1. 11 May 2008

    Garbage Warrior

    14 hours ago

    Here’s an impressive documentary on Mike Reynolds, progenitor of the Earthship concept. 30 or so years ago he started to build houses out of trash: first tin cans mixed with natural cement, then incorporating tires and bottles. His keystone idea was that of a completely self–sufficient home. Harvesting rainwater off the roof, coupled with what’s come to be known as passive–solar to keep the place warm, small–scale electricity generation, and gardening for food. This kind of house covers all your bases. I’ve seen bits about earthships here and there (I’ve always taken an interest in the more marginalized forms of architecture), but learning more about these really fascinates me.

    It’s the perfect blending of home and environment, wrapping you in a microclimate that bends natural processes to your will instead of opposing them. I found a clip of Reynolds on Colbert’s Show, and he said something along the lines of: “we pick banana trees in the middle of winter grown with our own raw sewage.” This isn’t quite true—it’s grey–water that flows through the planters with the banana trees, so not quite sewage—but that’s semantic. Colbert was baffled, his eyes doubled in size, about 5 seconds later he regained his composure and ended the interview with one of his quips. But that about sums it up for me. I’ve always wanted to build up my own place out in the woods, and when I do I’ll be hard pressed not to try out one of these.

    — Garbage Warrior, by Oliver Hodge (torrent)
    — Reynolds’s Organization
    — Here’s a beautiful and recent Earthship being put up by Reynolds and his crew in Nicaragua
    — A pretty decent 7–minute feature from the Weather Channel
    — An equally long feature on an earthship in Normandy (in french)

    Reynolds used to be an architect, but his state liscense was revoked in the 90s. He’s recently had it given back, but fuck that, he calls himself a biotect now.

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