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February 11, 2021
Earthship Construction
Photo courtesy of the author.
In the northeastern quadrant of New Mexico, out of reach of big city sprawl, lies a mystical area named Taos. This is the home to Earthship Biotecture, an eco-construction company, best known for their Earthship home design. Earthships are autonomous, off-the-grid homes designed to collect their own water, produce their own power, and grow their own food. These sustainable homes also treat human waste and use recycled materials in construction. Earthships began with eco-bricks made from tin cans and later grew to sophisticated, hand-built homes, inspiring communities eager for more sustainable lifestyles.
In the early 1970s, Michael Reynolds, an architect who had recently graduated from the University of Cincinnati, came up with the idea and designs for a house that could be built using sustainable local or recycled materials. The designs were intended to be off-the-grid and require no special skills to construct. After decades of trial and error, Reynolds founded The Greater World Earthship Community, home to the Earthship Academy and several self-sustaining homes.
The idea that a home can be grid-independent, built from post-consumer materials, and require little to no prior construction knowledge is attractive, particularly for poverty-stricken regions and countries. Earthship Biotecture has built homes in Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uruguay, France, and Japan. They often respond to humanitarian crises, such as the one caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017. But Earthships are a lot more than emergency housing for those experiencing poverty or the effects of natural disasters.
Former EESI intern, Karen Caycho Molero, sitting in an Earthship.
I first heard about Earthships from a professor’s class on sustainable design methods. After seeing their internship program, I immediately applied and eagerly awaited a response, which came after months of waiting—I was accepted! I traveled from my college in St. Petersburg, Florida, to be an intern on one of Earthship’s builds.
There’s a lot to be said about experiencing something for yourself, rather than reading about it in a classroom. That's especially true for working on a build with the Earthship team—no website or article could have prepared me for the feeling of camaraderie and acceptance that I felt in Taos. On site, gender, size, and skill level don’t matter. As a rite of passage, everyone has to pound truck tires full of dirt with a sledge hammer; my first tire took 1.5 hours, six five-gallon buckets of dirt, and three blisters to complete.
Earthship certainly has global appeal; some of my teammates had flown in from Israel, Holland, Canada, Colombia, and Germany to be a part of Earthship Biotecture. Several had even dropped everything and moved to Taos for a chance to be hired by Earthship. The work is simply that compelling.
Earthships are different from regular homes not only by design but also by how they feel. Since they are handbuilt, rounded corners and glass bottle mosaic walls abound. A hallway of windows surrounds the front of the homes, where lush gardens purify air while creating drafts to heat or cool indoor spaces. These homes are living proof that sustainable buildings can be good for the local environment and provide comfort and inspiration, all while addressing climate change. I wouldn’t have known this without the chance to work with Earthship Biotecture. The experience has changed my perspective on architectural beauty and what it means to build a space that is truly a home.
The Earthship experience empowered me and, to this day, I feel confident that I can jackhammer any boulder out of my way. I still keep in touch with the friends I made in Taos and fondly think back on the sight of the morning dawn hitting the Rockies, the smell of desert sage in the wind, and the mythic sight of 70-year-old Michael Reynolds pounding tires (but that’s another story).
The Earthship Academy offers year-round sessions for all those interested in learning how to build and design an Earthship. In addition, they offer internships where people can lend a hand on a building project, either in Taos or abroad.
Author: Karen Caycho Molero
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