Prologue: A Photograph Changes Everything
In 1966, a young biologist named Stewart Brand began a strange campaign. He printed buttons asking “Why haven’t we seen a photograph of the whole Earth yet?” and distributed them across college campuses. Brand believed that if people could see the planet complete, tiny, and adrift in the darkness of space, it might awaken something profound—a recognition that we all shared a single, finite home.
When NASA finally released those images in 1968, they coincided with the first issue of Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog—a publication that would reshape how a generation thought about technology, ecology, and human possibility. The catalog’s message was revolutionary in its simplicity: “access to tools.” Not mass-produced consumer goods, but the knowledge, equipment, and techniques that could allow people to shape their own lives, independent of institutional control.
Among the millions who encountered the Whole Earth Catalog between 1968 and 1972 were three young scientists who were already harboring similar visions of what was possible when human ingenuity worked with rather than against natural systems.
Part I: The Gathering (1967-1969)
The Marine Biologist and the Dancer
John Todd arrived at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1967 as a young Canadian marine biologist with an unusual background. Born in 1939 in Ontario, he had studied agriculture and parasitology at McGill University before earning his PhD in marine biology from the University of Michigan. His father designed and built yachts as a hobby, instilling in John both a love of the water and the confidence that complex systems could be understood and crafted by hand.
At Woods Hole—one of the world’s most prestigious marine research centers—Todd was supposed to be following conventional paths, publishing papers, securing grants, climbing the academic ladder. But something was troubling him. He watched as industrial societies dumped waste into the oceans he studied. He saw fishing stocks collapsing. He witnessed the compartmentalization of academic disciplines preventing the kind of holistic thinking that ecological problems demanded.
His wife Nancy Jack Todd, trained as a dancer and gifted as a writer, asked questions that haunted him: Could ecological concepts serve people’s needs? Could science have “a human face”? These conversations, often happening late at night in their home near the Cape Cod shore, began to crystallize a radical idea: What if biological knowledge could be applied not just to understanding nature, but to designing sustainable human support systems?
Nancy brought something essential that the scientific world often lacked—the ability to communicate with clarity and beauty, to see the social and artistic dimensions of their emerging vision, and to ask the uncomfortable questions about purpose and meaning that scientists were trained to avoid.
The Fish Biologist with Vision
The third founding member was William “Bill” McLarney, a fish biologist who shared Todd’s growing frustration with conventional science. McLarney had been conducting research on tropical fish species and had become fascinated by aquaculture—the farming of fish—as a potential solution to protein needs in developing countries and resource-constrained communities.
Where mainstream aquaculture was heading toward industrial fish farms, McLarney was thinking about backyard ponds, about how ordinary people might raise their own protein. He had studied tilapia, a hardy tropical vegetarian fish relatively unknown in North America at the time, and recognized its potential for small-scale, sustainable food production.
The Confluence
The three came together in 1969, united by a shared conviction that the industrial societies dominating the world were destroying it. They had watched the Vietnam War escalate. They had seen Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring awaken public consciousness to the dangers of pesticides. They had witnessed the Santa Barbara oil spill. They had felt the cultural earthquake of the counterculture movement questioning every assumption about how society should be organized.
But unlike many in the counterculture who simply rejected technology and retreated to the land, the Todds and McLarney brought rigorous scientific training. They weren’t interested in nostalgia or primitivism. They wanted to ask a fundamental question: Could modern biological understanding be applied to create genuinely sustainable ways of living—systems that could provide food, water, shelter, and energy without destroying the planet?
Part II: The Experiment Begins (1969-1972)
A Rented Farm and a Radical Vision
In 1969, the three co-founders established the New Alchemy Institute on a twelve-acre rented property in Hatchville, near Falmouth on Cape Cod. The land had been a dairy farm, and its soil was depleted. The buildings needed work. It was, in many ways, perfect—a blank slate where they could test whether ecological design principles could transform degraded land into a productive, life-sustaining system.
Their stated mission was ambitious: “to Restore the Lands, Protect the Seas and Inform the Earth’s Stewards.” They articulated their philosophy in language that resonated with both scientific rigor and countercultural idealism:
“Among our major tasks is the creation of ecologically derived human support systems—renewable energy, agriculture, aquaculture, housing and landscapes. The strategies we research emphasize a minimal reliance on fossil fuels and operate on a scale accessible to individuals, families and small groups. It is our belief that ecological and social transformations must take place at the lowest functional levels of society if humankind is to direct its course towards a greener, saner world.”
They added a crucial caveat that distinguished them from utopian dreamers: “Our programs are geared to produce not riches, but rich and stable lives, independent of world fashion and the vagaries of international economics.”
The Research Philosophy
From the beginning, New Alchemy established principles that would guide their work for over two decades:
- Start small, think planetary: Begin investigations at the micro-scale while maintaining a planetary perspective, carefully attending to interconnections between different scales of organization.
- Democratize sustainability: Focus on systems that don’t require large investments, so designs could benefit and be used by less privileged communities, not just the wealthy.
- Catalyze transformation: Look for methods to facilitate gradual change from a materialist society to one based on information and biological understanding.
- Use renewable resources: Integrate renewable energy and durable materials rather than relying on limited substances for short-term use.
- Learn from microcosms: The microcosm contains concrete knowledge about the macrocosm. Understanding relationships between scales could serve as an organizing principle—a concept drawn from ancient alchemical philosophy, which inspired their name.
The First Experiments
The early work was unglamorous and often frustrating. They began by improving the depleted soil, planting food crops, and starting to breed rabbits. They dug fish ponds and introduced McLarney’s tilapia, carefully monitoring water quality, temperature, and growth rates.
They experimented with intensive organic gardening techniques, testing which vegetables thrived with minimal inputs. They explored biological pest control, learning which beneficial insects could manage garden pests without pesticides. They investigated cover cropping to restore soil fertility naturally.
John Todd and Greg Watson (another early member who joined them) became fascinated by wind energy. They studied designs of old Cretan windmills and ingeniously adapted truck gearboxes to generate electricity. It was crude, experimental work—the kind that billion-dollar wind energy companies would later perfect—but in 1970, it was revolutionary.
Building Community
By 1970, New Alchemy had attracted its first group of young, idealistic researchers. These weren’t just hippies playing at farming; many held advanced degrees in biology, ecology, engineering, and design. They worked for equal salaries—a principle of egalitarianism rare in scientific research. Half the staff were women, and a quarter held PhDs.
The atmosphere combined rigorous scientific methodology with communal living. Researchers would brainstorm over shared meals, test hypotheses in the gardens and ponds, document results meticulously, then gather again to analyze what they’d learned. Work and life weren’t separate spheres—they were integrated, just as the ecological systems they were studying integrated diverse organisms into functional wholes.
Part III: The Bioshelter Revolution (1972-1976)
The Concept Emerges
The breakthrough that would define New Alchemy came from synthesizing multiple research streams into a single, elegant structure: the bioshelter.
The concept was audacious. What if you could create a self-contained ecosystem inside a solar greenhouse? Not just a building, but a functioning miniature ecology that could produce food year-round, even in harsh northern climates, while requiring minimal external inputs?
The design integrated everything they’d learned:
- Solar orientation and thermal mass for passive heating
- Translucent above-ground aquaculture tanks growing tilapia
- The fish waste feeding algae, which fed the fish and oxygenated the water
- Nutrient-rich pond water irrigating greenhouse vegetables
- Intensive vegetable gardens utilizing vertical space
- Composting systems recycling all organic matter
- Wind power and solar collectors providing supplemental energy
The groupings of plants, animals, soil organisms, and insects were selected to create closed loops—biological cycles that mimicked natural systems. Each element served multiple functions. The fish produced food and fertilizer. The algae purified water and created oxygen. The plants cooled the air, produced food, and filtered water. The insects controlled pests and pollinated crops.
The Cape Cod Ark
In 1974, New Alchemy built their first major bioshelter at the Cape Cod site, designed by two young Yale architects, David Bergmark and Ole Hammarlund. They called it “The Ark”—a name that evoked both Noah’s vessel preserving life through catastrophe and a container of wisdom and possibility.
The Ark was stunning. A triangular structure of glass rising from the Cape Cod landscape, it looked simultaneously ancient and futuristic. Inside, visitors found themselves in what felt like a tropical paradise even in winter—tilapia swimming in translucent cylinders, vegetables growing in abundance, the air warm and humid, alive with beneficial insects.
The double-layered fiberglass cylinders (made from a product called Kalwall) held about 700 gallons each and could produce two 50-pound harvests of tilapia per year. Each aquarium was an independent ecosystem requiring careful balance. Algae thrived on fish waste, provided oxygen through photosynthesis, served as thermal mass, and fed the fish. The system was elegant in its simplicity, complex in its interactions.
Media Attention and Growing Influence
On August 8, 1976, The New York Times Magazine featured New Alchemy on its cover with the headline “The New Alchemists: Cooking up a gentle science for survival.” The profile described them as leaders in “a movement that goes by many names—soft technology, organic technology, biotechnology, intermediate technology, appropriate technology.”
The article captured the essence of their work: “They all refer to the quest for means of sustaining life at a comfortable level with minimal use of nonrenewable resources and with minimal mucking up of the planet.”
New Alchemy’s manifesto was quoted prominently: “Our programs are geared to produce not riches, but rich and stable lives, independent of the vagaries of international economics. The New Alchemists work at the lowest functional level of society on the premise that society can be no healthier than the components of which it is constructed. The urgency of our efforts is based on our belief that the industrial societies which now dominate the world are in the process of destroying it.”
The attention brought visitors from around the world. Scientists, activists, educators, and curious citizens made pilgrimages to Cape Cod to see what New Alchemy had created. The institute became, in the words of one visitor, “a literal mecca” for those seeking alternatives to industrial agriculture and fossil fuel dependency.
The Prince Edward Island Ark
Emboldened by success, New Alchemy undertook their most ambitious project yet. In 1974, they were commissioned by the Canadian government to design and build a bioshelter for Prince Edward Island—a cold, windy maritime environment that would severely test their concepts.
The Prince Edward Island Ark was completed in 1976 and officially opened by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on September 21st. It was “an integrated ecological design that was part food-producing greenhouse, part aquaculture fish farm, and part autonomous family home.” The whole was wrapped in a sophisticated, systems-based structure with exposed mechanical and plumbing runs, a rock-filled heat sink, and early solar collector panels proudly displayed.
Nancy Willis (a friend of the Todds) and David Bergmark moved into the Ark, attempting to actually live in this bioshelter—to test whether humans could genuinely inhabit a space designed as an integrated ecosystem. The experiment provided invaluable data about the challenges of living inside such a system: managing humidity, dealing with technological failures, balancing privacy with the needs of research.
Part IV: The Scientific Work (1972-1980)
Aquaculture Innovation
New Alchemy’s aquaculture research revolutionized small-scale fish farming. Their translucent solar aquaculture ponds proved that edible fish could be raised successfully in above-ground containers using passive solar heating and biological water treatment.
The tilapia that McLarney had championed turned out to be ideal: hardy, vegetarian (producing less toxic waste than carnivorous fish), fast-growing, and tolerant of temperature variations. The New Alchemists documented everything meticulously—growth rates, feeding ratios, water chemistry, optimal stocking densities, disease management.
They developed integrated systems where fish culture fed hydroponic vegetable production. The nutrient-rich water from fish tanks was used to irrigate crops, which filtered and purified the water before it returned to the fish. It was a closed-loop system that mimicked natural wetland ecologies.
Organic Agriculture Research
The Institute’s agricultural research spanned multiple domains:
Intensive gardening: They tested techniques for maximizing food production in small spaces using raised beds, succession planting, and interplanting compatible species.
Biological pest control: Rather than using pesticides, they introduced beneficial insects, encouraged bird populations, and planted companion plants that deterred pests or attracted their predators.
Cover cropping: They experimented with nitrogen-fixing plants like clover and vetch to restore soil fertility naturally, eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizers.
Perennial food systems: They planted fruit trees, berry bushes, and perennial vegetables that would produce food year after year without replanting.
Composting: They developed sophisticated composting systems that recycled all organic waste, creating rich soil amendments while generating heat that could warm greenhouses.
Energy Systems
The renewable energy research at New Alchemy presaged developments that wouldn’t become mainstream for decades:
Wind power: Their windmill designs, cobbled together from truck gearboxes and traditional designs, were crude by modern standards but demonstrated the viability of small-scale wind generation.
Solar thermal: They experimented with different configurations of solar collectors, thermal mass, and greenhouse glazing to maximize passive solar heating.
Methane generation: In publications like Methane Digesters for Fuel Gas and Fertilizer, they documented how organic waste could be converted to usable fuel and high-quality compost.
Documentation and Dissemination
Perhaps New Alchemy’s most important contribution was documentation. Between 1970 and 1991, they published journals, bulletins, newsletters, and books that shared their findings freely. Nancy Todd served as editor for much of this work, ensuring that complex scientific information was accessible to ordinary people.
Publications like The Journal of the New Alchemists, Gardening for All Seasons, The Freshwater Aquaculture Book, and The Village as Solar Ecology became classics in the appropriate technology movement. The Green Center later made many of these publications available online, ensuring the research remained accessible.
Part V: The Cultural Context
Science in the Counterculture
New Alchemy existed in a fascinating historical moment when the counterculture and rigorous science weren’t necessarily opposites. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a proliferation of what historian Fred Turner calls “groovy science”—serious scientific work conducted outside traditional institutions, often with countercultural values.
The counterculture wasn’t anti-technology, despite stereotypes. As recent scholarship has shown, hippies embraced technological tools and methods when they served human-scale needs rather than corporate or military ends. Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog epitomized this approach—celebrating technologies from computers to geodesic domes to organic farming techniques, all in service of personal and community empowerment.
New Alchemy fit perfectly into this milieu. They rejected the military-industrial complex and extractive capitalism, but they embraced scientific methodology, technological innovation, and rigorous documentation. They proved you could be both ecologically conscious and technically sophisticated.
The Network
New Alchemy became a node in a remarkable network of thinkers and doers reimagining human possibilities. Their associates and visitors included:
Buckminster Fuller, the visionary architect and systems theorist whose geodesic domes inspired their structural designs.
E.F. Schumacher, the economist whose book Small Is Beautiful articulated the philosophy of appropriate technology that New Alchemy embodied.
Margaret Mead, the anthropologist who, with John Todd, envisioned village-scale arks before her death.
Lynn Margulis, co-creator of the Gaia hypothesis, who saw in New Alchemy’s work a practical application of symbiotic evolution theory.
Amory Lovins, the energy analyst whose concept of “soft energy paths” aligned with New Alchemy’s renewable energy research.
Funding and Patronage
New Alchemy’s work attracted support from progressive foundations. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund was an early backer, contributing to general expenses from 1974 through 1981. The Canadian government funded the Prince Edward Island Ark. Various grants supported specific research projects.
But financial sustainability remained a constant challenge. The Institute struggled to achieve a broad base of support. Their work was too radical for traditional agricultural interests, too practical for many environmental groups, too small-scale for government agencies thinking in terms of industrial agriculture.
Part VI: The Difficult Years (1977-1985)
The P.E.I. Ark’s Challenges
The Prince Edward Island Ark, despite its initial promise, encountered significant problems. The experimental nature of the project had been de-emphasized in publicity, so when technological failures occurred, they became embarrassing. Canadians expected a viewable demonstration project; the New Alchemists on-site saw it as a private research installation.
Humidity problems proved difficult to manage. The integration of living space with productive ecosystems created uncomfortable conditions. When David Bergmark and Nancy Willis moved out in 1977, ending the experiment in sustainable living, it marked a setback—though the Ark continued operating as a research facility until 1981 under biologist Ken MacKay’s supervision.
The Ark was eventually converted into a small hotel and restaurant in the early 1980s, then demolished around 2000. But it had served its purpose as a test bed for principles that would later be applied to “living machines” and numerous established green technologies: solar orientation, solar collectors, wind energy, thermal energy storage, and composting toilets.
Financial Pressures
By the early 1980s, New Alchemy faced mounting financial pressures. The political climate had shifted. Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 marked a turn away from environmental concerns and alternative technologies toward deregulation and fossil fuel development.
Grant funding became harder to secure. The counterculture had largely dissipated, with many former members settling into conventional careers. The “magic economy” of the 1960s had given way to the stagflation of the 1970s, making it harder for middle-class supporters to fund experiments in alternative living.
The Institute adapted by taking on consulting projects, designing bioshelters and ecological systems for clients, and conducting contracted research. But the original vision of pure research “on behalf of the planet” became harder to sustain.
Evolution of Focus
As New Alchemy matured, John Todd’s work evolved toward what he called “living machines”—ecological wastewater treatment systems that used carefully designed ecosystems of bacteria, algae, plants, mollusks, and fish to purify polluted water.
In 1986, at the Harwich town dump on Cape Cod, Todd demonstrated a breakthrough. The landfill included lagoons of toxic waste from septic tanks seeping into groundwater. Todd’s living machine stunned experts by using natural organisms to remove toxic waste, turning contaminated water into clean, life-supporting fluid.
This work would lead to the founding of Ocean Arks International in 1981 and eventually John Todd Ecological Design Inc. in 1989. The principles pioneered at New Alchemy were being applied to larger-scale environmental remediation challenges.
Part VII: Closing and Legacy (1986-1991)
The End of an Era
In 1991, after 22 years of operation, the New Alchemy Institute closed. The reasons were complex: financial pressures, the founders’ evolution toward other projects, the changing cultural and political landscape, and perhaps the simple fact that the Institute had achieved much of what it set out to demonstrate.
Former staff members Hilde Maingay and Earle Barnhart established The Green Center, a non-profit that evolved from New Alchemy with the aim of continuing its educational mission. The Green Center became custodian of New Alchemy’s extensive publication archive and maintains the original Cape Cod site as an educational center.
Hilde and Earle still live in the original bioshelter—the Cape Cod Ark—growing their own food year-round in what remains a stunning demonstration of the Institute’s principles. They describe those New Alchemy years with nostalgic affection:
“We worked hard and at the same time, we played hard, because work and play were all one. We did not have to clock in at 8 AM and clock out at 5 PM. We worked, we created, we researched and brainstormed every hour of the day as our daily lives of kids, household would allow. Nancy and John allowed a lot of freedom and with it responsibility to design, develop and execute our own research projects. Intellectual curiosity, creativity and work ethics were more important than one’s academic background.”
What They Proved
New Alchemy demonstrated that it was possible to:
- Grow substantial food in small spaces without chemicals or fossil fuels
- Raise protein-rich fish in backyard-scale systems
- Heat and cool buildings using passive solar design
- Generate electricity from small-scale renewable sources
- Process waste into resources through biological systems
- Create closed-loop ecosystems that mimicked natural processes
- Do rigorous science outside traditional institutional structures
- Integrate research, education, and practical demonstration
- Make technical knowledge accessible to ordinary people
- Live “rich and stable lives” with minimal environmental impact
More fundamentally, they proved that ecological design was possible—that human ingenuity could be applied to create genuinely sustainable systems that worked with rather than against nature.
Part VIII: The Continuing Story
John and Nancy Todd’s Later Work
After New Alchemy, John Todd continued pioneering ecological design through Ocean Arks International and his consulting firm. His “eco-machines” have been used to treat wastewater in locations from Vermont to China, demonstrating that biological systems can outperform chemical treatment plants while costing far less.
Nancy Todd continued editing Annals of Earth for Ocean Arks International and authored A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design, synthesizing decades of experience. Together, she and John co-authored several influential books including From Eco-Cities to Living Machines: Principles of Ecological Design.
The Todds received numerous honors: the Lindbergh Award (1998), the Bioneers Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), the Buckminster Fuller Challenge (2008), and many others. Nancy passed away in 2024, leaving a profound legacy in ecological sustainability writing and advocacy.
Influence on Modern Movements
New Alchemy’s influence can be traced through multiple contemporary movements:
Permaculture: The permaculture design system developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s shares New Alchemy’s emphasis on closed-loop systems, multiple functions for each element, and mimicking natural patterns.
Urban agriculture: The integrated bioshelter concept has been adapted in vertical farms, rooftop greenhouses, and aquaponics systems in cities worldwide.
Green building: Passive solar design, thermal mass, living walls, and integrated renewable energy systems are now standard features in sustainable architecture—all pioneered at New Alchemy.
Ecological wastewater treatment: John Todd’s living machines inspired constructed wetlands and ecological treatment systems now used globally.
Aquaponics: The integration of aquaculture and hydroponics that New Alchemy perfected is now a growing industry.
Community resilience: The vision of local, small-scale systems providing food, water, and energy security continues to inspire community-supported agriculture, local energy cooperatives, and resilience movements.
Why They Matter Now
As we face climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, water scarcity, and energy transitions, New Alchemy’s work becomes increasingly relevant. They demonstrated that:
Scale matters: Solutions don’t have to be massive, centralized, or high-tech to be effective. Human-scale systems accessible to individuals and communities can address major challenges.
Integration is key: The most resilient systems integrate multiple functions—food, water, energy, waste—into synergistic wholes rather than treating them separately.
Biology beats chemistry: Natural biological processes can often outperform industrial chemical approaches while being cheaper, safer, and more sustainable.
Knowledge must be democratized: Making technical information accessible to ordinary people empowers communities to create their own solutions rather than depending on distant experts and institutions.
Regeneration is possible: Degraded land can be restored, waste can become resource, and human presence can enhance rather than degrade ecosystems when we work with ecological principles.
Epilogue: The Future They Envisioned
The New Alchemists believed they were working on behalf of the planet’s future. They saw their research not as an end in itself but as a contribution to “adaptive strategies for sustainable living in an overburdened natural environment.”
In their 1970 bulletin, they wrote:
“It is our belief that ecological and social transformations must take place at the lowest functional levels of society if humankind is to direct its course towards a greener, saner world. Our programs are geared to produce not riches, but rich and stable lives, independent of world fashion and the vagaries of international economics.”
That vision—of sustainability rooted in biological wisdom, technological accessibility, community scale, and ecological intelligence—remains as urgent and necessary today as it was when three young scientists rented a depleted dairy farm on Cape Cod and began asking what was possible when human ingenuity aligned with natural law.
The New Alchemy Institute exists now primarily in documents, photographs, memories, and the work of those they influenced. But their central insight endures: we are capable of creating genuinely sustainable ways of living that are not only ecologically sound but also beautiful, productive, and deeply satisfying.
The ark they built wasn’t just a greenhouse full of fish and vegetables. It was a proof of concept—evidence that humans can indeed learn to live in balance with the living systems that sustain us all.
As John Todd reflected decades later, working at age 80 on ocean restoration projects: “Hopefully now, with this planetary craziness we’re entering into, we’re starting to recognize these kinds of holistic solutions better.”
Perhaps we are. And if we do, we’ll owe a debt to three biologists who, in 1969, dared to imagine that a different future was possible and then spent two decades systematically demonstrating how to build it.
econology 