Timeline

John Allen, Marie Harding, and Kathelin Gray formed TAP in San Francisco in 1967, a time of radical experiments in social organization. They also formed Enterprise for Developing Possibilities to implement entrepreneurial projects.

Theater of All Possibilities Theater of All Possibilities (TAP) was a key part of the experimental arts and cultural movements coming out of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, and, over decades, became a kind of think tank for imaginative futures. John Allen, Marie Harding, and Kathelin Gray formed TAP in San Francisco in 1967, a time of radical experiments in social organization. They also formed Enterprise for Developing Possibilities to implement entrepreneurial projects. The following year, their group moved to New York City while they located land to serve as a base to develop a lifestyle that combined the arts, sciences, and land-based skills. In 1969, they acquired 160 acres outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, calling it Synergia Ranch. The whole-system concept of synergetics threaded throughout their subsequent history, promoting lateral thinking and active interdisciplinary feedback. TAP held summer festivals and annual international tours, performing adaptations of classics and new, devised pieces. Green enterprises and sustainable land policies developed alongside

I.E. began its ecological work, in 1969 on its first ‘challenge,’ a badly eroded 60-hectare ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Synergy was a goal: creating systems where cooperating elements produce something which is greater than, and unpredicted by, the sum of the parts. So, the property was optimistically named Synergia Ranch.

Les Marronniers became one of the principal venues for annual conferences organized by the Institute of Ecotechnics.

Built in around nine months by 15-20 volunteers, the RV Heraclitus was finally launched in February 1975.

What brought IE to northwest West Australia was the challenge of working in another major biome facing grave threats: tropical savannah.

The Institute helped conceive and consult on a working demonstration project for semi-arid tropical savannahs near Derby, in the remote Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, from 1978 to 2022, when the property was sold.

Established in 1979, the Gallery’s mission was to showcase ground-breaking global art and culture and the critical megalopolitan environment. As the U.K. arm of the Institute of Ecotechnics, the Gallery also offered an ideal location for bringing together artists and scientists and became an important venue for organizing I.E. conferences.

The Vajra Hotel in Kathmandu was one of the earliest projects developed with the consultation and participation of members of the Institute of Ecotechnics. Built in 1981, the hotel was designed by ecological and cultural entrepreneur John Allen, working with Margaret Augustine, project design manager, and chief architect Phil Hawes.

In 1983, I.E. members and T.A.P. actors helped construct and manage the Caravan of Dreams arts complex in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, which achieved its goal of revitalizing a run-down and residentially depopulated city center by creating a forum for the arts, as well as offering an attractive ambience to eat and enjoy the nightlife with its rooftop bar and geodesic dome cacti/succulent display.

In 1983, the Institute of Ecotechnics launched its final major field project, Las Casas de la Selva, in the mountains of southeastern Puerto Rico near the municipality of Patillas. What began as an ambitious experiment in sustainable rainforest management has evolved into one of the Caribbean’s longest-running demonstrations of ecological restoration, sustainable forestry, conservation research, and environmental education.

Between February 1983 and June 1986, the Institute of Ecotechnics’ research vessel Heraclitus completed its first circumnavigation of the globe—a 40-month expedition that sailed westward from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and returned to the same port after traversing more than 30,000 nautical miles through the tropical regions of the world.

I.E. helped initiate the Biosphere 2 project in Oracle, Arizona, a daunting experiment and ecotechnic test-bed invented by John Allen, one of the founders of I.E. Could its extensive engineering and advanced technology systems really support, and not pollute, a sealed-off mini-world? This project would lead to the creation of the world’s first laboratory for global ecology.

During the Expedition to Circumnavigate South America (ECSA), the Heraclitus crossed the Drake Passage and spent roughly six weeks working off the Antarctic Peninsula. There the young fifteen-person crew carried out population-genetics sampling and photo-identification of Southern humpback whales and made under-ice dives before witnessing the fragility of the region firsthand in the wake of a major Antarctic oil-spill disaster.

IE organizes the First International Workshop on Biospherics and Closed Ecological Systems at the Royal Society in London.

In 1987, the Research Vessel Heraclitus participated in a landmark achievement in marine conservation: the first successful, fully documented reintroduction of long-term captive dolphins back into the wild.

For approximately fifteen years, coral reefs became the principal focus of the research vessel Heraclitus. Operating first under the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF) and later the Biosphere Foundation, The ship served as a versatile base for coral-reef studies around the world, working with researchers of the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF) and scientists from institutions including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Columbia University, MIT, and Boston University at more than 40 sites across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Pacific.

Biosphere 2 Biosphere 2’s first two closed ecological system experiments, the first for 2 years from September 1991-September 1993, followed by seven months of research, and a second crew March 1994-September 1994.

At the October Gallery, from small, hopeful beginnings in 1994, the embryonic schools’ workshops initiative has grown exponentially and now touches the lives of many – annually delivering Gallery workshops to over two thousand participants from nursery, primary, secondary, SEN and special schools.

Robyn Tredwell was selected as the national winner of the prestigious ABC Rural Woman of the Year Award, chosen from 41 state finalists and more than 350 entrants across Australia. The award recognized her pioneering work at Birdwood Downs Station in the Kimberley, where she helped develop innovative approaches to sustainable land management, environmental education, and community engagement in Australia’s tropical savannah landscapes.

IE convened the 4th International Workshop on Biospherics and Closed Ecological Systems at the Linnean Society of London

One of the motivations behind the creation of Wastewater Gardens was to show people who use the system their connection with the water they use and the wastewater they produce – and to do it in a natural, beautiful way, letting natural processes do the work rather than machines and chemicals.

Waste Water Garden Project in Akumal Mexico The first two Wastewater Gardens were created in Akumal, Mexico in cooperation with I.E., the Biosphere Foundation, and the Center for Wetlands, University of Florida to protect nearby coral reefs from sewage pollution and create beautiful biodiverse gardens with the treated water. These systems were studied by Mark Nelson as part of his PhD in Environmental Engineering Sciences. Over 30 systems were later created in the Yucatan

The Laboratory Biosphere The Laboratory Biosphere facility was constructed and researched at Synergia Ranch, Santa Fe, NM. It housed a growing area under artificial lights coupled with an expansion/contraction chamber and studied food crops and their interactions with the soil, water and atmosphere of the closed ecological system.

In cooperation with the Carpathian Heritage Society, Wastewater Gardens are installed at numerous locations in Poland, for the Jagellonian University research center and in the Carpathian Mountains Biosphere Reserve.

Las Casas de la Selva became home to one of Puerto Rico’s first Wastewater Gardens® (WWG), constructed with support from the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. The project was developed as a demonstration of ecological wastewater treatment within a tropical rainforest setting, reflecting Las Casas’ commitment to integrating sustainable technologies with environmental stewardship.

Wastewater Gardens International pioneered the first Wastewater Garden in Algeria, for a restored historic caravanserai city in Temacine. At the suggestion of well-known Algerian artist, Rachid Koraichi, the system took the shape of a crescent moon.

Launch of the Eden in Iraq Wastewater Garden project for 8,000-10,000 Marsh Arabs in elChibaish, Iraq in the marshlands of southern Iraq. The project is a collaboration between Nature Iraq, Wastewater Gardens International and the Institute of Ecotechnics which also serves as fiscal sponsor.

Puerto Rico Hardwoods (PRH) was founded in 2015 with a simple but ambitious vision: to transform Puerto Rico’s overlooked and discarded wood resources into a valuable local industry. At a time when enormous quantities of usable timber were routinely chipped, burned, buried, or sent to landfills, PRH set out to demonstrate that the island’s trees represented not a waste problem, but an economic, environmental, and cultural opportunity.