Clean Livin' 2003-ongoing
Quonset hut on the former WWII Wendover Airfield
conventional and alternative building materials, found objects
pedal-powered vehicle provided by municipalWORKSHOP
Clean Livin’ is an autonomous living system that formally and conceptually engages notions of sustainability, industrial military legacy, and myths of the frontier. Clean Livin’ also reacts to previous examples of communal living and recent experimental environments such as Biosphere II. The facility allows participating artists and researchers to live on a remote location of America’s largest WWII airbase. Re-inhabiting the abandoned site was accomplished with the use of “sustainable/soft” technologies. Electricity is supplied to the site by a 700-watt solar system. Water is imported 55 gallons per 6-mile trip via a 4-wheeled, two-person bicycle which hauls it from the nearest available source. The water is held in an elevated tank where it is pressurized by gravity and solar heated. Human and food wastes are composted for future agricultural use. Wastewater is collected and processed by a grey-water system for re-use on plant-life or rendered drinkable with solar distillation. Clean Livin’ is a site where the human carbon footprint can be temporarily reduced, where conscious use of resources and the body’s own metabolic energy alter the normal expectations daily living.
