© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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On Monday, I started my month-long internship at Earthship Biotecture. Earthships are self-sufficient houses that use recycled materials in their construction, and that are equipped with systems for rainwater catchment, solar and wind power, water reuse, waste control, and food production. What does that mean? It means that once you build an Earthship, you never have to pay an electricity or water bill again. Ever.

Don’t believe me? Good, because I can’t explain it all in a single blog entry. Go read the Earthship website instead, and then watch Garbage Warrior.

I’ve been working on site at the visitor’s center, which was constructed in the 90s as a demonstration building. That’s the entrance in the first photo. Earthships don’t look like much on the outside, but on the inside they’re really lovely.

 
The main room is filled with posters & diagrams of the various Earthship models and systems, plus a demonstration video and press books.

Yes, the TV runs off solar power collected from the roof panels. There are computers running in here too, and an extension cord stretching over to the building site, where it powers all the tools. With enough panels, you can have as much power as you like, even in cloudy areas.

What’s great about this design, however, is how little energy is really being used. Natural light makes it so you don’t need lightbulbs in the daytime, and even in extreme weather the building maintains an even temperature through passive solar heat and thermal mass. Today was cold and windy outdoors, but totally comfortable inside.

Bottle walls are one of the coolest features of Earthship design. They’re literally trash stuck in mud, but they create this beautiful stained-glass effect. That’s the bathroom door, and in front of it is a demonstration water cistern.

Less glamorous but much more important is the Power Organizing Module, which processes all the incoming power and sends it out as DC or AC. Normally this wall would be plastered, but the tires and cans were left exposed so visitors can see the construction technique.

All Earthships have indoor greenhouse areas, which are used for growing flowers and food. The food production techniques are still being perfected, but the ultimate goal is to make it so that you don’t need to buy groceries. It’s pretty amazing to look out over this healthy garden and see how dry and desolate the outside world is.

By the way: look at that window again. See the wooden arch at the far left? That’s part of the new construction.

This structure, and the identical one next to it, are part of Mike Reynolds‘ new additions to the visitor center. You can see that the walls are made of tires stacked like bricks; tires are filled with rammed earth (aka “dirt”) to make them incredibly solid, strong, and temperature-resistant. Non-load-bearing walls are made of cans & bottles, stuck together with cement and adobe.

This wall is just getting started, but you can see the design taking shape. The cans will be plastered over, but bottles will have their ends exposed to let in the light.

Once the wall’s thickness is determined, the bottles are cut with a tile saw and the two fat ends taped together. Then you just cement them in.

But before you can get to the fancy stuff, the tires have to be pounded! That’s what we’re doing at the big building, which will eventually become the new visitor center.

That’s my fellow intern Andrew off to the right, showing how it’s done. Yep, a shovel and a sledgehammer and lots of elbow grease. These things are seriously labor-intensive; pounding one tire takes 15-20 minutes for experienced (and acclimated) workers, so for us green kids from lower elevations, it’s taking half an hour per tire.

That’s Tim, the crew member who’s been managing us, working out the levels. Technically, this is a decorative (non-structural) bottle wall so it doesn’t have to be perfect. But sometimes it’s nice—actually, necessary—to stop hammering for a minute, so we’ve been getting everything good and even.

Tim and the other crew members have been amazingly patient and supportive while Andrew and I learn the ropes and build our strength. Working at 7500 feet can be totally exhausting, and when the winds are high it’s hard to catch a deep breath. But we’re learning and getting stronger, and benefiting from all the knowledge around us. Everyone on the crew lives in an Earthship, and many of them built their own houses. They’re professional and creative, and easy to talk to. I feel lucky to be here, even despite the sore muscles.

On that note, it’s off to bed for me. Tomorrow is a full day of tire-pounding on a new site, with all six interns. I’m gonna sleep all weekend!

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alternative, art, biotecture, design, earthship, Earthship Biotecture, earthships, ecotourism, energy-efficient, featured posts, garbage, green building, New Mexico, recycling, reuse, sustainable, Taos, volunteer, voluntourism

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Ah, the Angel’s Nest. Arguably the most famous “Earthship” in existence, this peach-and-mint confection of modern organic architecture sits close to the highway in the Greater World Community, beckoning visitors with its flashing windmills, bevy of solar panels, turrets, hydrogen/biodiesel Hummer and fire engine parked in the driveway…

Well, it used to anyway.

Nautilus floor plan from earthship.net

This house started out as the Nautilus, a one-bedroom Earthship with a design based on the Fibonnaci spiral. It was small, but beautiful— or so they say. You can see what remains of the Nautilus in the above photo: it’s the round bit at the right side of the house.

Sometime around 2001, the Nautilus was bought by Robert Plarr and Victoria Peters, two self-described idealists who are dedicated to furthering the cause of sustainability. They decided to turn the Nautilus into a showcase of sustainable and eco-friendly technologies, and renamed it Angel’s Nest.

This is generally where the story ends, when you’re talking to an Earthship community member. The Angel’s Nest involved some crew labor, and shares land with the Greater World; people in the community are reluctant to be overly critical of their neighbors. But from what I can piece together, Mr. Plarr and Ms. Peters may not have been playing with a full deck of cards.

photos from angels-nest.org

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Read the rest of The Fallen Angel’s Nest (466 words)

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Springtime in Taos is a lot like winter in most places, except maybe harsher. People are full of stories about it:

“Oh yeah, you’ll be out working in short sleeves and then suddenly there’ll be snow and lightning and then the rest of the day you’re in full-on winter gear.”

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Read the rest of Springtime in Taos, Part II (252 words)

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Post tags: biotecture, earthship, earthships, energy-efficient, environment, nature, New Mexico, outdoors, seasons, snow, spring, Taos, volunteer, voluntourism, weather, winter

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R.E.A.C.H. (or “Rural Earthship Alternative Community Habitat” if you favor flavor over brevity) is a PRIVATE community, so don’t just go traipsing up here uninvited— but realistically, you probably couldn’t make it if you wanted to. The roads are only accessible with a 4×4, and then only when the snow isn’t too thick.

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Read the rest of R.E.A.C.H. Earthship Community, a pictorial (661 words)

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Bottle Brick Bathroom, originally uploaded by Earthship Kirsten

If you’ve been following my Earthships adventure, you know that it is actually possible to build houses using garbage. Can and bottle walls—literally walls made out of mud or cement, with cans or bottles set like bricks—are one of Mike Reynolds‘ time-tested innovations, a building technique that can have amazingly artistic results.

Can/bottle walls look and act like normal walls, except that they can’t bear heavy loads. They’re much, MUCH faster to build than tire walls, but don’t have the benefit of thermal mass. In Earthships, they’re used for room dividers, garden walls, and other non-load-bearing verticals. You can literally learn how to make one in five minutes; they’re cheap as free and extremely easy to put up. So, here’s how!

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Read the rest of Things I Learned: Can/Bottle Walls (873 words)

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After two full weeks of hard work and some pretty rough weather on the Earthship job site, we were all feeling kinda beat. But things are changing! There’s still snow on the mountaintops, but down here in Taos it’s a sunny day; spring is officially around the corner, and it really feels like the change in seasons has arrived.

Original photo by John Kejr, Dreamcatcher Real Estate

We’re still working in the Greater World Community, but are now focusing on the “Euro”— so named because it’s based on the Earthship built in Normandy, France.

It’s a great design: a double greenhouse for maximum temperature control; north-sloping roof for easier construction & water catchment; and a blueprint that can be contracted or expanded horizontally to fit any need. (This is a 3-bedroom house, but the site we were working last week will only be a 1-bedroom.)

All the structure of the Euro has essentially been built. We’re working on the cosmetic details, which are physically easier than big ol’ tires full of dirt (though more time-consuming). And because it’s practically the most beautiful day ever ever, we’re all working outside.

(...)
Read the rest of Springtime in the Greater World (705 words)

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Work started here last Friday, when all the interns were pulled from our regular worksites to start pounding tires here. The site had been laid out with string lines, so all we had to do was to dig out a level course, toss down the tires, and start moving dirt.

Our building materials are pretty high-tech, in that we strive to use the same size of tire across any row (“course” is the technical term). Another technological development is the technique of putting cardboard in the bottom of the tire, so that dirt doesn’t fall out.

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Read the rest of Dirt. Rubber. Shovel. Hammer. (499 words)

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Post tags: biotecture, buy nothing, earthships, energy-efficient, garbage, green building, New Mexico, recycling, reuse, sustainable, Taos, volunteer, voluntourism

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On Monday, I started my month-long internship at Earthship Biotecture. Earthships are self-sufficient houses that use recycled materials in their construction, and that are equipped with systems for rainwater catchment, solar and wind power, water reuse, waste control, and food production. What does that mean? It means that once you build an Earthship, you never have to pay an electricity or water bill again. Ever.

Don’t believe me? Good, because I can’t explain it all in a single blog entry. Go read the Earthship website instead, and then watch Garbage Warrior.

I’ve been working on site at the visitor’s center, which was constructed in the 90s as a demonstration building. That’s the entrance in the first photo. Earthships don’t look like much on the outside, but on the inside they’re really lovely.

(...)
Read the rest of Earthship Landing (669 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: art, biotecture, buy nothing, design, earthships, energy-efficient, featured posts, garbage, green building, New Mexico, recycling, reuse, solar, sustainable, Taos, volunteer, voluntourism, water

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