In short
The Ecosa Institute is an educational institute situated in Prescott, Arizona. It was set on the idea that design impacts on the natural and built environment and exposes them to alternative strategies for reducing that impact. Ecosa stay apart from the classical programs; its classes bring fifteen selected undergraduates, graduates, design educators and some practicing professionals to work together on some real projects. It takes on select design projects with the goal of providing ecological design services to individuals and organizations through student collaboration.
Education specificities
The school puts sustainability as its core curriculum, not as an add-on to other classes. Its programs are in-depth, intensive experiences that immerses participants in the issues, solutions and implementation of strategies in sustainable systems, ecological design and whole-systems thinking.
Started in fall 2000, the one-semester program at Ecosa offers more comprehensive green-building knowledge than a traditional four-year architecture program. A multi-disciplinary approach that distinguishes the school apart from other formation. And as part of it specificity, it combines traditional courses to an immersion session, called Total Immersion Program In Sustainable Design, which consists of a wilderness trek meant to establish the baseline for sustainability.
Taught subjects
Subjects cover a broad spectrum of issues both theoretical and practical: from environmental ethics to new materials and methods, from new urbanism to arcology (a set of architectural design principles as described by the architect Paolo Soleri), from biodiversity and alternative energy and water systems, from the ecological sciences to the emerging field of ecopsychology.
Faculty members
- Will Bruder
- Antoine Predock
- Paolo Soleri
- James Wines
- Pliny Fisk
- Sim Van der Ryn
Further reading
- Ecosa Institute web site(approve sites)
- Profile of the school by the Metropolis magazine(approve sites)
- Arcology.com, a web site dedicated to the field(approve sites)