Michael Reynolds - Earthships
In this post I want to talk about Mike Reynolds, an architect from New Mexico. He designs and builds self-sufficient houses, built mostly with natural and recycled materials. These houses are called Earthships and have been built all over the world.
During years he has tried to develop a perfect stereotype while he was building and selling his experimental homes:
1) Passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials
2) Thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization
3) Renewable energy and integrate water systems
I read about these projects and I believe it is amazing the way he combined materials from the waste and built beautiful houses. Although I think it is almost impossible to build these kind of houses in cities or huge towns due to the strict regulations which exists currently in the construction field.
Some pictures of these Earthships:
The houses are opened to the south to allow the sun to penetrate the spaces and closed to the north. The roof is used to accommodate solar panels and windmills.
Earthships cost about the same as a conventional home, but a conventional home does not come with all the electricity and water you will use. A conventional home is bad for the planet, is not strong and uses materials that require a lot of fossil fuels to manufacture and get to your building site.
Looking the plans of all these houses you can see how normally he use a covered corridor to comunicate all the rooms and also works like a greenhouse to grow vegetables.
Some plans of these Earthships:
Materials used to build the Earthships:
1) The major structural building component of the Earthship is recycled automobile tires filled with compacted earth to form a rammed earth brick encased in steel belted rubber. This brick and the resulting bearing walls it forms is virtually indestructible.
2) Aluminum Cans and Glass/Plastic Bottles. These ‘little bricks’ are a great, simple way to build interior, non-structural walls. The ‘little bricks’ create a cement-matrix that is very strong and very easy to build. Bottles can create beautiful colored walls that light shines through.
3) Thermal mass. The materials that surround the spaces of an Earthship must be dense and massive in order to store the temperatures required to provide a habitable environment for humans and plants. The Earthship itself must be a ‘battery’ for storing temperature.
But one of the most important points is the low specific skills requirements you need to learn how to build this kind of houses.
Water
Earthships do not pollute underground water aquifers. Water is caught from a roof with a potable surface. From the roof, the water is channeled through silt catches into cisterns. Cisterns are sized to the local climate and completely protected from the sun.
Electricity / Power Organizing module
The houses have power modules that include the most up-to-date, reliable renewable power generation technology. These systems are called POMs, or Power Organizing Modules, and contain all the equipment necessary to power a building from renewable sources. They have great expertise with local regulations, and prepare the POM to respect and comply with code anywhere. POMs can be sold separately, to install in conventionally built houses, and are designed so that an electrician can wire a house in a perfectly conventional way according to codes and regulations.
There are a lot of Earthships all around the world, there is also one near Groningen in Zwolle:
The garbage warrior is a film about Michael reynolds and his projects. So, if you liked the post and wants to know more about this topic I recommend you the film. I attached you here a link of it, although it is subtitled in Spanish. ;)
I enjoyed a lot reading about this amazing architect and his ideas to build respectful houses for the environment. He made me think about what we really need to live, what we need to be happy and what the planet needs to survive. He made me believe we should change the way we live with lots of unnecessary gatdets and technology and try to be more respectful with the nature.
I hope you liked this post and return for the next one!!
