Sunday, June 22, 2014

earthships



In 2007, on vacation, my husband and I drove between Taos and Albuquerque, New Mexico and saw a few very unusual houses.


An Earthship is a type of passive solar house, sustainable  in design and construction, made of natural and recycled materials designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture.  Michael Reynolds began designing this type of house upon graduating with a degree in architecture from the University of Cincinnati in 1969.  He now builds all over the world.  Earthships are generally off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels.  Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources, especially energy from the sun.  Houses grow their own food and dispose of waste by recycling--quite ingenious.


"The earth is embracing the building...as a mother holds a baby." 
~Michael Reynolds 

This is quite a fascinating subject.  The business Earthship Biotecture offers internships, seminars, events, nightly rentals, and even kits to build your own!

Below is the plan of the custom model The Phoenix from the Earthship website.  This 3 bedroom, 2 bath house rents nightly.  It has a fish pond, birds, a jungle greenhouse, and grows food.

The Phoenix Custom Earthship--source



LINKS:
interview  on youtube with architect Michael Reynolds, creator of Earthship Biotecture with a tour of an earthship 
movie on youtube:  Garbage Warrior--documentary of the earthship movement
◊ "Sustainable Build" article on building green
an account --an intern builds an Earthship
Earthship Biotecture
◊ "Albuquerque Journal" article about students worldwide learning to build Earthships --with photos



Alphabe-Thursday, hosted by Ms Jenny, is so much fun!  This week our letter is  "E." Come visit others' submissions HERE and join in the fun!  


Thank you, Ms Jenny, for hostessing another round!

 
 
photos by me  © 2007   all rights reserved

11 comments:

  1. I really like the concept of the Earthship! What a visionary architect! I love his quote :)

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  2. I love that it uses so much natural energy. I love solar power!

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  3. These are really cool! I think I saw something similar on TV a while ago. Great idea and architecture.

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  4. I'd never even heard of these! They look wacky but cool.

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  5. Cool! I'd never heard of these. Environmentally-friendly!

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  6. Love Taos and great post and photos for E ~ what a wonderful environmental friendly idea ~ thanks, xoxo

    artmusedog and carol (A Creative Harbor)

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  7. Beautiful photos, I love these unique houses in the desert, I would look inside!

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  8. Pretty cool, and about as creative as it gets. I'd love to stay in one sometime.

    =)

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  9. Ooooh, this is so interesting! I took a whole semester class about green design last year and these weren't mentioned. I'm going to go read some more!

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  10. I've never heard of earthships but they sound so fascinating.

    It would be excellent to stay in one someday!

    Thanks for linking for the letter E.

    A+

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Your comments make my day! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts!