining company, OCP Group, wanted to be part of the international efforts to create green cities. Theyhad seen Fisks Galveston work on CNN and they asked him to come to Morocco on an all-expenses-paid trip to give a for mal presentation to them and members of OCP Group about his research.
Only a year before then he had been invited by the royal family in Qatar to participate in a speaker series at their university on sustainable design that included Fisk, David Suzuki, Cameron Sinclair, and Susan Szenasy. After accepting the Morocco invitation, the outside observer might have accused Fisk of simply becoming enamored with royalty. Fisk, however, was thinking that this was a way to continue the work he was doing with MgO cement, modular housing, and coastal rehabilitation.
“Morocco has a lot in common with Texas, in terms of biom-metrics,” Fisk says. “Also, the water there has become so saline that they can’t use the ground water anymore without desalination. They’re almost to the By Sam Martin 217 point where they have to change their crops, and they are certainly at the point where they have to come up with a means of developing creative economics for water use.”
At the time, the state-run OCP Group was managing the largest phos phate mines in the world. There were literally hundreds of miles of these surface mines in the Moroccan desert. For Fisk, this was a huge opportu nity to take the phosphate waste from these mines and combine it with the magnesium coming out of the abundant salt water in the country and make cement.
In a matter of days, Fisk recruited Ramon Carasquillo, an alternative ce ment engineer, Joep Meijer, an LCA Chemist, andjason Avent, abiologist. Carrasquillo had been one of Fisk’s original partners during the creation of flyash concrete in the mid-1990s. Fisk asked the team to go to Morocco with him and present their ideas on the benefits of using brine, phosphate tailings, and other industrial waste as a means to create locally-sourced building materials.
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“Essentially we wanted to bio-remediate their mine tailings and mix the phosphate waste with the magnesium oxide by-product they were get ting from pumping and desalinating the brine underneath the desert to produce a 8,500 psi cement,” says Fisk. “And we wanted to reinforce that cement with basalt fibers derived from the ubiquitous rock formation in the Atlas Mountains not far from the mines.”
After only a week of preparation, they boarded a plane in Houston and
flew to Casablanca. Upon landing, they were taken by car to a new town
in the middle of the desert near one of the phosphate mines. OCP had
planned and built the entire town to give their workers a nearby place to
live. The presentation took place at the mining headquarters, a complex
reminiscent of a Rockefeller town from the 1920s.
"The main building was a mansion," says Fisk. "And we were at a 50-foot-
long conference room table.
Around the table were the mining company's top scientists, technicians,
and engineers, not to mention members connected to the royal family
and some involved in the new green city movement. The entire group was
dressed in suits and waiting for Fisk when he and Carrasquillo arrived.
The presentation lasted a good hour or more, and when they were done,218 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III there was a short discussion at one end of the table. Apparently, during the presentation members of OCP keyed into Fisk’s idea of using indus trial waste and byproducts as building resources, and they realized that the Center could help them plan a city that would rehabilitate their mines while creating a revenue stream and a use for their waste materials.
At the end of the meeting they asked Fisk to create a plan and design for
a city that would encompass all the ideas he discussed from the best use
of mining waste to an industrial ecology plan for the millions of acres
of surface mining. They wanted to take his plan to Washington, D.C.,
to help garner interest in the investment community and find a partner to
help fund the program alongside the King.
The D.C. meeting was a mere five weeks away, but Fisk had agreed to take
up the challenge, in part, because he knew more or less what he wanted to
do. In researching Morocco he had discovered that the country was plan
ning five heliostat, high-temperature solar plants, with which they would
generate enough energy to sell and export to Europe.Page 239
Heliostat plants are enormous circular fields of glass reflectors that fo cus the sun s radiation onto a point on the peak of a central tower. At this pinnacle the tower receives all the solar radiation and then transfers the heat into a molten salt solution. When the water is circulated through a lieat exchanger located in the salt it turns to steam, which can power elec tric turbines and produce electricity. In order to maximize daylight hours, the mirrors are wired to computers so that they slowly rotate to track the path of the sun.
For Fisk, the shape of these heliostat towers and their associated mirrors had a correlation to the design of a new type of desert city that could sup port a range of human and plant life in a new type of saline ecosystem. And, if the country was planning these power plants already, in Fisk’s mind they could also be cities-cities that could sustain abundant life while at the same time create and export energy. This would be a city of plenty, so he called his design Plenitude, a place that produced an overabundance well beyond what it required to supply its inhabitants. As soon as they got back to Austin, Fisk and his team recruited more colleagues to contribute to the plan, including the chemist Joep Meijer, an expatriate from Zaha Hadids office in London called Sophia Razzaque, the solar architect Adam Py- rek, an ex-NASA integrated system modeler named Bob Murray, one of By Sam Martin 219 Fisk’s previous students and interns Blake Smith, two Center employees named Lovleen Gil and Shruti Gupta, and Center interns Sam Vonderau and Evan Brooks.
With Plenitude, Fisk was picking up on Le Ricolaiss structural work at Penn, combined with the work of futurist Paolo Soleri, whom Fisk had known personally over the years, and the German architect and engineer Frei Otto who designed the German pavilion at the Montreal World Fair that Fisk attended in 1967.
Physically, the design would be based around two types of towers that would be embedded within the meandering and bio-remediated surface mined areas. One tower type would serve as both the receiver for the energy generated from the surrounding mirrors, and as masts to hold up a continuous Frei Otto type tent to shade taller center buildings and hold the heliostat receiver. The tower configuration would also serve as a reservoir for processing of the salt water pumped from the ground into pure water using electrolysis. Its waste would produce MgO that could, in turn, be made into cement using solar kilns and a giant 3D printer that would distribute this fast-setting, extremely-strung cement for
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constructing these continuous cities. The mirrors on the towers would reflect light over the tent, and their stems would become “desert trees” covering surrounding agricultural land.
A second tower would be an 8oo-foot tail thermal chimney. It would also
serve as the anchor for a gravity-based transport system while also act
ing as the hub for a regional blimp-like transportation system in which
a spherical blimp borrowed from the dirigible "pick-up truck" used in the
forest industry would land and depart from the top of the 8oo-foot tow
ers. This blimp would be filled with hydrogen-as would the retractable
balloons for the pod gravity cars that would transport people to the top of
the tower. These "people pods" would dock at the top of towers until they
were ready to be deployed, roller coaster style, to another nearby hub city.
"It would take some getting used to," says Fisk as he describes his 800-
foot ascent with people in the "people pods" facing backwards in their
seats to ward off altitude sickness. "But gravity and liydrogen fuel are very
available. Hydrogen is readily obtainable because it is a by-product of the
water electrolysis process that makes fresh water out of salty water-and
they are doing a lot of that in Morocco. Still, it would not be for everyone.
Although most of the city would be accessible by foot, one could add or220 Green Masters: subtract modularized personal transport vehicles (like Segways). The fast Pliny Fisk III four-person carrying pods from the tower would be a pretty steep vertical drop until you leveled out. Not for the faint of heart.”
Taken as a whole, the city design employed each of the Centers ecoBal
ance contexts including cycles of water, food, materials, and energy.
The construction and maintenance of the power-plant city (in which
the people would export the energy to Europe) would provide a good lo
cal economy. Fisk even created a currency that was "paid" from individual
to neighborhood to the entire city as cycles were completed in order for
the city to become a regenerative entity. Food producing, transformable,
shade greenhouses would grow plants that were fed from the minerals and
trace elements derived from the electrolysis of the salt water that was also
producing the MgO cement. Everything, of course, would be powered by
solar high temperature heliostats, a perfect desert technology. Even the
heliostat mirrors provided Fisk with innovative solutions.
"All heliostat mirrors built anywhere in the world do one thing," says
Fisk. "They focus the sun's energy to a point on a tower to create a very
high temperature. What most people do not do is think of ways to use thePage 241
mirrors when the sun isn’t shining-like at night, during a sand storm, or on not perfect solar days.”
At first, Fisk s idea was to embed the mirrors onto tree-like canopies over farmland and small buildings surrounding the city center. But he soon realized he could use the mirrors to greater effect by flipping them over at night to hold in the warmth created during the day and thereby serve as ra diant reflectors to the ground, holding the heat during chilly desert nights that were caused by the extreme night sky re-radiation. He also speci fied Mylar mirrors, which can be easily replaced and can come in various colors on the bacl< side, so when flipped over they could provide optimal colored light for increased growing on all the interspersed rooftop, wall and ground-based agriculture.
In the end, the preliminary drawings, renderings, models, and plans took Fisk and his team about twelve weeks to complete and present. The initial idea was well received by some of his Moroccan contacts, and Fisk was set to go back to Morocco and present his creation to King Mohammed VI.
Unfortunately, his timing was off. Fisk had completed the master plan for Plenitude in early 2011, and the Arab Spring protests had already begun. Adopting a plan like this was not politically palatable for any royal family. By Sam Martin 221
“It was really too bad,” says Fisk. “It could have been a bridge point be tween worlcers and mine owners, or the royal family could have used the city as an excuse to mend the surface mine scars as well as social and envi ronmental issues. It could have been a good balance between the people of Morocco, the country’s energy revenue, and the ecology.”
In the end, Fisk decided to put the work into an international contest host ed by the International Living Future Institute called the Living City De sign Competition. With the work maturing, Fisk may have the resources to try to find a new government or organization that can fund this city of the future. Until then, at least Fisk has something else to talk about at his ongoing monthly open houses and in his lectures, wherever those may take him.
Page 242
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“When you’re first info a ausoster zone, all eyes are on you, so you really need to know what you’re doingd
- FUiny Fisk flii
Page 245
fyou make it out to Maxs Pot for one of the first Friday monthly open
I houses, there is a chance you will run into an effigy of newly-minted Pope Francis seated comfortably atop a demonstration toilet, his vest ments flowing down the sides of the papal commode into the surrounding stalks of calla lilies and rainbow irises as one part of the wastewater treat ment for the holy excrement (more on this unique toilet later). The papal effigy is an idea that was hatched during an open house in the early sum mer of 2013 when Fisk was hosting a religion class from Abilene Christian University. The open house group had stumbled upon the class in a sched uling mixup, adding a surprise layer of insight into the way worlds collide and new ideas spark to life at the Center.
Why the Pope? Fisk and his colleagues long ago started building homages to their projects, so they were discussing ways to construct a tribute to the Center’s newest undertaking. The Island Nations Initiative, also known as Village in a Box. Students in the class, which was run by Kent Smith, an By Sam Martin 225 adjunct professor of ministry for Abilene Christian University’s Missions Residency Program for North America, and the father of Blake Smith, one of Fisk’s past interns, thought Pope Francis could draw some attention to the project, which was initially built for residents of Haiti in response to the 2010 eartliquake.
“Some students in the class thought Pope Francis would be open to sup porting such an effort,” Fisk says. “He is known, after all, as ‘The Peoples Pope.’ He could change the lives of twenty million people overnight.”
If the thought of a mannequin on a toilet seems low brow and unworthy of the important work going on at the Center, Fisk would urge you to think again.
“Humans have great potential wherever they are and to make beheve for one instant that the intellect for doing really important work is the privilege of the few, the so-called educated, is a great mistake,” he says. “Discovery at this frontier where everyone can participate is where the true planetary revolution must take place.”
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Indeed, Fisk believes that the more you open the work and make it inter disciplinary and equitably accessible, the better chance you give that work to become a reality for the largest number of people. To wit, soon after the open house, two students in the class told Fisk they would help build the homage, take a photo, and figure out how to get the image to the Pope to get his blessing.
It is also the philosophy behind the Island Nations Initiative itself. Not far
from the potential Pope pedestal is an unfinislied prototype of this Village
in a Box, a very basic DIY house based on the GroHome approach. The
prototype is one of a new series of creations and patent-pending inventions
that combine the collective imaginations of the very young and the very
old patrons of Max's Pot, and its oldest and the newest thinking.'''
This particular prototype is special because it is also an attempt to get
back towhere all this commotion started in the first place: the simple, ap
propriate technology of Schumacher and the Whole Earth Catalogue and
the Keep it Simple, Stupid (KISS) principle. It is getting back to the solar
hot water heaters of Crystal City and the eartlien cement of Nicaragua. It
is finding a way to improve tlie housing and health conditions for the ma
jority of the world s population who are living on the edge of existence in226 Green Masters: informal communities, and to work with them to develop technology they Pliny Fisk III can use. As Stuart Brand once famously said, “Technology can be good for the environment.” Fisk would add, “and for people.”
In fact, many of Fisks newest peers including those at Public Interest De
sign and Architecture for Humanity have never really given up on the
idea of technology for the people. Fisk still calls it "accessible technolo
gy," which in his mind more accurately describes how these systems have
evolved to be more integrated with more cyclical functions, and to be more
in sync with a sustainable lifestyle. For him, such technologies need to be
thoroughly tested so that the completed design can be iterative in terms of
functionality, as well as a joy to use. In this sense the Island Nation Initia
tive fulfills an expansive purpose even though that purpose is not readily
apparent by just observing it from a distance.
"When you first see the Island Nations prototype at the Center, you don't
connect to its potential importance," says Fisk. "Only when you actually
start to build it, and live in it will you begin to get it. That's why I call it
TIY-'test-it-yourself'-instead of DIY."Page 247
The concept for Island Nations actually started years before when his neighbor, Bill Berger, embarrassed him into some self-reflection. Berger had been a first construction crew member at the Center in the mid 1970s, and he eventually became head of disaster relief for USAID for South East Asia, and was in that position during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami?3°
It all started when Berger came knocking after Fisk had cleared some of Bergers land for his quixotic airstrip (Fisk had convinced Berger to buy the adjacent property years before). He was not happy, and then the con versation wandered to Haiti, where the catastrophic 2011 earthquake had practically destroyed the entire country’s infrastructure.
“He basically told me that I was squandering my talents,” says Fisk. “He asked why we weren’t doing anything with Haiti, and he urged us to con sider, beyond the poor communities of the United States, the world’s poor est communities.131 At the time he was convinced that we in the developed world were regressing in the field of international development. His mes sage was a kind of reminder for Gail and me that we needed to get back to basics and he was right. There were hundreds of NGOs in Haiti at the time but not many groups had very much of a strategy for what they were doing. They were doing the same thing everyone always does in disaster situations: just show up and build-just get to work.” By Sam Martin 227
Having been involved with these issues for years, Fisk knows there is a better way. In Crystal City he had to act fast to set up 10,000 people with alternative heating sources before winter because their gas had been turned off. That effort was a success, but it was successful because Fisk had been patient and had taken the time to plan and put a strategy in place. He knew where the mesquite wood was because before ever step ping foot in the place he had produced a series of maps that identified re sources throughout Texas-including mesquite. These maps also detailed the availability of those resources and showed detailed examples of how to use them. That is how he knew about every metal shop, printing press, vocational program, and barbecue stove maker in the area. He could even figure out about how many old hot water heater tanks there were in Crystal City simply by counting the number of people who had their gas turned off.
“When you’re first into a disaster zone, all eyes are on you, so you real ly need to know what you’re doing,” says Fisk. “I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t also do on-the-ground surveys when you arrive, and have
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conversations with the locals-we did those things in Crystal City too. But because we did our research before arriving we knew better what ques tions to ask, and we had intelligent questions so we got respect quickly from the locals. After that we were able to make informed prototypes both in town and at the Center in Austin. This was community organiz ing with a strategy, and when community meetings happened we could quickly work with the leaders to find out who could have solar (we had all the roof orientations in the whole town), who needed to have stoves, who was weatherized, and so on. Because of this planning, we were able to retrofit the town in six weeks, and after that we expanded to another six towns because we had a process.”
The Center's Island Nations work needed the same type of ground-up
way of operating, so the Center analyzed the entire country of Haiti
with more than forty maps that could be used to develop strategies with
local officials.
And, in fact, what he found after his mapping exercise had deep implica
tions for what he would again eventually prototype back at the Center. For
one, Haiti had one of the highest average slope conditions in existence,
including Switzerland. It had drought periods and landslides. The ground228 Green Masters: was in a nearly constant state of shifting, making a centralized utility Pliny Fisk III very difficult to establish. Roads were always being washed away and de stroyed. Interestingly, the country had many possible ports of entry with navigable waters, not just Port-au-Prince, making the transportation of goods and materials a little easier. Also, Fisk discovered that most busi nesses had been destroyed in the earthquake, and the trade businesses that still existed-such as masonry businesses-needed a major rethink because i their masonry failed in the disaster.‘
It was a wealth of information and it allowed Fisk and his team to create|
a detailed plan for how to help Haiti and other island nations to rebuild.
Their goal was to create a building system and a relief system that embod
ied five core principles derived, in part, from the "Mini Max" lens:
1) Building components had to be simple and able to evolve to the nexti
phase. The tents, for example, had to be able to become structural so they
could become roofs at the next phase of construction. Any large quantity=
of materials imported such as form work for concrete that were nonexis-:
tent in the country needed to be nontoxic and have several after lives to;
support the local economy through micro-enterprise development.:Page 249
-
All materials had to be small and light enough so that a single person or small group of people could transport them (the team ended up de veloping a special two-wheeled rickshaw-like wagon for transportation purposes that became part of the building system itself). This meant that the various pieces of the building system approach such as the roofs, walls, and floors had to be light enough, in part or in whole, to easily lift and move into place by human power, without the help of engine power or motorized equipment.
-
Every component had to have multiple uses. The shipping pallets were designed to be repurposed as floors and concrete forms, and to have fif teen to twenty additional uses when recycled. In fact, the team created a “pallet joint” to accommodate the material for door and window frames, commode bases, wheels, fish tanks, raised gardens, and more.
-
Long-term planning for the use of local materials and skills had to be considered during the planning. For example, magnesium oxide (MgO) cement was found to be widely available as a by-product from petroleum refining and desalination to create fresh water. Compared to Portland cement, the process requires lower firing temperatures, does not require fresh water, and can be reinforced with a variety of natural materials such as bamboo, sisal, and hemp whicli would normally disintegrate in conven By Sam Martin 229
tional Portland-cement based products.
- To be considered a true village development project, the system had to consider that local jobs and economic development could happen the instant the team arrived to build as well as long after the project was com plete. For example, a human-pulled wagon was to be part of the building system-the wheels would pop out as part of the pallet joints and could be used across the relief effort for things like the delivery of medical sup plies, tents, food, water, construction materials, and tools. The idea behind all the design elements-whether it was the use of 100 percent recyclable PET plastic pallets or the use of repurposed materials for many household products-is to think both vertically and horizontally across the entire en deavor. “So right off the bat we are working with other NGOs,” says Fisk. “We aren’t just housing people; we re helping to set up cooperation.”
The most important part of the entire Island Nations system is guiding people step-by-step out oftheir dilemma by always taking a step forward at each increment of redevelopment, then gradually into the cycles of life in each of the basic life support areas: the water cycle from source to resource
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through a concerted effort to capture, treat, store, use and re-source using the very elements supplied in the home and community system, the food source to re-source, and so on witli energy and materials.
"Are the steps of the cycle obvious, or are they too culturally remote or
physically difficult," says Fisk, "or are they as convenient to people of many
regions of the world?"
There are also some ingenious details in the building itself that support an
integration of design and function. In most natural disasters basic furni
ture like tables and chairs are destroyed so Fisk designed structures with
wall panels that have pop-out tables and chairs built into them (when in
use, tlie openings in the panels are screened to allow breezes to naturally
ventilate interior spaces). Solar-heated stills purify water, creating a by-
product that can become the basis to make MgO cement. Atmospheric
pumps (a pump with no moving parts) are being looked at. There is a so
lar oven and a solar refrigerator with no moving parts that uses activated
charcoal as the absorber part of the refrigerator, with water or ethanol as
the coolant fluid regenerated by the sun during the day and operational at
night through the absorption process (both the activated charcoal and the
ethanol are regionally producible).230 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III Even the toilets are integrated into the community system using a urine separator and a black soldier fly approach to organic waste metabolism that produces food for fish and chickens. This is the type of toilet upon which the Pope Francis model would be perched in homage to innovative wastewater treatment. Unlike slow-acting composting systems, black sol dier fly larvae metabolize the waste very quickly while providing CO2 that can be trapped and used by other metabolic units within the village.
"The only escape route for the larvae leads right to the chickens or the
fish," says Fisk. "They crawl themselves to the so-called escape route. It's
like a no-maintenance, self-feeding, John Todd living machine."
So, what's next for the Village in a Box concept? For now there is a human
and technology testing period. People at the Center have started building
the entire system, and when they are done they will actually live in the
units to see how they work. Fisk is also simulating the building system
using a three quarter inch scale model to both simulate space accurately
from a socio-psychological manner, and to instruct how the system goes
together. He wants to see if whole villages can be planned, and building
techniques understood at the most fundamental level. In addition, FiskPage 251
and his team have presented to a USGBC think tank, Sean Penn’s Haiti relief group, a Catholic Relief organization and others.
We are looking at a series of options including disaster relief, eco-tour- ism, and education programs. In the meantime, were perfecting the system through testing,” says Fisk. “Testing the everyday human life-cycle activities are critical because without people successfully keeping those cycles going, they won’t work and we won’t know how to adjust the design. The prototyping process is allowing our crew of volunteers, interns, and AmeriCorps participants, to experience for themselves all the ins and outs of real sustainable living at a level that a significant portion of the world could relate to.”
And in many ways, it reminds Fisk of the old days when Max’s Pot, in co- ordination with six towns, churned out hundreds of solar water heaters, unfired earth block technologies, water conservation cisterns, wastewa ter treating wetlands, and everything else Fisk has been investigating and experimenting with in one form or another for over forty years, at his own place with his own staff first. In fact, all one has to do is visit the Center’s grounds to see all of it, which is on display in some form or another. And, if it is not at the Center, a little digging will uncover it somewhere in Texas and beyond. By Sam Martin 231
The Island Nations prototype is now being funded by the Kendeda Fund and the Still Water Foundation (the Meadows Foundation funded the proj ect’s MgO cement work). Also, the Gates Foundation has recently shown interest, and has made Fisk a grant reviewerjust as he did years ago when the MacArthur Foundation asked for his advice in determining how archi tects might win that coveted prize.
Meanwhile, the Village in a Box prototype is evolving, conversations are churning out new ideas, and old projects are taking on new lives. For Fisk, the most important question is, “What’s next?”
At a recent open house, a person from one of Austins gaming companies came to see the Center and to hear Fisk give his pitch. When it was over, he came up to Fisk and said, “Let’s game it.” To which Fisk replied, “What algorithms do you need?”
Just like that, the commotion continues.
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73^
VISIBLE GREEN
Page 254
One could call it the greatest race of all time. A race, perhaps, we can only visualize by stepping back to observe the greater course of our history and the history of our home base-Planet Earth-a place some call the Jewel of the universe. This “jewel” was forged, somehow, over an untold period of time, conceiving life in all its myriad forms, marvelous and miraculous and unique in the universe.
The race, of course, is holding on to that jewel before it disappears. It is
what I call the great Conceptual Space Race; we must readjust our under
standing of both biological space and mind space in order to reconcile the
two. And, to which some very knowledgeable people will rightfully attest,
time is running short.
The philosopher and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin referred to
this notion of mind space as a foundational part of mankinds gradual
emergence into a state of total human communication, a kind of world
brain he called the Omega Point. Some believe that as this realization of
an omnipresent consciousness within increasing global complexity-which
de Chardin termed the noosphere-is realized it will usher in an evolution
toward complete empathy for all cultures and natural systems.
Despite its complexity, the noosphere remains fundamentally an an234 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III thropocentric vision. In contrast, the Gaia Theory developed by James Lovelock and Lyn Margulis promotes an idea of the biosphere as a self- learning, self-regulating organism. Lovelock and Margulis’ global vision is not anthropocentric but one of ecosystemic basis for planetary survival.
The visions put forward by de Chardin, Lovelock and Margulis posit two
intellectual spaces that one might view as being on a collision course. The
race between these two spheres-one the mind sphere (the noosphere), the
other a living systems sphere (the biosphere)-results from their mindspace
and time discrepancies. Modeling suggests that the global human popu
lation must reach nearly eighteen billion people to enter the noosphere.
At the same time, recent population modeling of the biosphere ominously
predicts global systems collapse from overpopulation at fewer than nine
billion people on earth. The race for space is a race to close this gap. It is a
race against time, and the Planet-the jewel-is at stake.
I and a long history of participants and friends in our life-long journey
called the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems have tried to
develop ways to close this gap. We call these our protocols, lenses we use inPage 255
our attempts to re-focus near or far in our concepts of space and time as we have developed our work over the last thirty-eight years.
Our efforts might be compared to the optometrist placing a variety oflens es in front of our eyes to adjust our vision so we can see clearly up close or from afar. However, in our case, the lenses enable us to see clearly up close, from afar, and in combinations between the two.
We do not believe there is one fundamental lens. Singular tenets such as Biomimicry, Cradle to Cradle, and Dymaxion world have much to offer but their application cannot be universally applied; for any given proj ect, none or all of these methodologies might fit. Instead of forcing our worl< into the narrow lens of a single method, we have found the need to constantly adapt our methodologies to address the ever-shifting challeng es at hand. And at times, we have found we almost have to completely reinvent ourselves!
Our role in creating the Austin Green Building Program, for example, is quite different than our work in rural south Texas, with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the New Jewel Movement in Grenada, or the disaster-relief efforts focused on island nations. Different still are creating a new city in Morocco or creating a national baseline material flow model for the US By Sam Martin 235 Environmental Protection Agency, not to mention our material develop ment worl< in new cements, earthen building practices and a variety of al ternative building systems. It is a list of work so varied as to border on the absurd! A singular hard-lined methodology to encompass all this work would be very difficult if not impossible.
But this is the time for change. One either adapts or risks becoming ir relevant quite rapidly.
So why do it? To test one’s self, possibly. Or to sincerely help a client. To make sure you can manageably represent the reality of a project-within a time frame and under a budget. But most of all, I sincerely believe that the entire environmental movement is in great need of creating and test ing hypotheses. It is time to go beyond checklists and into a new level of discussion-we can call it eco-dynamic thinking-that constantly rede fines what our new ecology needs to be. The truth is most people do not have any idea that we have been developing robust pedagogical methods behind our nearly four decades of widely diverse work. This is one ma jor reason why I have insisted on illustrating these methods of thinking
Page 256
through the pages of this biography. It is time to broaden our audience and the discussion.
I find myself, in many ways, a refugee from an entitled and exceptionally
rich education and, as any refugee, I must not only maintain sight of this
path but also build upon it. This feeling, no doubt, has propelled me to my
work. Why else would I have created an organization whose very name
demands creativity and new ways of thinking in all areas constantly? How
do you ever really come to grips with a constantly moving target-a maxi
mum potential future-and the trials and tribulations of seeking to build
a world that can conceive of consciously responding to the great Concep
tual Space Race?
Being part of a significant think tank of peers throughout the country has
been one of the most wonderful parts of the work that the Center under
takes. It is a constant rediscovery, reinforcement and re-learning experi
ence usually confined to university settings. Ours is a university that has
expanded to everywhere, and most specifically as part of an outlier profes
sional community.
To that end, I am constantly becoming aware of similar efforts to the
ones detailed in these pages. Thinking that you, and only you, thought236 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III of something is contrary to a fundamental tenet of our efforts: that is the synchronicity or simultaneity of ideas. Acceptance that someone else might be thinking in a manner similar to your own is a saving grace in the new constantly-connected world we live in.
Our work with these lenses is no exception to this phenomenon of simulta
neity. After presenting our lenses work at GreenBuild 2012, I was greeted
by Brian Dunbar from the University of Colorado, who said, "I use circular
lenses in my work as well-here is my card." It said: LENSES. Living Envi
ronments in Natural, Social and Economic Systems.
Admittedly, my first thought was: "Oh shit." But my second thought was to
recall this age of simultaneity and recognize this was a moment to be em
braced. And there are many such moments. Iwas reminded recently of the
efforts of Ray Cole and Bob Berkebile, in particular, on the REGEN Tool,
yet another systems-based model of connections developed in partnership
with the USGBC. Turns out our lenses are one part of a larger, connected
discussion-one that includes the work of LENSES and REGEN as well.
As I have learned from this work, and as I endeavor to share my own work
with the world, it is my great pleasure to actively exist in this simultaneityPage 257
and to share these methodological lenses which have grown out of years of actual projects and experiences.
Our final lens concludes this biography and serves as a summary of where we stand today, in 2013. It will become searchable from any level-a mate rial prototype, the protocol from which it was derived, a policy initiative it has the capacity to affect. This infographics lens overlay pinpoints key ele ments from our robust methodologies-from the preservation-hazard scale of ecoBalance and the mapped conditions of ecology, climate, hydrology, and geology of ProtoScope to the clusters of interactive tools and commu nity education of Gamification, the sustainable building systems of Sup ports & Connections, the appropriate technologies of Mini Max and the dotted background of 12.5 million businesses within BaselineGreen.
Presently, we are continuing the development of these lenses, in one case through a distance-learning program at Ball State University, to create new teaching modules. By another means, we are also emphasizing the equally important artistic side of representing dynamic lenses-much as a kaleidoscope brings us new ways of seeing familiar sights. We have begun testing the overlay of these lenses in their physical and pedagogical forms. And we hope that you, the reader, will create your own protocol lenses to add to the discussion, to put on your own optometrists phoropter By Sam Martin 237
and see better-near, far, and in between. Just think of all the unbelievable synchronicities that have yet to be explored!
Page 258
So — HOW TO USE THE LENSES: FIRST: Download an app to your camera phone to read the TAG codes that correspond with each lens, and use the layers of internet content to enhance your understanding as you read.
SECOND: Read this biography, so that you have some sense ofwhatyou are
getting into.
THIRD: Think about a project that you are doing and consider how one
of these lenses might fit, remembering that this is a focusing exercise and
some lenses look at the very big picture-the country, the world—and others
at the scale of specific and appropriate technologies.
FOURTH: Look up the biographical references that we used to create this
way of thinking-- they are associated with every lens we present.
FIFTH: Be creative when making your own overlays and colors. We em
ploy these lenses as visualization tools for understanding methodology;
they should be both didactic and visually engaging.
FINALLY, make your own lens! -the planet needs lots of them.238 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III
Page 259
By Sam Martin 239
Page 260
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Z5?VISIBLE GREEN GREEN HEALTH
LENSES FOR A MAXIMUM POTENTIAL FUTURE The Lenses for a Maximum Potential future, derived from the work of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, are protocols for our goal of creating a more sustainable present and future. They frame outlandish proposals as well as “tried and true” success stories. > △ v △△ x; They may be used independently or combined for different conceptual views. They may reflect cultural and regional distinctions and serve as a framework on which other lenses should be added as the field of sustainable design continues to advance.
Page 261
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Page 262
LENS 1 VISIBLE GREEN Sharing information is key to creating a green world. Visible Green is a visualization protocol which exposes articulated (“visible”) green and promotes subversive (“invisible”) green. Visible Green functions at three scales-person, home and community-end through four primary techniques-discovery (through feedback), interpretation (using codification), attraction (via design), and participation.
• Crystal City • Advanced Green Builder DemonsIralion Home • SolidGreen Systems • Living
Bridge • Carrizo Springs • The Great Texos Retrofit • EcoSports Complex • Formula Green
, • Plenitude EcoCityPage 263
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AmPTIBD |A©)AP?QNG RESILIENT|ANTICIPATING [VISIBLE] [INVISIBLE]
©2013 CMPBS
Page 264
LENS 2 PROTOSCOPE Prototyping is an essential process for research and advancing replicable models and methods. ProtoScope is a means of organizing how prototypes are conceived. Beginning at a global |“protoMetric”) scale, ProtoScope identifies databases, patterns, partners, and site information to effect a full-scope prototype design process.
• Advanced Green Builder DemonsIralion Home • Baja School for Field Studies
• ProtoCih/: Galveston Redevelopment • Island Nations Initiative: Village in a Box
• Carrizo Springs • Plenitude EcoCityPage 265
ecosystem hydro^stem climosystei geosystem
PROTO
partner ROTOdatabase sources
©2013 CMPBS
Page 266
LENS 3 ECOBALANCE EcoBalcince is a design and planning tool which seeks equilibrium between the human and natural environments by identifying and quantifying key life support systems (Air, Water, Food, Energy and Materials) and Life Cycle Principles (Source, Process, Use and Re source). EcoBalance recognizes that a circular economy as well as life cycle behavior is critical to green design.
• Hill Country Youth Ranch • Advanced Green Builder Demonstration Home
• ProloCity: Galveston Redevelopment • SolidGreen Systems • Island Nations Initiative: Vil^ge in
a Box • EcoSports Complex • Formula Green • Laredo Demonstration Form • East Texas Project
• Texas A&M University Solar Decathlon, 2007 • Plenitude EcoCityPage 267
ENERGY
MATERIALSconserve-integrate-cycle
Space
REMEDIATEPRESERVE REPAIR CONSERVE RESTORE HUSBAND REGENERATE
flow COUNTRY
STATE
information currency
RIGDON
COW place
IBUOLDONG
materials energy©2013 CMPBS
Page 268
LENS 4 SUPPORTS & CONNECTIONS Whole building system approaches with constructed prototypes are a foundation for advancing how buildings are conceived. Our building systems protocols are based on eight low-impact methods; Design with Climate, Building Systems Typologies, Design for Manufacturing, Design with Nature, Design with Reuse, Design for Open Building, Embodied Carbon Balance, and Evidence-Based Economics.
Advanced Green Builder Demonstration Home • GreenForms • ProtoCity: Galveston Redevelopment
• SolidGreen Systems • Living Bridge • Islond Nations Initiative: Village in a Box • UT-Austin Solar
Decathlon, 2002 • EcoSports Complex • Formula Green • Laredo Demonstration Farm • East Texas
Project • Texas A8M University Solar Decathlon, 2007 • Carpenter House • Plenitude EcoCityPage 269
design with nature design with reuse design for manufacturing design for open building
building embodied systems carbon typologies balance
evidence based
economics
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1
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REMEDIATION TOWER COLLECTOR
HYDROGEN THERMAL CHIMNEY
habitatLIVING BRIDGE
©2013 CMPBS
Page 270
LENS 5 GAMIFICATION Educating for a green world must be both data-rich and participatory. Capitalizing on the pretext that the best way to learn is to play, we promote a protocol for gaming environments of varying scales, employing four primary methods-the virtual/real scale simulation, roleplaying, crowdsourcing and community gameboarding-to produce informative results and simulate new conceptual possibilities.
Island Nations Initiative: Village in a Box • The Great Texas Retrofit • EcoSports Complex
• Laredo Demonstration Farm • Texas A&M University Solar Decathlon, 2007Page 271
virtual [real; role playing scale simulationi
communitycrowdsourcing gameboard
USER
INTERFACE
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Page 272
LENS 6 AREA POINT NETWORK One of several planning protocols, Area Point Network utilizes land, people, and their institutions (“Area”, “Point”, and “Network” resources) as the foundation for community organizing and planning. Area resources are organized with suitability maps. Point resources target regional human experience, and Network resources are measured through four flows-information, currency, energy, and material.
Crystal City • Advanced Green Builder Demonstralian Home • Longju Sustainable Village
• Community Supported Architecture • ProtoCity: Galveston Redevelopment • Island Nations Initiative:
Village in a Box • Carrizo Springs • The Great Texas Retrofit • Laredo Demonstration Farm
• Carpenter House • Plenitude EcoCityPage 273
STRAW MESQUITE JUNIPER SOLAR BLOCK WOOD WOOD HEATING
COAL-FIRED RECYCLED SALINE WATER WATER NIGHT
POWER PLANTS PAPER PLANTS SOURCES HARVEST COOLING
MATERIALREGIONALIZED ENERGY BUILDING \ □
WIND ENERGY TO CURRENCY
ACTIVE
SOLAR INFORMATION
ignesium
oxid^emt ignesium oxide©2013 CMPBS
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LENS 7 GREEN HEALTH Our experience has demonstrated four principles across the health spectrum necessary for developing a community of health awareness. Fundamental principles of precaution-transparency and disclosure of material hazards-and cycles of life-effecting health promotion and disease prevention-guide design methods for healthy bodies and finally strategically-planned healthy communities.
Dell Childrens Medical Center of central Texas • UT-Houston School of Nursing • Green Guide for Health
Core • sustainable Healthcare Architecture • Laredo Demonstration Farm • Advanced Green Builder
Demonstration Home • EcoSports Complex • Community Supported ArchitecturePage 275
cycle of life healtn promotion -1- disease prevention 710
cholera
malaria
influenza©2013 CMPBS
Page 276
LENS 8 BASELINE GREEN/GREENBALANCE BaselineGreen is a protocol for using national data sets and peer- reviewed methods to produce an input-output/Life Cycle Assessment/ GlS-based standard for material specifications. Its companion protocol, GreenBalance, advances these principles in order to effect an inputloutput balance in projects ranging from furniture design to large building complexes and eco-industrial planning.
GreenForms • Ui-Houston School of Nursing • Greening the pentagonPage 277
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ccirbon balance CO2EMISSION- -.CO2 SEQUESTRATION
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water
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• phosphate
• mineral byproductsindustrial ecology planning ©2013 CMPBS
Page 278
LENS 9 FEEDBACK CITY Paralleling the thinking behind Ross Ashby’s “Design for a Brain”, Feedback City demonstrates how recognizing feedback loops within the structure of a city can become a model for sustainable urban/rural well- being. This protocol is also represented by the “development ladder” of evolution within the city/region as systems of incorporated micro to macro feedback.
Island Nations Initiative: Village in a Box • Plenitude EcoCityPage 279
ENVIRONMENT ORGANISM PUBLIC PRIVATE SECTOR SECTOR
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source
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FEEDBACK
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system
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surviving maturing anticipatory worldly
Sapient Accepting Experimental Systemic
Reactive Responsive empowering Evolutionary
Revolutionary Adaptive Learning Memic^2OI3 CMPBS
Page 280
LENS 10 MINI MAX Appropriate and intermediate technologies are critical to global efforts to connect basic, people-oriented life support processes to those in need and to demonstrate how high-thinking, simple living can occur worldwide. Mini Max is a protocol for engaging efficiency and integration between human power and nature power to support basic needs and potential.
Crystal City • Hill Country Youth Ranch • Community Supported Architecture • SolidGreen Systems
• Island Nations Initiative: Village in a Box • Carrizo Springs • The Great Texas Retrofit • UT-Austin Solar
Decathlon, 2002 • Formula Green • Laredo Demonstration Farm • East Texos Project • Texas A&M
University Solar Decathlon, 2007 • Carpenter HousePage 281
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LENS 11 META MAX The future of green design includes interventions that have global repercussions. Meta Max is a protocol that provides global-scale systems thinking such as making cement with waste product brine from produced water, augmenting organic compost with the bioremediated trace elements of coal, and creating salt water-based sewage systems.
Advanced Green Builder Demonstration Home • Baja School for Field Studies • Longju Sustainable Village
• ProtoCity: Galveston Redevelopment • Living Bridge • Island Nations Initiative: Village in a Box •
Laredo Demonstration Farm • Plenitude EcoCityPage 283
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LENS 12 CONCEPTUAL SPACE RACE The limits of Nature s capacity as a global ecosystem will soon be reached while the potential of the human brain sees no boundary. The Conceptual Space Race describes this quandary: will the carrying capacity of Earth be exceeded before we can realize a state of convergence between the biosphere and the noosphere? Our approach recognizes this critical gap and utilizes important brain space-time behavior to resolve it.
ProloCiy: Galveston Redevelopment • Island Nations Initiative: Village in a Box • Formula Green
• Texas A&M University Solar Decathlon, 2007 • Plenitude EcoCityPage 285
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TOWARDS A MAXIMUM POTENTIAL The Lenses are tools for guiding design and critical inquiry which both inform and are informed by policies and prototypes that we have developed and cultivated through the years. Pedagogy via these lenses promotes practice, the lessons of which feed back to reinforce and enrich the methods. The work of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems is predicated on this cyclic relationship, and we share these lenses in hopes that the state of “maximum potential” can reach ever higher plateaus.
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©2013 CMPBS
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Shortly before this biography was published, I came across Frank O’Hara’s 1959 poem “Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul.” It begins:
It is 12:10 in New York and I am wondering
if I will finish this in time to meet Norman for lunch
ah lunch! I think I am going crazy
what with my terrible hangover and the weekend coming up
at excitement-prone Kenneth Koch's
I wish I were staying in town and working on my poems
at Joan's studio for a new book by Grove Press
which they will probably not print
but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of the night
wondering whether you are any good or not270 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III and the only decision you can make is that you did it
yesterday I looked up the rue Fremicourt on a map
and was happy to find it like a bird
flying over Paris et ses environs
which unfortunately did not include Seine-et-Oise which I don't know
The poem (which goes on for 36 more lines) reminded me so much of
Pliny, I laughed out loud: It has all the shorthand of dropped names and
references, erudite non sequiturs, barely credible self-effacement, geo
graphic references, and other esoteric signifiers of any email I've received
from him during the decade I have known him, not to mention the consis
tent lack of punctuation.
It happens that in 1959 O'Hara also wrote a tongue-in-cheek manifesto
called "Personism," in which he explained that instead of writing a poem.Page 291
he could make a phone call to the person to whom the poem was direct ed. In other words, he was uninterested in poetic abstraction. He simply wanted direct communication, and that’s what dictated his poetry’s form.
Obviously, Frank O’Hara is recognized as a great poet, and his work goes beyond the mundane nature of a phone call. But this idea about achiev ing art-or beauty or transcendence-through the practical, the solution- oriented, and the real could also be applied to Pliny’s work.
For example, visitors to the Center are perpetually delighted by the pul ley system in the rafters of the Advanced Green Builder Demonstration Home that is capable of raising a glass-and-steel banquet table into the ceiling to free up floor space-”for dancing,” as Pliny never fails to spec ify. His prototype Island Nations Initiative, originally motivated by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, includes a kit for a structure whose furniture is formed from the material punched out of the walls to form window pen etrations, shapes that then interlock like the base of a paper doll. Likewise, the GroHome prototype, showcased in the Texas A&M Solar Decathlon entry in 2007 can be expanded in any number of configurations as needed. To quote Architecture Week, “The GroHome is a kit of prefabricated, in terchangeable parts … [consisting] ofprefabricated elements anchored by ‘fatwalls’ and growalls’ which contain many of the service features needed By Sam Martin 271
in a house, sucli as kitchen and bathroom fixtures.”
Common to all of these projects is an enchanting aesthetic uniqueness born of their components’ uses. Pliny’s designs do not rely merely on func tion dictating form, but on purpose conjuring art-like O’Hara’s phone call. The table-pulleys and punch-out furniture and so on (there are countless other examples) are lightly coded but simple messages of efficiency and elegant economy of space. They are the straightforward industrial ecology of prefabrication. Like O’Hara’s poetry, the works are satisfyingly literal. And yet, to say that Pliny’s designs tend to literally demonstrate some thing does not in any way begin to explain how perplexing, fantastical, or challenging of the status quo-in other words, artful-the work can be at the same time.
****Page 292
Variants of the word “design” appear more than 250 times in the preceding pages. But the word “prototype/’ arguably the more meaningful concept in the context of Pliny Fisk’s life and work, occurs only thirteen times. That may be because while design comes from designers, there is no word for individuals whose job it is to experiment with ways to rethink humans’ misguided ideas, to conceive and build practical solutions that rest on grandiose conceptual frameworks; to prototype. A prototype is unique by definition and is almost certainly about to become something else. With out it, nothing that happens next would be possible. A prototype, particu larly in Pliny’s case, is meant as a model on which to pattern something, but it often births a complex, unpredictable result. Almost every project, system, idea or built work chronicled in the preceding pages could be clas sified as a prototype.
To build a life's work around prototyping reflects a philosophy based on
beginnings. What that ends up meaning is that what we see in the "fin
ished" pieces are seldom the most significant elements to Pliny, a man who
still refers to his best-known project (the Advanced Green Builder Dem
onstration Home) as "the most over-published, unfinished building in the
country" nearly fifteen years after move-in. The most significant aspects
to Pliny, it seems, are the virtual, real, and personal connections digging272 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III into a project churns up. Pliny’s practice turns the typical innovation cycle (experiment, fail, rethink, start anew) into an expansive chase that might go more like: Experiment, uncover a fact that leads to an inspiring idea or person, explore all of the resulting possibilities, follow some, build some thing out of one of them, connect it back to the rest, get fired up by all those connections being made, and start anew. If you are after the final results, you might be disappointed; through his prototypes, Pliny deals in the generation of further questions. That means visitors to the Center might gaze longingly at whole grassy fields of alluring structures, imagin ing the lessons they might reveal, as Pliny guides them to the developing frame of a project at that moment in a state of progress invisible to the untrained eye. Sweaty interns will be gathered around while the visitors’ sandal-feet grow dusty in the hot sun. This is Pliny in his element.
Pliny's focus on a project's infancy comes with a related appreciation for
the complexity, the out-of-our-control aspect, of its evolution. Many of
the projects, built with open building systems and designed for disassem
bly, are made to accommodate or encourage later changes in course. And
when something built as a prototype morphs into another phase, it regainsPage 293
some of the magical potential energy it had before it was complete. The Laredo Demonstration Farm is one such work, a flexible system for farm buildings, infrastructure, materials, and methods designed to adapt to fickle market demand and climate, as well as respond to the area’s water insecurity. Like many of Plinys brainchildren it drew from internation al inspirations but aimed to be intensely linked to its region, Texas’s Rio Grande valley. A “Flexible Farm Demonstration,” it is a prototype if ever there was one, and it has found new beginnings: Today, it is the Rio Grande International Study Center, an organization founded around water qual ity awareness that advocates for endangered local ecosystems. It is not a farm, but the buildings are in use, and Pliny is particularly proud that it is the home of a community-led organization: “Alot of the same community people are there twenty years later giving workshops,” he says. “In a cer tain way it’s all the things you’d hope for.”
With eacli prototype comes the question from a friend or visitor, “what are you trying to do, license this?”, and sometimes, entrepreneurial test bal loons are sent up. While Pliny has had a hand in marrying the attributes of some of his most favored products, like ECOR®, a composite panel made of loo percent recycled cellulose fiber materials, and TimberSIL, a wood and glass composite lumber (both made by companies owned and operat By Sam Martin 273 ed by others), the marketplace tends to be a narrower and shallower frame of reference than Pliny is inclined to dwell in. Despite the trademark sym bol that often follows Pliny’s project names, true to his nonprofit roots, he remains liberal with the sharing of information when it has the potential to catalyze some kind of transformation, whether with large-scale land de velopers, big box magnates, or international corporations who make their money perpetuating mucli of what the Center works to change.
A recent instance of this dance with the private sector involved a number of multinational chemical companies who, Pliny reports, have expressed interest in his experimental cement prototypes, descendants of the fly ash concrete the Center spent time on years ago. Pliny says he is often “torn be tween wanting to go big or wanting to go big,” meaning, can the authentic sustainable development he promotes be achieved “top down with the big guys,” or is there a way to capitalize on the opportunity further by engag ing with a corporation’s foundation arm (i.e. also going big)? Either way, what the big guys get-like others who have come looking for marketable products and systems-is a lesson in grassroots sustainable community development and the promise of industrial ecology. That is because, like
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many of his innovations, for Pliny, alternative cements lose their punch when seen exclusively as building materials. Pliny is generally not inter ested in tuning out the system that surrounds and contains the isolated element in question. Cement is inextricably connected to its ingredients, their provenance, the people who harvest those materials, those who use the cement to build, the economy of the place where the cement is sold and used, the way a community is designed, and the leaders who make the codes the people design and build under. Working on just one node in that system, for Pliny, would be missing an opportunity.
The cement in question in the recent instance is a carbon-balanced light-
weight cementitious material that, in at least one iteration, makes use of
waste brine, a by-product of the oil refining and water purification in
dustries that is often injected deep underground as a means of disposal.
Its history in Plinys work began with the ProtoScope project (a tool for
framing complex local issues geographically and sharing information with
others around the world dealing with similar challenges) and its myriad
offshoots weaving through the last half decade (including but not lim
ited to ProtoOne and ProtoTwo, as well as the ProtoCooperative initia
tive, all bound together by ProtoMetrics). The Island Nations Initiative
includes a kitchen that uses BrineCrete, one take on this material. In274 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III the solar kitchen, the concretes energy input is meant to be balanced with the use of renewable energy from a small-scale gasifier-a device that generates electricity through pyrolysis, a kind of oxygen-free burning of woody debris.132 Gasifiers produce biochar, carbon in the form of charcoal, which sequesters CO2 quite stably and is being investigated as a fertilizer.
Initially conceived as part ofthe exploration of disaster relief in coastal cit
ies such as Galveston, Texas, BrineCrete has become a star in recent work
partly because, as it turns out, brine is found-or extractable from seawa
ter-in many places that are ripe for flexible, sustainable, and human-scale
development interventions, whether in the developing world, coastal areas
increasingly prone to natural disasters, or places employing desalination
as a water-provision method. Further, it is plentiful in regions where Pliny
has landed through serendipity: the desert, where brackish groundwater is
common, and the coast, where oil refining often takes place. BrineCrete,
or its sister BurlCrete (reinforced with burlap and used as part of the build
ing systems of the Island Nations Initiative), can be used in buildings as
a resource-wise alternative to collapse-prone concrete blocks or otherPage 295
materials. In theory, it also puts the means of shelter-production in the hands of the community while using an abundant by-product.
While brine-dependent materials crop up in most of his recent projects, Pliny is careful to point out that it is not brine, per se, that interests him. “Brine is the trigger for an industrial ecology of the future,” he says. “Cata lyzing a new way of thinking about cement means rethinking the underly ing system.” In other words, brine happens to be the abundant resource of the moment, but what matters is thinking in terms of systems and the application of touchstones such as closed loops, resource balance, and hands-on, human scale. Brine helps connect Galveston to the Sahara to El Paso in what Pliny calls a “learning compact,” where it becomes obvious which areas of the world you might approach to borrow information. So, if a multinational chemical or concrete company wants this cement formula, they are obliged to take the rest as well: the local manufacture, the closed loop, the disaster safety, and the community participation.
****
By Sam Martin 275True to his coming of age in a time open to embracing cosmic connec tions, Pliny is adept at connecting the dots between his experiences, ideas and peer network, and the palpability of that three dimensional web gives him a window into similarities that might be opaque to the rest of us, particularly those more comfortable with a linear view. He applies what he calls “high level ways of thinking” that inextricably link his projects to one another, the thought fragments-intellectual by-products-from one project feeding the next. He respects methodologies such as Cra dle to Cradle and Dymaxion, but thinks them limited. Eventually, he says, you findyourselfstruggling to cram new concepts or ideas into the box you created rather than expand the box to accommodate the radical, the new, the previously unimagined.
The glow of all this beginning and beginning again, this intellectual pro toplasm, has an undeniable allure for a certain kind of seeker and is part of why people come to the Center; interns connected to fifty-six colleges and universities have ultimately partaken of that aura of possibihty. This attractiveness somewhat explains Plinys 28-page curriculum vitae: NGOs
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and governments and universities and conference organizers and activist groups all over the world invite Pliny to give the keynote address, to teach a workshop, to attend a charrette, accept a citation, or sit on the board of advisors. He is a fellow at three universities. As of this writing, Pliny relates that Ball State University has contracted with him for charrettes with eight hundred students.
At the same time, Pliny has spent many years actively risking being misun
derstood or underappreciated by those less tolerant of what he calls "com
motion." Plinys commotion miglit uncharitably be seen as the following
of tangents, the willful obfuscation of technical details, or as simple dis
organization, all of which make those accustomed to billing by the hour
uncomfortable. It is the rare international chemical company that has
an interest in being part of authentic sustainable development, although
Pliny never stops believing that now-or now, or now-is the moment that
that will change. That is another reason his worldview can be energizing
to be around. And unlike an Amory Lovins or even a Steve Jobs, Pliny is
not striking it rich, because he seldom makes allowances for tliose who can
not or will not tune into his web. So while his work stands in opposition
to abstraction at its root, his personal unwillingness to compromise or to
wait for you to catch up can mean that the communication of his ideas is276 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III anything but straightforward. The nature of his reputation in some ways hangs on this. Pliny might be too much of an artist for his own good, or on the other hand, just enough of one to make him exceptional.
Plenitude, designed for the Living City Design Competition, is a particu
larly rich example both theoretically and graphically: It is just plain out-
there in the best sense. At first blush, the renderings show Plenitude to
be a colony of multicolored dragonfly wings stretched into the shape of
Eiffel towers on a fractal-covered planet. The psychedelia recedes-a little-
when you dig into the details. The idea is to regenerate and bioremediate
a semi-arid Moroccan landscape scarred by energy-intensive phosphate
surface mining while incorporating carbon-balanced brine-based con
crete mixes, hydrogen-based energy for use, and energy for export from
wind and solar heliostats (devices that use mirrors to continuously re
flect sunlight at PV panels). It is a lot to contemplate, but in the end, the
seemingly figurative form was guided by familiar concepts of community
economic development, industrial ecology, building and energy systems
based on abundant sources that hurt no one to harvest. These have been
the foundations of Plinys work for many decades.Page 297
In his 2008 essay, “The Greening of the Brain” (for the book Biophilic Design) Pliny writes, “A space and the events within that space … can be designed so that occupants witness more thoroughly their interaction with a resource and the life cycle that creates it; turning on a faucet, for exam ple, triggers a recognition of the rainwater cistern the water comes from and, further, an understanding of the life cycle of water we rely on.” ‘33
In Plinys work, and in his world, there is almost always embedded mean ing that your brain may just decode on its own withoutyou ever conscious ly understanding it. That may be science, but mostly it is poetry.
-Dylan Siegler
By Sam Martin 277Page 298
ENDNOTES i The DC3 Fisk was flying that day from Managua to Puerto Cabezas tried to
take off four times before actually getting off the ground. Says Fisk: "On the fourth try we
got airborne. By this time everyone in the plane, having done his or her rosary, got up to
go to the bathroom almost at once. I was in the back of the plane where I could see holes in
the fuselage from bullets. The barbs of the pierced metal were pointing inward. I was ner
vous. Seeing everyone get up to go to the bathroom made me want to get up too, which I
did, but I had forgotten to undo my seatbelt, and my entire seat rose witlime when I stood.
Apparently, the plane was retrofitted with seats when it wasn't being used for military
cargo and the grounds crew didn't see the need to spend the time bolting the seats in place.
Of course, any crash would have created a sardine can of human bodies stacked on top of
each other."
2 LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The LEED
rating system is a way to gauge the "greenness" of a building. See Chapter 11 for a detailed
history and explanation of the LEED rating system.
3 The Raza Unida Party (RUP), or Partido de la Raza Unida in Spanish, was
the political arm of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It began in
Crystal City, Texas, in 1970 and later spread to California and Colorado. RUP was a viable278 Green Masters: third party in Texas politics in the 1970s with members winning local and county-wide Pliny Fisk III elections in south Texas. The party even fielded candidates for Texas governor through
out the decade.
4 The Mac 128 that Fisk used to do his worlcwith the Sandinistas was probably
the first Mac 128 in all of Nicaragua and one of the first purchased in Austin, Texas.
S In 1987, Benjamin Linder, an American engineer working on a hydroelectric
dam for the village of San Jose do Borcay, was shot and killed by a band of Contra rebels.
His death sparked intense debate in the U.S. media and government over the "covert" war
in Nicaragua and eventually spurred the U.S. Congress into officially prohibiting U.S.
funding for the war.
6 Nicaragua has a rich supply of high-alumina clay kaolinite which, when heated
to a high temperature, can replace Portland cement as a binder for concrete.
7 Philosophy of Sustainable Design, McLennan, page 4.
8 Philosophy of Sustainable Design, McLennan, pages 10-16.
9 New York Times, "The 1906 Home Club Co-op, at 11 East 45th Street" by Chris
topher Gray, February 6, 2000.Page 299
lO New York Times, “Pliny Fisk is Dead; Retired Banker, 78” March 31, 1939.
11 New York Times, “Pliny Fisk in an Auto Crash,” April 7, 1917.
12 Another female acquaintance of Fiskswas Lisa Wilson, daughter of Sloan Wil
son, the author of The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. The relationship was difficult due
primarily to financial issues on Fisk s side and although the relationship was, as Fisk puts
it, a truly passionate one with a really beautiful woman, it finally and permanently ended
when Wilson published an article called Stud on a Shoe String that depicted the relation
ship. The article was published in an intercollegiate student magazine, luckily with no
direct mention of Fisk by name.
13 Sunset Boulevard came out in 1950. Swansons nomination as Best Actress for her portrayal of Norma Shearer in the film was her third. The actress was also one of the
top silent film stars of the 1920s.
14 Bacteriology is a form of microbiology dedicated to the study of bacteria. In
Fisk Il’s case, he studied the bacteria capable of breaking down plant and food matter in a
compost system at a more rapid rate.
15 Fisk also has an older half sister, Robin Birdfeather (nde Fisk), from his father’s
previous marriage to Rachel Boehm.
16 Growing up, Fisk was involved with many aspects of making things. Design By Sam Martin 279
and construction projects ranged from stone-wall building to snow huts, underground
earth huts (witli fireplace!), a three-story tree house, model planes, model speed boats,
sailboats and models of amphibious vehicles, go-kart building and car restorations, in
cluding the partial restoration of a 1937 S-bracketed Mercedes convertible with spare tires
on the sides and a folding windshield. Fisk covered nearly all the building trades during
the summers, including septic work, masonry and carpentry. He would drive the Mer
cedes to construction sites.
17 The Go-Kart Racing track in Patterson, New York was a one and three quarter
mile circuit with a 1000 foot straight away going into 290 degree turn.Fisk learned how to
put the kart in a sideways slide ready to accelerate out of the turn by just ticking the inside
hay bale each time he entered the turn. He could obtain nearly a 50 to 60 mph speed on the
straight and accomplished this feat at only 14 years old.
18 Getting through school financially with no clear family financial resources be
came quite a task. Working during the school year as a laundromat attendant, bookstore
clerk, parking lot attendant, basketball usher and waiter was necessary drudgery. These
did not seem at all like a career launchers, especially while trying to get into one of the
most sought after graduate programs in architecture. Fisk remembers that, at times, in
Page 300
order to get home from Philadelphia to upstate New York with only the train fare from
New York north, that he would enter the Greyhound bus at the moment the driver took
a rest in the terminal and the bus door was open and bus empty, he would walk in and hide
in the back of the bus. This furtiveness apparently occurred on at least three occasions.
19 The Penn graduate program seemed a perfect fit for Fisk. He was asked to
skip his senior undergraduate year and enter the graduate honors program in architec
ture due to his performance in related program subjects sucli as a free-hand drawing class
taught by the well-known painter, Neil Welliver, and basic design taught by Stanislawa
Nowicki. The honors program was a big thing at Penn because it gave Penn students
preference over incoming applicants from around the United States and abroad. Penn was
of such high standing at the time that often, if applicants did not make it into the gradu
ate program, they would have a good chance of being accepted into Harvard or Yale. Fisk
did well enough in his first year in graduate school that he became one of ten students
chosen for the Dale Fellowship and travel to Europe. Each student made their own itin
erary for three months to places of their own choosing and then had the plan approved
by the Dean, G. Holmes Perkin. For the travel fellowship Fisk chose France, Holland,
Norway and Finland, with a concentration on the issue of social housing including co
operatives and new towns such as in Tapiola (located outside of Helsinki), where Fisk
first became aware of clustered utilities and the use of the small-piped Liliandahl vacuum
sewage system.280 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III 20 In the documentary My Architect (2003), Kahn’s son, Nathaniel Kahn, suggests
that his father was fifty years old before realizing what he wanted to do with architecture.
21 Venturi began teaching at Penn in the late 19SOS.
22 Loosely defined, postmodernism was a reaction against the universality
of modernism, asserting instead that experience is largely personal. Postmodern archi
tecture, therefore, is made up of various contrasting styles and aesthetics, sometimes in
a single building.
23 It was interesting to note that during the first Earth Day organized by his class-
mate, Austan Librach, (and taking place during Fisk's thesis completion period) Fisk did
not participate because he remembers being frightened by the idea that people would ap
prove all the things to create an environmental movement, but without the knowledge of
how to pull it offin reality. So Fisk stayed in his artist studio loft with his close companion,
Daria Bolton, and together they worked on both their master's theses (Daria's evolution
ary housing game and Pliny's model for repurposing polluted marsh lands throughout the
east coast corridor as gigantic natural waste water treatment systems).Page 301
24 Mother Earth News is currently published by Ogden Publications in Kansas City, Kansas, and is still a resource for rural and sustainable living.
25 Greywater-or graywater-refers to non-toxic, non-fecal wastewater from sinks,
dishwashers or washing machines that can be reused to water lawns, gardens or other
nan-potable uses.
26 “Ecological design” was a term used widely in the 1960s and 1970s to refer to
design, architecture and planning that was compatible with the natural environment. The
term is used sparingly today, having been largely replaced with “sustainable design.”
27 Fuller’s Global Grid System was based on his idea that an dymaxion grid that
could be created over the entire earth and, in that way, even the playing field between rich
and poor countries or regions within countries based on how many resources they have
could be determined and ideally shared. He thought energy production and equitable dis
tribution would solve that source of international tension.
28 This happened sometime between 1971 and 1974 when Fuller was inhis 70s and
widely recognized for his architectural accomplishments.
29 Here is a quote from the Fuller letter: “I have gone over your various research
and development projects and find them lucid, intelligent, economic and in everyway
gratifying.” It was signed “R. Buckminster Fuller — 1971”.) By Sam Martin 281
30 In 1975 Fisk’s Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems had just been
declared a non-governmental organization with a board of directors.
31 Ian McHarg quotes from the magazine Science in his autobiography A Questfor
Life (John Wiley & Sons, 1996, page 213), writing “The Penn Department of Landscape
Architecture and Regional Planning was described in Science as having national, per
haps international primacy.’”
32 Fisk and the Center were awarded the Louis Mumford Award in the Environ
ment category in 2012.
33 Fisk’s formal education also included a brief stint as a National Science Fellow
at the National Center for Energy Management and Power where he was on a Ph.D. track.
He did not complete the course because, as he says, he didn’t want to “live and die in Phila
delphia.” “I had to get out,” he says.
34 Ross Ashby, one of the founders of systems philosophy, wrote a book on cyber
netics called Design for a Brain, which influenced Fisk a great deal, evident in creating the
prototype model of the City of Austin Green Building program.
Page 302
35 Fisk became involved in a double-major program and received master s de
grees in architecture and landscape architecture. His combined thesis, The Hackensack
Meadows — A Study in Urban Ecology, proposed a totally new method of planning that was
not the McHargian overlay method but instead recorded the dynamics of change over
time, and the use of this information to propose management practices that would meld
human and natural processes together at a next stage ofthe urban-nature interface - evolu
tionary. At the time Fisk's thesis would become the largest proposed wastewater wetland
project in the United States. The dynamic systems approach was clearly influenced by
the general systems theory exposure supplied by Ackoff and others at the Social Systems
Sciences program at Penn's Wharton School of Business where, as Fisk states, "I illegally
took courses because they were beyond the electives within the architecture program."
The Hackensack Meadows approach became a far better method of representing ecologi
cal change in highly polluted environments and earned Fisk an invitation to join Wallace
McHarg Roberts & Todd and the Lake Pontchartrain New Town Project in the Missis
sippi Delta region.
36 Much of Fisk's inspiration for the thesis came from the ecologist Howard
Odum and his book Environment Power and Society, as well as from an ecologist named
Kathe Seidel at the Max Planck Institute in Germany where tlie first "living machine"
(as they are now called) was created to treat highly polluted water in the Rhine using the
same phragmites plant that was in the Hackensack Meadows. Fisk credits Seidel as being282 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III the real forefather of the design and technology of living machines.
37 Sauer, for her part, was never a landscape architecture student at Penn, though
she was recently awarded an honorary degree. As she puts it, she "mentored" her way to
wards becoming a landscape architect andbotanist, eventually becoming one ofMcHarg's
proteges and creating Andropogon Associates, an architecture, landscape architecture,
and planning firm in Philadelphia. Sauer still consults for the group and remains a close
friend of Fisk s.
38 The house was located in a very run down area on South Street in Philadelphia.
According to Fisk, "most neighbors seemed to be thugs, pimps, or prostitutes." But the
place was special. The middle of the loft had demountable floors going through two sto
ries where both beams and floor panels could be removed. The previous owner had been
a sculptor and had used the floors as scaffolding to create monumental sculpture. When
completed, the sculpture could be removed through large continuous windows that were
also removable. Basically, Fisk and his British friend, Nicolas Purcell, lived there (the
house would hold halfa dozen friends at party time). Fisk and Purcell discovered five fire-
places that they uncovered so they could have heat, and properly entertain his better off
Philadelphia guests, never mind that there was a significant rat problem. "The place was
crawling with them," Fisk says. They tried several things to get rid of them, but eventuallyPage 303
they noticed a pattern: when the tea kettle began whistling at the end of dinner, the rats
would come out. One day, after a visit back home, Fisk returned with his 22 caliber rifle
that he had as a boy in the woods of Westchester County. One evening Fisk was in his top
floor studio working on a first year graduate school project when Nicolas decided to put
the kettle on. As soon as it started whistling, shots rang out and bullets whizzed past Fisk.
He ran down to find Nicolas taking aim at rats in the rafters as they peaked out to look
at the tea kettle. Of course, the bullets had gone through the ceiling, past where Fiskivas
working, and out through the roof, which subsequently had to be sealed.
39 Open or flexible building systems refers to an architectural design that can be
easily altered to accommodate for more or less space. See Chapter 11 for more details. Fisk
believes this approach can play a key role in reducing material and waste flow into and out
of tlie building industry.
40 In an odd coincidence, Fisk and his then-high-school aged daughter, Carson,
were visiting the Rhode Island School of Design in the fall of 2004 to look into the visual
arts department. The two were sitting in on an orientation lecture for prospective stu
dents when the presenter began talking about the types of projects students would tackle
during the course. Captain Marble Meets Manmade Environment Part One was the first
project mentioned.
41 Wallace-McHarg Associates was founded in 1962 by McHarg and David Wal- By Sam Martin 283 lace, the city planner who was the first director of the Redevelopment Authority in Phila
delphia and best known for his work as executive director for the Greater Baltimore Com
mittee, the entity responsible for the successful redevelopment of Baltimore’s Charles
Center and Inner Harbor. Bill Roberts and Tom Todd were the later partners.
42 According to Fisk, Howard Odum’s Environment, Power and Society (1971),
which he was reading during this time, became his biggest influence on the Pontchartrain
East project from the standpoint of ecologically connecting the new town to the gulf.
43 Pyrolysis is a chemical process by which organic material is decomposed into
carbon using extreme heat with the absence of oxygen. It is usually applied to the recy
cling of old tires and is considered more environmentally friendly than burning or bury
ing them.
44 Years later, McHarg’s office was actually hired as the principal designer and
planner for the University of Texas campus and the Lake Austin watershed. Fisk was not
involved in either.
45 LBJ was born and raised in Johnson City, a Hill Country town 45 minutes west
of Austin.
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46 Maria Telkes, AveryJohnson and Sean Wellesley-Miller played leading roles in
the MIT solar program and architecture school.
47 Design with Climate: A Bioclimatic Approach to Architectural Regionalism by
Victor Olgyay. John Wiley and Sons. Reprint edition, 1992.
48 The Gambo Gig Dutclicanal boat/barge was named after Daria's grandmoth
er. It was a true Dutcli canal boat built in 1897 and brought to the United States on board
a tramp steamer. The boat contained 36,000 pounds of Swedish black iron and was gaff
rigged with 4000 sf of original heavy canvas. The main sail had the 30-foot hand-carved
boom done primarily by Fisk. The 67x14 foot boat contained a main cabin or saloon-size
room with the galley off the end towards the piloting deck. The saloon contained an area
for a Dutch fireplace that would be totally transformed from living space to a coal or grain
room for cargo hauls, using the large skylight above as entry points. Apparently, there
was a system for using the sailing boom as a loading boom or at least that is what Fisk sur
mised. During these occasions the crew (usually containing two couples) would evidently
live on deck — manning the rigging and the leeboards that weighed 900 pounds each. The
"come about" part of turning the boat was a real art as Fisk describes — "If you didn't time
the up and down, one of those large leeboard fins would literally break off because the
lee side had nothing for the fin to bare against; thus, it had to be up while the other was284 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk ill down witli relatively-good coordination.” Due to its adaptability to water depth and use of
space, Fisk and Bolton liked to call the boat "the only example of responsive marine archi
tecture." The boat and the loft in Philadelphia were early examples of their concentration
on flexible environments in years to come.
49 Appropriate technology was the term given to regionally appropriate methods
of farming, energy generation, wastewater treatment, material manufacturing, or any
thing that was technologically simple and easily accessible.
50 Janine Benyus wrote Biomimicry (William Morrow and Company, 1997) that is
considered the authority on nature-inspired, biomimetic design.
51 Many books, magazines and pamphlets were starting to be published about al
ternative energy, organic food growing and self-sustainable lifestyles by Fisk's peers. Fisk
and his students read Frances Moore Lappa's Diet for a Small Planet (Ballantine Books,
1972, re-published 1985) and pamphlets by Andrew MacKillop with titles including Why
Soft Technology? Alternative Solutions to the Energy Crisis (Methuen, 1975). In later years,
they would also read Hazel Henderson s Politics ofthe Solar Age (Doubleday, 1981) and Cre
ating Alternative Futures: The End ofEconomics (Perigee, 1980). Magazines such as MotherPage 305
Earth News and the Whole Earth Review were also deeply involved in bringing this kind of information to the larger, non-academic group of back-to-the-landers.
52 The original idea for the lab-or a lab-like space-came out of discussions between Fisk and Art Schaller at Ball State University during the year Fisk taught there
after college. Fisk and Schaller created sketches of a cascading series of events catalyzed
by a guy peeing in a toilet out of which bloomed a flower bed and prismatic colors rico
cheting from the light-infused flushing water inside of a glass holding tank. It captured
the essence of a maximum potential building system in terms of both art and science.
53 Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher, Harper and Row, 1989, Chapter 4: “Bud dhist Economics,” page 56. Original publication date was 1973. The essay, Buddhist Eco
nomics, was originally printed in the UK-based Resurgence magazine in 1968.
54 The Intermediate Technology Development Group still operates in many of
the world s poorest countries. It is based in England and its mission is to “use technology
in the fight against poverty.”
55 NCAT would end up partially funding some of Fisk’s work in the late 1970s in
Crystal City, Texas (see Chapter 12).And that was not Fisks onlybrush with Schumacher.
During the Carter administration, the British economist was invited to present to Con
gress. U.S. economist Hazel Henderson was part of Carter s technology advisory group
and she had seen one of Fisk’s presentations at AAAS national conference in Denver. She By Sam Martin 285
actually tried unsuccessfully to get Fisk to present at that same congressional hearing to
demonstrate that the United States was picking up on similar theories as Schumacher’s.
56 The Farallones Institute still exists but only indirectly as the Ecological De
sign Institute (EDI). Van der Ryn, who taught at Berkeley for thirty years, is still the direc
tor. He was also the California state architect in Governor Jerry Brown’s first term in the
late 1970s, and is considered by many to be another key figure in the advancement of the
theories behind the sustainable design movement.
57 Bender had also been a student of Louis Kahn’s at Penn about the same time
Fisk was there.
58 For more information on this idea see Building with the Breath of Life (2000)
and Silence Song & Shadows (2000), both available in essay form and on DVD from Bend
er’s website www.tombender.org.
59 Fisk did visit Bender at UM in 1974 with a cadre of students to exchange re
search and share knowledge they had learned at the Lab.
60 The Dome Cookbook by Steve Baer, published by the Lama Foundation (1969),
is out of print.
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61 For more information on Steve Baer’s drum walls, see “Practical Solar Power,”
Mother Earth News, issue No. 28,July/August 1974.
62 The interest grew steadily and by 1978, there had been so much talk about and
interest in passive designs that ASES established what amounted to a separate two-day
meeting just to discuss those theories, sans all the technical jargon of the main annual
conference, which focused on active solar issues.
63 Homegrown Sundwellings by Peter van Dresser was originally published by The
Lightning Tree Press. Its reissue under the title Passive Solar House Basics (1996) is pub
lished by Ancient City Press, PO Box 5401, Santa Fe, NM 87502, (505) 982-8195.
64 Ghost Ranch is a retreat and conference center that was donated to the Presby
terian Cliurch by its owners in 1955. It has two locations, one in Abiquiu and one in Santa
Fe. Van Dresser's Sundwelling homes are still in use at the Abiquiu campus as offices and
dormitories. Van Dresser was buried at Ghost Ranch Abiquiu in June of 1983.
65 A Landscape for Humans: A case study of the potentials for ecologically guided
development in an uplands region by Peter van Dresser, Lightning Tree Press, 1976.
Out of Print.
66 In 1982 Fisk was invited to be the keynote speaker at the lotlianniversary of van
। Dresser's Life Technics Conference at the New Mexico Ghost Rancliand was given the286 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III 10th Anniversary Peter van Dresser award.
67 Pliny liked the idea of a cafe where like-minded people could go eat and effect
change so much that he made plans to open one of his own. Thirty years later he drew up
plans for a Solar Cafe as the centerpiece of the Center's 30th Year Master Plan. See Chap
ter 10 for more.
68 Aquaculture is the cultivation of fish and plants in water. Fish farming is
a form of aquaculture, as is the cultivation of algae and other water-based micro-organ
isms and plants.
69 The New Alchemy Institute ceased operations in 1991, though John and Nancy
Todd are still very active in the world of sustainable design. John Todd is currently the
CEO of Ocean Arks International (www.oceanarks.org), the founder and president of
John Todd Ecological Design (www.jtecodesign.com), and a Research Professor and Dis
tinguished Lecturer at the University of Vermont. Dr. Bill McLarney is the director of the
Little Tennessee River Biomonitoring Project.
70 During their campout at the Institute, Fisk and Bolton helped dig one of the
first aquaponic dymaxion-covered fish systems.Page 307
71 For a complete history of the New Alchemy Institute see Nancy Jack Todds historical recount A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design (Island
Press, 2005).
72 The Laboratory for Maximum Potential Building Systems was featured on the
cover of the Number 14, May 1974 Alternative Sources ofEnergy magazine.
73 The Center has joined with several groups in the area to turn this stretch ofFM
969 into a “Green Corridor.” The housing development that nearly borders Fisk’s land is
billed as a sustainable neighborhood. Austin’s wastewater reuse effort originates from the
nearby treatment plant. A “purple pipe” distribution networkwill eventually funnel water
into the city to be used for things like irrigating golf courses. An organic farm and an at
tempt at a co-housing community are in the area as well.
74 BaselineGreen is the trademarked term Pliny gave to a complex method
of measuring the financial and environmental impact of a building nationwide. See
Chapter 10 for a detailed definition and an investigation into the methodology behind
BaselineGreen.
75 The Solar Decathlon is a competition held every two years between selected
university teams that try to create a house run entirely off solar power. The houses have
been assembled on the Washington D.C.’s National Mall, where they are judged and rated
according to a specific set of guidelines. (Beginning in 2013 the site will vary.) See Chapter By Sam Martin 287
12 for a detailed look at the Solar Decathlon projects Fisk guided.
76 The CMPBS framework for understanding the development of the Center’s programs and projects is divided into three inter-related categories: (1) prototypes (built
products, buildings, energy systems, and samples of alternative materials); (2) protocols
(methodologies illustrated in this book as the Lenses For a Maximum Potential Future);
and, (3) policies to enable protocols and prototypes to be broadly applied by local, state,
and national governments. The CMPBS framework can start at any of the three cate
gories. For example, the protocol category referred to as Feedback City (now applied to
a variety of citywide sustainable rating programs), was first applied to the Austin Green
Builder Program. The GreenBalance carbon balancing part of BaselineGreen (see the
“Supports and Connections” lens on page 249) could not have been conceived without
understanding the potential of life cycle balancing using specific materials of varying
carbon cost versus carbon sequestration that, when “mixed,” could create an embodied
carbon balance. When one uses the lens pages in this biography, the TAG code on the up
per right corner provides the reader with a fuller understanding.
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77 Fisk wrote this definition of Maximum Potential Building Systems and sub
sequently read it out loud to me during one of our interviews. At the time of writing, one
form of this had only been published in one place-on a CMPBS poster for the 2005 U.S.
Green Building Council international conference in Atlanta.
78 The Portola Institute was an educational forum started by Stuart Brand. Por
tola also published the Whole Earth Catalogue.
79 The magazine the Portola Institute put out was called The Energy Primer,
which is where the quote comes from. According to Fisk, the Energy Primer was the fore
most magazine on this type of work. Fisk and the Center were grouped with Farallones
and the New Alchemy Institute to create what many consider the first three groups of
their kind in the United States.
80 Fisk's work at the university also got him an invitation to present to the United
Nations Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver in 1978, where Fisk met and
was exposed to the work of John Turner of the Joint Center for Urban Studies at MIT.
Turner is the author of Housing by People: Toward Autonomy in Building Environments
(1977), which he introduced at the Vancouver conference to great interest.
81 Fisk brought in outsiders to jury the studios, including Dr. Geoffrey Stanford
from Dallas, a medical doctor, city planner and large-scale organic waste and food nu288 Green Masters: trition expert who developed the Dallas Nature Center, and Alien Seal a local architect Pliny Fisk III and planner.
82 Rammed earth is the name given to a form of building that uses a mixture of
sand, gravel, clay, and earth such as caliche to make walls. Concrete or other stabilizers are
used to give the wall stability. The mixture is poured into forms and then tamped down.
83 Sulfur was actually harvested from precipitator stacks at petroleum refineries
to make sulfur tiles and sulfur building blocks or, in one case, a molten spray that had
a home-made reinforcing thread blowing apparatus. Fisk's idea was to turn this harmful
substance (sulfur is a by-product of the petroleum refining industry and a major cause of
acid rain in the country) into a useful and economically viable resource. At the time Mc
Gill University's Minimum Cost Housing Program was suggesting similar uses of sulfur
to cut down on sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions, as was the Southwest Research Institute
in San Antonio.
84 Fisk's map work was similar to McHargs Delaware River watershed program,
which evolved to become a valuable regional planning document.
85 Fisk and his Center colleagues are now applying ecoBalance Design and Plan
ning to the EcoDistrict concept, (developed in part by Tim Smith, a Penn alum and friendPage 309
of Fisk’s), for a 65-acre tract that comprises the Seaholm District in downtown Austin
with a projected build-out of 4.8 million square feet.
86 The Austin Green Building Program was not only conceived using the Ashby
Feedback approach which transformed into a building rating system to be operated at
a city/region scale with private and public entities but it was also very much based on life-
cycle thinking. Fisk was enamored with the workbeing done by SETAC (Society for Envi
ronmental Toxicology and Chemistry) that had started a world-wide effort to understand
the environmental impacts of chemicals using a complete life-cycle inventory. SETAC
was the earliest group known to have done this type of research and was one of the few ex
amples Fisk could point to when showing how the life of any specified product connected
a network of businesses in a given region. He also was very conscious of the fact that
the so-called “life-cycle assessment” really did not depict a complete cycle inclusive of
regenerative or cyclical behavior. He tried showing that to keep things local was not only
a simpler, more understandable life cycle but it could actually be applied to real businesses
and real locations and not remain simply a mathematical statistic. An impact that was
not considered by SETAC was the dollar issue or where money was flowing as a result of
certain specification decisions that could support the lifecycle of money regionally-there
were many diagrams sent into the Urban Consortium (and eventually to the Earth Sum
mit Committee) that depicted varying scales of credits for lifecycle completeness from
liouse to neighborhood to region. Some of this thinking was not actually implemented By Sam Martin 289 in its entirety and still remains as an urban planning protocol or policy available to other
cities or regions to use in working with the actual energy, water, material and monetary
flows as the essential ingredients for creating a human ecosystem. See Chapter 15 for more
details on the City of Austin Green Builder Program.
87 See Chapter 16 for more details on the EPA project.
88 Introduction to Landscape Design byJohn L. Motloch (John Wiley & Sons, 1991,
2nd Ed. 2000).
89 Fisk has since stabilized caliche with a number of alternative cements includ
ing flyash and MgO, making its use even more relevant globally. “The Caliche Report,”
written by former Center staffer Steve Musick, can be downloaded from the Centers
website.
90 Fisk visited Kyrgyzstan in Russia in May of 1985 as part of a delegation set up
by Don Watson with anti-nuclear and renewable-energy activists Judi and Lou Friedman
of Promoting Enduring Peace. The U.S. group included the late Greg Franta ofthe Rocky
Mountain Institute as well as Richard Gotlieb and Rob Wills, energy activists from the
northeast). Fisk and his team were met by a group of Russians made up of ex-cosmonauts,
a well-known ballet dancer, an architect, a planner, and several businessmen. At the time.
Page 310
Russia was in the Gorbachev era and optimism for rethinking the future was high. The
delegation discussed sustainable possibilities for the country, and they were treated to
excellent hospitality, from good food to private performances in opulent opera halls.
Fisk remembers one evening dinner party featuring horse-drawn sleighs filled with food,
chandeliers, and recently roasted pig and goat. "When the sleighs arrived, several people
climbed out with shovels and created a table and benches made of snow," he recalls. "They
covered them with thick rugs for us to sit and dine on. Before the feast, we started the
obligatory Russian vodka toasts, whicli turned into more toasts. It was the Russian way
of getting rid of pretense and really getting to know their guests," says Fisk, who found
a way to melt the snow in his glass so people would think he was downing vodka and
not offending. He wanted to remain sober enough to make a good toast. When it was his
turn, he toasted to the difference between cultures. "My toast went something like, 'You
Russians are like the deep forest with large trees and deep roots while we Americans are
like the weeds in the field, swaying with the slightest breeze and new ideas. But, as in any
ecosystem the place where there is real action is where the field meets the forest. That's
where the most productivity, the most diversity, and the most creativity exists. So here is
a toast to the edge. May the edge continue forever.'"
91 For more on Fisk's "icon language," see the discussion on the Green Builder
Program in Chapter 17.290 Green Masters: 92 The 1974 resource atlas was officially called “An Appropriate Technology Pliny Fisk III Working Atlas of the State of Texas.” It was funded by Andy Sansom who was then vice
director of the University of Houston's Energy Center. What is important about the fund
ing is that even at this early stage Fisk was getting work outside the University.
93 The Menil Foundation was established in 1954 by Dominique Schlumberger
andjohn de Menil to serve as a management entity for their art collection, which included
10,000 pieces. Its secondary purpose was to "support and advance religious, charitable,
literary, scientific, and educational purposes." Dominique de Menil died in 1997.
94 The Menil Collection opened in 1987 in Houstons museum district. Renzo
Piano is the architect of record.
95 La Raza Unida Party, or RUP, initially filed for official third party status in Za
vala, La Salle, and Dimmit counties in Texas in January 1970 byJose Angel Gutierrez and
Mario Compean. See Texas State Historical Association's Texas Handbook Online entry
for "Raza Unida Party," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/waroi.
96 From the Texas State Historical Association's Texas Handbook Online in an
article entitled Tejano Politics http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/
wmtkn: "Subsequent major political events included the 1970 organization of the RazaPage 311
Unida Party, which succeeded in 1970 in taking control of city and county government in
Zavala County; Governor Dolph Briscoe consequently called the county a ‘little Cuba.’”
97 Natuial Gas Is Out of Reach for Texas Town by John M. Crewdson, Special to The New York Times. New York Times, October 2, 1977.
98 After this event, Fisk got invited to provide testimony to the U.S. Congress,
speaking to the correlation between access to energy and health and the pattern of how
low-income populations around the country were having their energy supply cut off due
to lack of payment. Also, then San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros invited Fisk to present
to community groups in that city.
99 Multi Level Coordination Of Low Cost Community Produced Passive Solar Sys tems In Crystal City, Texas by Pliny Fisk, 1979 and presented to the 4th National Passive Solar Conference, October 3-5, 1979, Kansas City, MO.
100 Natural Gas Is Out of Reach for Texas Town By John M. Crewdson Special to The New York Times. New York Times, October 2, 1977.
101 Information in this paragraph taken from the following article: President
Weighs Claim Of Executive Privilege By Edward Walsli Washington Post StaffWriter, The
Washington Post, March 15, 1978.
102 After her career at the Office of Consumer Affairs, Tina Hobson went on By Sam Marlin 291
to be a board member at the National Center for Appropriate Technology and founder
of Renew Earth, an international NGO that supports environmental programs around
the world.
103 “One might wonder why a major university architecture and planning pro
gram down the road from our center has rarely done anything on a consistent basis with
us since those early Taniguchi days,” says Fisk. “In fact, during the years we were working
with Mexican Americans in south Texas and then in Nicaragua and Grenada, we were
told by students that the faculty specifically told them not to visit the Center, and that
all we did was work with revolutionaries. This slight went on for about twenty years. The
next real collaboration we did with University of Texas was the Solar Decathlon project in
2002, and apparently even that was a battle at the faculty meeting when our involvement
was decided. I was given the title of Adjunct Professor during the summer it took us to
build the Solar D and we worked out a deal to keep the building at the Center through the
support of then Dean Fritz Steiner. The University of Texas Architecture School decided
to use the Center for their decathlon basically because the Center had all the shops and
personnel and, for a half summers salary, they could get quite a bargain. The ice with UT
was broken.”
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104 An Appropriate Technology Working Atlas for the State of Texas, The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, 1975.
105 Before President Ronald Reagan sent U.S. troops to Grenada Fisk had been
staying with some St. George's Medical School students to save money while he and Andy
Reding, a Princeton University political activist, were trying to get a job with the revolu
tionary government of the New Jewel Movement. While in Grenada, Fisk learned how
to wind surf, which got him acquainted with the island's reefs. He also found out that
the locals were harvesting the reef to use as the calcium ingredient for the island's stucco
industry. Dismayed by this practice, Fisk came up witlian experiment modeled after work
done byhis friend Wolf Hilbertz to show the Grenadians how to create calcium carbonate
from bundled pencil leads (the anode) and metal screens (the cathode). (For more infor
mation on this method ofsea water construction see BioBlock and Accretion experiments
by Wolf Hilbertz.) The sea experiment was a simple electrolysis set up with a battery char
ger and a cathode and anode to attract calcium from the sea water in order to provide an
example to the NewJewel government that they did not need to destroy the reefs in order
to source lime for the piaster and white wash for their buildings. They merely needed
a simple, near-shore, wind-driven electricity supply. He borrowed a battery charger from
a garage where scooters were kept near the school and he ran some lines from the charger
to a small wire cage in the sea. This would cause calcium carbonate and a series of metallic
salts to collect on the cage where it could be scrapped off and fired in a kiln. The experi292 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III ment, though small in scale, was a proof of concept that there was an alternative method
of collecting materials for lime and stucco without chopping apart the island's valuable
reefs. As it happened, the Libyan ambassador was living next door to the school and the
garage where Fisk's experiment was taking place, and one day he discovered these wires
going into the sea from the American house next door. He told the Grenadian government
that there must be spying activity going on, which toolcsome explaining by Fisk. The
minor international incident caused relations to be strained for several days before the
damage was repaired.
106 See Chapter 16 for more information on COTE.
107 Fisk's Texas workshop inspired other similar straw bale workshops around the
country. One in particular took place in Oracle, Arizona, that brought together a group of
activists that would later become leaders in the straw building movement. The organiz
ers were James Kalin and Matts Myhrman, and participants included David Bainbridge,
Bill and Athena Steen, David Eisenberg, Judy Knox and Fisk. At the Oracle workshop,
Fisk was shocked to see that the participants had decided to build a load bearing straw
building demo with compressed bales, a procedure he would never have advised. Not
too many years later, this same type of setup had tragically crushed a family in Canada
after the entire home collapsed. The problem early on was that no one except Fisk andPage 313
a handful of others had very much experience building with straw. In the late 1980s, Fisk
had to go througli the rigor of having to build a state approved and engineered build
ing for his Laredo Demonstration Farm, which gave him unique insights into how to
build witli straw bale. There are other examples of Fisks straw bale work. He and a for
mer student, Steve Gerdes, designed and built the Carpenter Residence in Austin, a fly
ash light straw clay building. Another of Fisk’s straw clay projects was done with Gary
Zuker. That one became a well-published post and beam traditional building and ended
up in Fine Homebuilding magazine. Eventually, several of Fisk’s methods for safe straw
bale building, including post and beam, ladder block, and light straw clay, were published
in a book called The Straw Bale Home. Straw bale construction was eventually given
official engineeringguidelines andasetofcodecertificationsbasedlargely onworkdone by
David Eisenberg. California’s first code-approved straw bale residence was a collabora
tion of Fislcand architect Ken Haggard.
108 Fine Homebuilding, Issue 83, September 1993.
109 Fisl<came to understand these meetings as treaty council meetings, and based
on the stories of past and present abuse he heard, Fisk quickly understood why it was so
unusual for he and colleague John Hart to be in attendance and why outsiders were not
normally invited. Fisk refused to share any of the stories he heard in this biography.
110 The following quote by Don Watson is from a self-published book by Fisk and By Sam Martin 293 Vittori about the various projects accomplished by the Center over the years. It puts a
point on the work done by Fisk for the Apache in the mid-1980s: “What is the project
that has had the greatest impact on the welfare of the world? I like to answer for me, it is
the design of a latrine for self-help housing in the hot, dry regions of North Africa. It was
based on designs first developed in Zimbabwe. A close second of my favorites is a project
that ” three Amigos” undertook in the mid-1980s to improve housing on the White River
Reservation of the Apache Nation. In those years I served as an appropriate technology
consultant for Save the Children. The project was to provide design and technical as
sistance for self-help rehabilitation of substandard housing using local materials, climatic
design, skills development and job training. Who else to call upon for this assignment
than Pliny Fisk, a genius in local technologies and the late Jeff Cook? The housing designs
that Fisk and Cook developed for this assignment combined adobe for floors and walls,
the use of sawdust and rejects and culls from local lumbering operations for wall insu
lation and wood stoves fabricated locally from reworked metal containers. The designs
were successfully built by unemployed youth. Through these combined means, limited
funds were applied to the largest number of households - in some cases for winterizing of
existing homes and in other cases for new homes.”
Page 314
Ill The Laredo Farm project was also inspired, in part, by an article in the Febru
ary 1978 issue of Science magazine by E. S. Lipinslcy called "Fuels from Biomass: Integra
tion with Food and Materials Systems." It became the first flexible farm system actually
built in the United States.
112 Years later this type of integrated development would be a key in how ZERI
(Zero Energy Research Institute) would describe its own worlcunder the leadership of
Gunter Pauli.
113 The Laredo Blueprint Farm was a working farm until 1994 when it was ac
quired by the Rio Grande International Studies Center (RISC) and transformed into an
environmental education center. Over 40,000 people visit the RISC facility each year.
114 The Most Innovative City in the World by Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times,
June 3, 1996.
115 Fisk was first invited to Curitiba by operations research systems analyst
Rodolpho Ramina.
116 The program is still operational and is now known as Austin Energy
Green Building.________ 117 There are now more than 10,000 homes and buildings rated by AEGBP.
294 Green Masters: Pliny Fisk III 118 The fact that Fisk was an unregistered architect was a serious departure for
a committee under the aegis of the AIA, whicli had long made it a rule that any member
of one of their committees had to be registered. Berkebile managed to convince the larger
group of Fisk's importance to the COTE. In response to Fisk's argument to diversify the
group away from architects only, Berkebile also created a Scientific Advisory Committee,
made up of anyone who had valuable skills but was not an architect, to advise the COTE.
119 The School for Field Studies (SFS) was started in 1980 as an undergraduate
environmental study abroad program that is accredited througli Boston University. It has
campuses in Mexico, Australia, Costa Rica, Kenya, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
120 During this project, while he was back home in Austin, Fisk heard a "dew
catching expert" from the United Nations presenting his findings, including the use of
the shade cloth, on the NPR radio program "Living On Earth."
121 Constructed Wetlands in the Sustainable Landscape by Craig S. Campbell and
Michael H. Ogden (John Wiley and Sons, 1999).Page 315
122 GreenForms was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Building America
Program, through the Hickory Consortium, a collaboration of several firms including
the Center, led by Mark Kelley, PE. A prototype of this building system is permanently
installed at the Center. Its “flexible space” explorations include a ceiling used for storage
and a staircase that can be turned into a meeting room table. The GreenForms prototype
uses an innovative “pin-based foundation system”-essentially piers made into industrial
strength helix anchors-that create a very light footprint and minimal disturbance to the
building site while withstanding both settlement and wind load.
123 As manager of UT’s team, Fisk was involved in every part of the project from
design to construction on the Washington, DC Mall. The “Solar D” house, as Fisk and the
Center’s interns now call it, sits out at Max’s Pot as Fisk’s office and demonstration build
ing. It is one of several examples of modular, pre-fab buildings at the Center.
124 Vittori’s work in the greening of hospitals and other health care buildings rep
resented a new direction for green building and a significant new business development
for the Center in the early 2000s. In 2002 she helped author a report known as the Ameri
can Society for Healthcare Engineering’s Green Healthcare Construction Guidance State
ment, an early step in establishing green building protocols customized for the healthcare sector. That worlc evolved into the Green Guide for Health Care, and later the LEED for
Healthcare rating system, for which Vittori was Founding Chair. She was a consultant on
the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas in Austin, the first LEED Platinum By Sam Marlin 295
certified hospital in the world.
125 In a happy coincidence, Fisk and Ive were both included-and written about in
separate articles-in the 2005 “Visionaries” issue of Metropolis magazine.
126 The UN reports are all referred to as the “State of the World’s Cities Reports.”
The first one was published in 2001 and subsequent reports have been published every
two years, including “The Millennium Development Goals and Urban Development”
report from 2007 and the “Harmonious Cities” report from 2008-2009.
127 The official title of the report is State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009: Har
monious Cities (UN Habitat, http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss/1istItemDetails.
aspx?publicationID=2562).
128 Here is an extended list of the protoScope database references:
An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century
U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy
www.oceancommission.gov/documents/full_color_rpt/welcome.html
Page 316
ArcView
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.
www.esri.com/software/arcview/
Coastal Sprawl: The Effects of Urban Design on Aquatic Ecosystems in the United States
Pew Oceans Commission
www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail. aspx?id=3OO37
Ecoregion Maps
World Wildlife Fund
www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/ecoregions/maps/
EARTHScope
Buckminster Fuller Institute
wivw.earthscope.com
Global Earth Observation System of Systems
Group on Earth Observations
wiviv.earthobservations.org296 Green Masters: ISI Web of Knowledge Pliny Fisk III Thomson Reuters www.isiwebofknowledge.com
NATHAN (NATural Hazards Assessment Network)
Munich Re
mrnathan.munichre.com
Profile of the Oil and Gas Extraction Industry
United States Environmental Protection Agency
www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/publications/assistance/sectors/noteboolcs/oil
Surviving in a Warmer World
New Scientist, February 28, 2009
www.newscientist.com
Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World
National Geographic Society
www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld/terrestrial.htmlPage 317
Watersheds of the World
EarthTrends www.earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/watersheds/iiidex.php
WiserEartli
Natural Capital Institute
129 Patent attorneys at the Vinson & Elkins law firm are spearheading the Center’s
intellectual property efforts and have entered three patents and 23 claims into the US pat
ent office, including the Island Nations Initiative, a sustainable mobility traffic pollution
technique, and a home building system that is able to combat wind and fire.
130 To show Fisk his influential stature, Berger sent Fisk a photo of himself with
arms around President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton in the aftermath of the
2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
131 It should be noted that the Center has been working with the Texas colonias
since the 1980s, and continues that work. Colonias are communities with no access to
water or sewage due to their on-incorporated status-there are more than 2,294 colonias
in the state, with a total population of more than 400,000 people. By Sam Martin 297
132 The project is a partnership with California biomass research, education and
experimentation entity All Power Labs, the workplace of Pliny’s son Ariel Fisk-Vittori.
133 Kellert, Stephen. Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life. Wiley, 2008.
Page 318
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