Technology and Place

<p>Developing sustainable architectural and agricultural technologies was the intent behind Blueprint Farm an experimental agricultural project designed to benefit farm workers displaced by the industrialization of agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Yet despite its promise the very institutions that created Blueprint Farm terminated the project after just four years (1987-1991).</p> <p>In this book Steven Moore demonstrates how the various stakeholders' competing definitions of sustainability technology and place ultimately doomed Blueprint Farm. He reconstructs the conflicting interests and goals of the founders including Jim Hightower and the Texas Department of Agriculture Laredo Junior College and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and shows how ironically they unwittingly suppressed the self-determination of the very farm workers the project sought to benefit. From the instructive failure of Blueprint Farm Moore extracts eight principles for a regenerative architecture which he calls his nonmodern manifesto.</p>