Earthships: Sustainable, Independent Buildings
For the past 40 years, the concept of fully self-sufficient housing has been in the works, and has
become a reality. Architect and creator Michael Reynolds came up with the idea of the
Earthship to provide security in economically unsecure times. ". . . the Earthship is the epitome
of sustainable design and construction. No part of sustainable living has been ignored in this
ingenious building [1].” With Earthships, people can live for free and support themselves, off
the grid; this is a revolutionary idea that is inexpensive and attainable by nearly anyone,
anywhere.
Introduction
Getting tired of paying gas, water, electrical and food bills every month? Then an Earthship may
be your ideal type of housing. Earthships are self-sustaining buildings, almost completely made
of recycled materials. They make their own electricity, collect water and filter it to make it
drinkable; they process sewage, and have garden systems to grow food. They hardly use fossil
fuels, and are essentially cost-free to operate. Earthships can be built anywhere for relatively
low prices; “they are the most versatile and economical building design in the world [1].”
Origins of the Earthship
For the past 40 years, Earthships have been and continue to be built throughout the world,
constantly being improved upon, incorporating every aspect of sustainability [1]. They are the
creation of Michael Reynolds, a New Mexican architect. Raised in Kentucky, he got a Bachelor
of Architecture in Cincinnati; after college he moved to Taos, New Mexico to dodge the draft.
Inspired by a housing shortage prediction, due to clear-cutting, Reynolds first had the idea of
green housing during the energy crisis of the 1970s [2]. After coming up with more new ideas,
and after discovering “the most abundant natural resource—used tires [2]”, he began to design
his independently functioning Earthship housing. The method of building Earthships is called
“Biotecture, and they have proven comfortable in any climate, landscape, and size [1].” No
matter where they are, they will “provide electricity, potable water, contained sewage treatment
and sustainable food production at any time of the year [1].” Reynolds built his first solar home
in 1981, and has since traveled all around the world to consult and oversee projects. Eventually,
he formed his company, Earthship Biotecture.
Figure 1: Canon, an early
structure in the process of
developing the current-day
Earthship model
Reynolds' goal was to build structures that looked as if they grew naturally in their environments,
which he has largely achieved by placing of plants inside, as well as outside, of Earthship
structures [1], as seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Indoor garden [3]
Everything in an Earthship has a use and makes up the system of the building.
The Earthship’s System
Earthships are systems that run themselves, independent with water, electricity, sewage treatment
and food production. They are powered by the sun, watered by the sky, and cooled by the
ground [1] (Figure 3), “adapting our needs to the already existing activities of the planet[1]”
Through this system, Earthships become "completely off the grid[1].” Off-grid living means that
there is no dependency on public sources of energy.
Figure 3:
The inner
workings
of an
Earthship
[4]
Water, from rain, is collected on the roof and kept in 3,000-gallon cisterns. It is processed
through filters before entering the pipes of the house, and the used water drains through the
inside garden and is then pumped back through toilets and then flushes into outdoor gardens that
leach out waste. The Earthship’s power is captured using solar panel and windmills, located on
the roof, and then stored in batteries. With this generated power, an Earthship can manage
multiple high-power consuming devices, such as computers, all at once [1].
The Different Earthship Designs
There are several different kinds of Earthship designs in which an interested buyer can choose
from. There is the Simple Survival, Packaged, Vaulted Global Earthship, Global, and Custom,
and all of the designs are designed to meet standard building codes. The price of construction
drawings varies for each design, but for the Simple Survival they’re $1,000 [1]. The website link
listed below has a video on how the Simple Survival model is built.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wTqSpx0Vgv4 [5]
A potential customer can either have their Earthship built for them, or they can even build it
themselves, using manuals and instructions sold online from Earthship Biotecture.
Constructing an Earthship
To build the walls, used tires are hard packed with dirt and stacked on steel rebarb [1] (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Walls of packed dirt and tires [4]
As the walls are coated with adobe, aluminum cans are lodged in between the tires. The inside
walls are made of cement and glass bottles, for decoration [1]. The majority of Earthships face
south, due to the positioning of the sun, and have huge glass panels which take in the sun’s rays
and, in turn, warm the tires inside the adobe walls (Figure 5). Explained by theories of thermal
mass, the tires hold the energy (in the form of heat) from the sun, thus keeping the Earthship at
favorable temperatures inside, regardless of the temperatures outside [1]
Figure 5: Glass panels
[4]
In other words, the tires will act as batteries, holding the heat for hours. In a typical Earthship,
the living room, dining room, two bedrooms and kitchen are U-shaped and connected to a
common hallway on the south side, by the windows, allowing the sun to pierce through the
windows and warm each room, allowing the tires to hold heat in the winter. Earthships can be
built for as little as $25 per square foot for a simple design, or around $100 per square foot a
more luxury model [6]. All in all, Earthships are relatively inexpensive to build, and with their
off-the-grid existence, they pay back the construction expenses time and time again. A big
selling point is that just because these structures are sustainable doesn’t mean that they are
without modern amenities. Earthships can be as stylish and comfortable as the owner would like
(Figure 6a-c). The video at the link below is of the construction of the Global model.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2so9hyNWxc&feature=player_embedded#! [7]
Figure 6a: Kitchen
[4]
Figure 6b: A living room,
literally [4]
Figure 6c: A modern
bathroom with an artful
twist [4]
Here’s an example of the cost to buy an Earthship, located in Taos County, New Mexico (Figure
7). It is 2,200 square feet on 1.5 acres and has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. The selling price is
$369,000. Prices can go to the other side of the spectrum as well. The late actor Dennis Weaver
paid $100 per square foot to build a more luxury model, and he put it on the market for $4.25
million [8].
Figure 7: Earthship for sale
Earthship Existence in the Present Day
Since Reynolds’s first designs in the 1970s, Earthships have continued to be built in the United
States and internationally as well for “by 2006, about 3,000 Earthships existed, but most of these
were still located in the United States. There were only two Earthships in Great Britain, two in
Scotland and one in Brighton, England [9].” In Taos, New Mexico, there is an Earthship
community known as the Greater World Earthship subdivision [8]. Alcantara goes on to report
that this community is not filled with the stereotypical hippy-type person, but normal people with
a wide variety of interest in living in an Earthship, ranging from lessening their carbon footprint
to not wanting to pay any bills. See Figure 9, below, for an example of an Earthship community.
Solar Panels
The way that solar panels work is that they are mounted on the roof of a house/building, facing
the direction of where the sun is the strongest each day, to absorb maximum energy. As seen in
Figure 8, the cells in the solar panels convert the sun’s energy to electricity, which then gets fed
through a control box to convert the electricity to be useable. This then passes through a breaker
box which connects to outlets. Through this process, everyday items that run on electricity can
be powered for free by solar energy [10].
Figure 8: Solar
panel diagram [10]
Drawbacks/Problems
While Earthships are intriguing and awe-striking, they aren’t necessarily perfect. A few points
on potential problems were brought up and include issues with keeping up water tightness of the
walls of soil surrounding the building and the positioning of the windows in respect to how they
would function with holding in heat in the winter [11]. Also, there is the possibility of the solar
panels becoming damaged, and/or there being no sun for the solar panels to soak up. While
these are viable problems, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The Future of Earthships
The current state of Earthships makes them look very promising for the future. They address
issues such as society’s large environmental impacts, and the raising energy costs. In her paper
on Earthships, Elizabeth Purdy states that “Many environmentalists argue that Earthships are the
answer to sustainable building in the 21st century. Reynolds’s designs have been used around the
world, ranging from the rebuilding of homes in Asia…to the erection of million-dollar
Earthships for the environmental-minded homebuilder [9].” Whether or not this way of living is
for everyone, it is a realistic solution to the imminent depletion of natural resources.
Figure 9: R.E.A.C.H.,
the original Earthship
community founded in
1989 [12]
References
[1] Earthship Biotecture . N.p., 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://earthship.com >.
[2] Williams, Shawna. "Reynolds, Michael Architect, Designer of Earth Ships, Recycler." . Grey
House Publishing, 2008. CREDO reference . Web. 9 Apr. 2013.
[3] IMAGE: http://environmentalpostings.blogspot.com
[4] Lejuwaan, Jordan. HighExistence. 2013. Private. Web. 4 Apr. 2013.
<http://www.highexistence.com/10-reasons-why-earthships-are-fing-awesome >.
[5] VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wTqSpx0Vgv4
[6] Briggs, Bill. "EARTHSHIPS You can live in them, but don't call them houses." The Denver
Post 30 Oct. 1995, 2nd ed.: 1. USC Libraries . Web. 11 Apr. 2013.
[7] VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2so9hyNWxc&feature=player_embedded#!
[8] Alcantara, Krisanne. "New Mexico's Earthship Homes Are a World Away From Traditional
Living (Off the Grid)." Aol Real Estate.. N.p., 18 Sept. 2012. Web. 6 Apr. 2013.
<http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/09/18/new-mexico-earthship-community-off-thegrid/#photoID-7>.
[9] Purdy, Elizabeth R. "Earthships." . Grey House Publishing, 2011. SAGE knowlege. Web. 9
Apr. 2013.
[10] IMAGE: http://solarpanelsnews.blogspot.com
[11] Watkins, Chris. "Earthship." Appropedia. Appropedia , 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.
<http://www.appropedia.org/Earthship#Disadvantages>.
[12] IMAGE: http://uprooted.jessicareeder.com/2009/03/reach-a-pictorial