Root Simple Visits Simparch’s Utah Compound

Root Simple is in Wendover, Utah this weekend on business and it’s here, in this hallucinogenic landscape of salt flats and casinos, that the artistic/architectural thoughtstylist collective known as Simparch has established a self-sufficiency experiment they call Clean Livin’. Located on the remote South Base section of the historic Wendover Airfield on land leased by the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Simparch’s project proves that self-reliance is possible in what must be one of the harshest climates in North America.

Clean Livin’ features a set of solar panels, batteries, a solar shower, a refrigerator, and a composting toilet all housed in and around a repurposed WWII era Quonset hut. Water is biked in with specially adapted cargo bikes. Solar power pumps the water up to the tower where it is heated by the sun in a black drum. A solar panel array and batteries provide more than enough power, all day and all night, to run power tools and pump some tunes out on the powerful stereo system.

The composting toilet features, what must be the most stunning view to be seen from any toilet seat perch in the world – the decomissioned Wendover Airfield’s munitions bunkers and the endless salt flats beyond.