By David R. Hall
More than seven billion human beings currently live on our planet in a wide variety of circumstances, with extremes of wealth and poverty and—in most places—in a manner that is steadily eroding the ecology. The United Nations projects that the earth’s human population might exceed 15 billion by the end of this century.1
Some people believe that the planet’s human population must be drastically reduced in order to live sustainably. According to two Mormon documents from 1833, however, a scalable pattern exists that could enable all people worldwide—even if we reach 15 billion people—to live a modern, prosperous lifestyle sustainably, without overtaxing natural resources or the environment. The pattern accomplishes this by drastically reducing today’s human footprint while simultaneously improving the quality of life.
Drawn up by Frederick G. Williams in June of 1833, these two double-sided 14″ x 18″ documents—the community plot2 and the building plan3—define a complete human ecosystem that can be applied to all people, regardless of location, ethnicity, or religion.
Williams, Sidney Rigdon, and Joseph Smith said they received the documents through a vision.4 However, early Mormons had access to the documents for only a few months before they were lost. Even if they had not been lost, Mormon leaders didn’t have the time, experience, or capability to study and understand the pattern; neither did they have the technology and resources to put it into practice. Many early Mormon leaders viewed the documents as having been “drawn in haste,”5 so they failed to notice the remarkable solutions to human problems they contain.
In 1868, the documents were rediscovered in a metal tube in a trunk that belonged to former bishop Edward Partridge. Partridge’s widow Lydia donated the documents to the LDS Church’s history department. Since about 1970, these two community documents have been available to only a few researchers. However, they have recently become publicly available online via the Joseph Smith Papers project.
They are, in my opinion, a world treasure—an intricate and complex puzzle that anyone can now examine and attempt to solve. Even non-Mormons have noticed their value. In 1996, the documents received the American Planning Association’s National Planning Landmark Award “for projects . . . that are historically significant, initiated a new direction in planning or impacted American planning, cities or regions over a broad range of time or space.” Then, in 2010, Andres Duany, founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, said of the documents, “You have a Ferrari in the garage, and you have never taken it for a drive—you have never shown what it could really do.”6
After forty years of analysis from mathematical, engineering, economic, organizational, and social perspectives, I have come to believe that these documents describe a complete, consistent human ecology of “spatial and temporal interrelationships between humans and their economic, social, and political organization.”7 I am applying this pattern to current American urban planning and technology and developing a community pattern I call NewVistas.
The pattern shows how people can live in closer proximity to each other and utilize more efficient technology, economics, transportation, and agriculture. This pattern greatly reduces the role of the automobile and eliminates suburban sprawl,8 maximizes solar power (not for energy but for photosynthesis, with intensive gardening instead of wasteful landscaping), and counters the inefficiencies and limitations of large-scale centralization that afflict so many of today’s government agencies, industries, and other institutions. By implementing the pattern, I believe we could feed and house the expanding world at the maximum projected population of 15 billion on 20 percent of the land we consume now, allowing us to restore wetlands, wildlife, and wilderness areas in 80 percent of the land we currently occupy.
Figure 2 shows my basic interpretation of how the community plot would be laid out. The plot states that each independent community is populated by a minimum of 15,000 and a maximum of 20,000 active participants, which means that each person has about .1 acres to live on. This small allotment was one reason why early Mormon leaders dismissed the original documents. However, this specific density of .1 acres per person is the key to the community’s worldwide scalability and sustainability, as well as its social and organizational effectiveness. With our current technology, spaces can be built to transform, fulfilling multiple functions and thus being much more efficient than our traditional single-function rooms and buildings. The community’s prescribed density decreases the cost of living and replaces modern society’s social fragmentation and isolation with a balance of privacy and public interaction.
each with its own private patio. The bottom level includes commercial space that opens
to the gardens in back and an enclosed podway in front. The roof functions as a deck
and transforming box garden.
Community Housing
Each community contains 960 half-acre housing and garden lots. The pattern’s housing follows a similar model as the row houses that have populated Europe for thousands of years. In the community pattern, a three-story “house” holds 16 to 21 people (see Figure 3). Each house is four rods (66 feet) wide, divided into eight one-rod-wide (16.5 feet) apartments. Every person has a private bed and bath. According to the plot’s prescriptions, the lots are directionally staggered so that all apartments enjoy a private, unobstructed view.9
Ten of these houses form a village, with the entire community divided into 96 villages. Four villages form a district, for a total of 24 districts in a community. Each district has its own multipurpose building in the center of the community, used for everything from sports to education. These buildings are discussed below.
This community is a solar community. Instead of using the sun for electric power, however, the community uses its complete surface area, including the roofs of buildings, for growing food. Inside the plot grid, space is devoted not only to housing but also to commercial activity and high-intensity gardening. All the surface land is planted in gardens and orchards. Outside the street grid, the plot prescribes additional areas for use in heavier agriculture and industry.
Figure 6 shows how the rear garden plots slope so they drain into the middle of the block, down into a swamp area that acts as a natural filter to purify the drainage. Not only do 960 separate half-acre gardens allow for a wide variety of produce, they help naturally protect against pests and disease. In addition, the top floor of every building holds year-round greenhouse boxes managed by professional farmers who train willing participants. Grains and a few animals are farmed in the triangular areas outside the main street grid.
In the NewVistas interpretation of the original plans, no cars are used inside this walkable community. Each 132-foot-wide “street” functions not only as a pedestrian thoroughfare but also as a network of green public squares. In fact, in the original plot drawing itself, the streets are colored green.
As Figure 3 shows, each three-story house has commercial space on the bottom level for retail stores, offices, labs, and workshops. In front of each house’s commercial level is a covered podway that facilitates foot traffic and, as needed, small electric carts and wheelchairs. This enclosed passage allows all residents to get from point A to B anywhere in the community and also reach other connected communities. This helps give the community the feeling of “the world’s largest mansion.” When weather allows, people can also use the outside walkways for access to all places.
Multipurpose Community Buildings
After establishing that each independent community has a minimum of 15,000 and a maximum of 20,000 active participants, the plot text states that it will require 24 central buildings on two 15-acre plots to “supply them.”10 Like the plot, the plan for this central building was drawn up in June of 1833 on both sides of one piece of foolscap paper (see the central squares in Figure 1).
decorative features and facades can be added as desired.
The plot’s dimensions enable us to determine the correct size of the 24 central public buildings. We know from other 1833 sources that each public building has two “inner courts,” one above the other, each measuring 55′ x 65′.11 We can triangulate to determine that the outer dimensions of each central building are 88′ x 132′. Following the pattern, each NewVistas multipurpose building takes a basic rectangular shape (see Figure 7), but decorative features and facades can be added to beautify and also to meet any cultural or local design preferences.
The original document shows each multipurpose building as having five 14′ levels. The top four levels comprise two identical 28′-high courts—a higher court and a lower court. Above each court’s assembly area, the building plan prescribes an elliptical arch. In the NewVistas interpretation of this plan (see Figure 8), the elliptical arches allow room for structural box elements (described below) and for floor storage of chairs and tables for the court above. They also allow space along the sides of the arch for storage for the adjoining chambers. Additionally, the elliptical shape is perfect for ventilating the assembly hall.
Rather than open galleries, the upper side rooms of both courts are enclosed chambers that hang from the structural elements and can be used for many purposes. (In the NewVistas plan, they can be classrooms, boardrooms, hotel rooms, etc.) Each of the two identical courts has twelve chambers, as does the ground-floor level, which (in the NewVistas plan) also features two half-size Olympic pools that can be divided into smaller sections. Also, each assembly hall can be divided into twelve rooms, including four smaller assembly rooms and eight small chamber rooms. This means that each of the 24 community buildings has a high capacity of 52 chambers measuring 13.5′ x 16′.
sports courts, lecture halls, drama theaters, board rooms, etc.
Assembly Halls
As shown in Figure 9, each court’s assembly hall offers many configuration possibilities. When all the dividing walls are rolled up, a full-sized assembly hall measures 55′ x 99′. If we allow for a 2½’ buffer around each of the assembly halls, we end up with exactly the right size to accommodate two of today’s NBA basketball courts (50′ x 94′) in each of the 24 buildings. First prescribed in June of 1833, this size has now become the standard for most indoor sports courts. When the space is used for sports or dancing, all the furniture is stored under the floors.
The original documents talk about using transforming technology to allow the interior space of these multipurpose buildings to be quickly reconfigured for a wide variety of uses. For example: “A curtain is to drop at right angles, and divide the house into four parts”; “Let the seats be loose so as to slip from one side of the pew to the other, so as to face [either] pulpit, as occasion may require”; and “You will be careful to have hooks and rings to suspend your [curtains] on so they can be let down or raised up at any time, at pleasure.”12
In the NewVista plans, furniture and floors move quickly under the power of built-in linear motors and triple-screw technology, so space can be transformed within five minutes from, for example, a basketball court to a large dining hall with tables and chairs (see Figure 10). With chairs, tables, cubicles, altars, and other props moved into position at the touch of an app, an assembly hall can be used for dining, office space, theater, worship, and many other purposes. Sections of the floor can be raised up to four feet above floor level, allowing for theatrical platforms and stadium seating. Soundproof walls roll down to divide the space into rooms of various sizes.
All community buildings are constructed with mass-produced bridge modules and vertical modules. As shown in Figure 10, the bridge modules allow for copious storage in 8′ x 4′ x 4′ floor boxes. The vertical modules consist of several 14′ tall, 4′ square rectangles stacked on top of each other. The space inside these rectangles is used for elevators, private bathrooms, kitchenettes, workstations, and connecting hallways. Each central multipurpose building has 60 private unisex bathrooms and 12 elevators.
“Cheerfully Disposed to Share”
NewVistas owes its essential concepts to these two double-sided sheets of handwritten foolscap received by Joseph Smith. As I have studied these documents, I have realized that, on all subjects, we have only begun to understand the works of Joseph Smith. Every one of his documents needs to be thoroughly studied and triangulated with each other—especially with the benefit of modern technology and knowledge. Joseph Smith was an out-of-the-blue revolutionary, not someone who copied and adapted things from his own time and place. It appears that even he and his clerks may not have understood some of the prophetic content of their own works.
The pattern defined by the plot and building plan can be of great benefit to all aspects of human progress, including energy, economics, transportation, nutrition, water management, healthcare, recycling, social psychology, building ventilation, waste management, agriculture, heating and cooling, education, hygiene, retirement, and so forth. The NewVistas project is only a beginning.
The documents can help us organize communities at the most effective, efficient scale and configuration, allowing all to live in walkable, sociable ecologies that use space, energy, and resources efficiently, resulting in lower cost of living and more capital available to support individually owned businesses and jobs. Participants can be freer to pursue activities that they truly desire, rather than trap themselves in careers to support the unsustainable, unscalable lifestyle of suburban sprawl.
And, of course, the NewVistas project is not just for LDS people. Joseph Smith came to understand the importance of avoiding denominational preference: “[W]e claim no privilege but what we feel cheerfully disposed to share with our fellow citizens of every denomination, and every sentiment of religion; and therefore say, that so far from being restricted to our own faith, let all those who desire to locate themselves in this place, or the vicinity, come, and we will hail them as citizens and friends.”13 Communities must be freely open to all and run by the voice of the people.
NOTES
1. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/ (accessed 28 November 2016).
2. Frederick G. Williams, “Plat of the City of Zion, circa Early June–25 June 1833,” Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/plat-of-the-city-of-zion-circa-early-june-25-june-1833 (accessed 28 November 2016).
3. Frederick G. Williams, “Plan of the House of the Lord, between 1 and 25 June 1833,” Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/plan-of-the-house-of-the-lord-between-1-and-25-june-1833 (accessed 28 November 2016).
4. According to Frederick G. Williams, “We went upon our knees, called on the Lord, and the building appeared within viewing distance, I being the first to discover it. Then we all viewed it together. After we had taken a good look at the exterior, the building seemed to come right over us.” Quoted in Truman O. Angell, “Journal,” in Archie Leon Brown, 141 Years of Mormon Heritage, (Oakland, California: self-published, 1973).
5. “Revised Plan of the House of the Lord,” http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/revised-plan-of-the-house-of-the-lord-circa-10-august-circa-4-september-1833 (accessed 28 November 2016).
6. Quoted in Michael Hathorne, “Plat of Zion Recognized,” Trans/Form Place, https://transformplace.wordpress.com/plat-of-zion-recognized/ (accessed 28 November 2016).
7. “Human Ecology,” Merriam-Webster.com, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human%20ecology (accessed 28 November 2016).
8. For more on why suburban sprawl is not sustainable, see James Howard Kunstler, “The Ghastly Tragedy of the Suburbs,” https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia, February
2004, and Alex Balashov, “Why Even Driving Through Suburbia Is Soul Crushing,” Quartz, 10 June 2016, http://qz.com/698928/why-suburbia-sucks/ (both accessed 28 November 2016).
9. The original plot drawing contains a few errors that don’t match the plot text, with some blocks not containing the right number of lots or not facing in the right direction.
10. Williams, “Plat of the City of Zion.”
11. See “Revelation, 2 August 1833–B [D&C 94]” Joseph Smith Papers, http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/revelation-2-august-1833-b-dc-94 and “Revelation, 1 June 1833 [D&C 95],” Joseph Smith Papers, http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/revelation-1-june-1833-dc-95, (both accessed 28 November 2016).
12. Williams, “Plan of the House of the Lord.”
13. HC 4:273.
Further Reading
Ralph Becker, “From Self-Sufficiency to Sustainability: Building on Our Heritage for a Sustainable Western Future” Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, John Carver Distinguished Lecture and Keynote Address, 5 March 2009.
Brigham Daniels, “Revitalizing Zion: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and Today’s Urban Sprawl,” Journal of Land, Resources & Environmental Law 28, no. 2 (2008): 257–300.
Craig D. Galli, “Building Zion: The Latter-day Saint Legacy of Urban Planning.” BYU Studies 44, no. 1 (2005): 111–136.