The world seems like it’s going to end pretty soon, doesn’t it?

 

Sorry, I know that’s a pessimistic start to my blog post. Maybe the end of the world is a bit of an exaggeration, but it does seem like everything around us is going downhill. I’m going to narrow our scope down to just natural disasters, but there is still plenty that’s happening. Flooding in Mississippi and Pakistan, heat waves in Europe, wildfires in Oregon and California, and Hurricanes Fiona and Ian. 

 

Almost every time I see a headline about another tragic natural disaster in the news, it’s always “unprecedented”. But really, these disasters are completely precedented. Climate change is literally changing the way our world works, and this means changing the way natural disasters work. They’re coming in increasing frequency and intensity, and this is a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future.

 

This probably won’t come as a surprise, but the house you’re living in isn’t exactly helping the situation. In my last post, I told you to look around. Let’s revisit that, except instead of going outside and staring at a building, I want you to find the closest vent. Yup, the vent. Put your hand over it. Is any air coming out? Is it hot or cold? Chances are, you answered “yes” and “hot” to both those questions.

 

Congrats! You’re causing climate change. Don’t be worried though. I mean, we should all be very worried, but the amount of carbon dioxide that Exxon Mobil releases is enough to compete with quite a few of your lifetimes, so you’re really not at fault. But combine that with all the air conditioned homes in the world, and we have a problem. Most homes and apartments in America have traditional heating and cooling systems that run off of fossil fuels. No matter how you kept cool this summer – excluding watching the new Stranger Things season in your birthday suit – it probably wasn’t sustainable. Very few homes are. Fortunately, there’s a solution for this – science.

 

The other day, I found an old book at home about sustainable architecture (perks of having a parent in your prospective career field that hasn’t given away a book since 2013), and when I opened a random page, I was met with a pretty bizarre picture.

 

It looked something like this, and I think the best way to describe it would be if an alien spaceship had a baby with Antonio Gaudi’s architecture (I’ll do a whole blog post on him later). It’s all organic lines, neutral colors, and natural materials. Come to think of it, if this style had a motto, it would be “Organic and all-natural! It’s not Whole Foods, it’s Earthship Biotecture!” When I first saw the word “Earthship”, I was expecting a sleek, metallic, multi-million dollar home. Instead, I got something 100% different – and 1000% better.

 

Earthship biotecture is an architectural style pioneered by American architect Michael Reynolds in the early 21st century. It’s the ultimate sustainable home, using natural materials and passive methods to stay a cool 70 degrees year-round in the extreme, arid Taos climate.

 

The Earthship style has six design tenets that all its homes live by: Repurposed materials, solar heating and cooling, solar electricity, water harvesting, sewage treatment, and food production.

 

All the homes are made from recycled and natural materials – most notably used tires packed with dirt. As you can see in the picture below, glass bottles in the walls offer a stunning, kaleidoscope effect, with the added benefit of passively cooling the home. The homes are also encapsulated by earth, again cooling the home and preserving the natural landscape.

 

The aspect of the Earthship style that intrigued me the most at first was net zero heating, cooling, and electricity. Be forewarned, I had to take a few minutes to process this because it is the single coolest thing I’ve read all month (sorry, William Faulkner). But first, I’d check out this video to see the building process.

 

 

When I talked about the tires, I forgot to mention that they’re 300 pounds each. This might seem excessive, but don’t forget that the only thing holding up the structure are these walls, with no concrete foundation (fun fact: 8% of global CO2 emissions come from concrete!). The blueprint for an Earthship home has three sides of tire walls and one south-facing window wall, and the idea is that the sunlight coming through the window will heat the floors, and as the day approaches evening, heat initially trapped in the tire walls will leak into the home, heating it for the night. Now think about your vents. Pretty stupid, right?

But it’s 2022, and I know I can’t live without electricity. In an Earthship home, you don’t have to! With ultra-efficient appliances installed throughout the home, solar panels are enough to cover all electrical needs, which is still only 25% of conventional homes.

 

Being in New Mexico, water collection is a major issue. All water used in an Earthship home comes from rainwater runoff or snowmelt. Beyond that, used water goes through four steps before the end of its cycle: interior plants use and treat the water until it’s clean enough to be used for flushing. After it travels to a septic tank, the water is finally used by exterior plants. The interior plants are actually fresh produce that residents live off of.

 

I know this is already an excessively long blog post, but I could honestly write about Earthship architecture for hours. It actually functions as a sort of neighborhood, where resources are shared – yet it’s still so sustainable! It’s a very different lifestyle than our Napervillian utopia, but all it takes is some getting used to. So to anyone reading this: if I go off the grid in 15 years, you know where I’ll be. In fact, you should come join me – me and my glass bottle walls would love to have you.

 

Works Cited:

EarthshipGlobal. “Earthship Biotecture Michael Reynolds.” Earthship Biotecture Michael Reynolds, 2022, www.earthshipglobal.com/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2022.

Earthship Biotecture. “Earthship Global Model: Radically Sustainable Buildings.” YouTube, 29 Nov. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2so9hyNWxc. Accessed 14 Oct. 2022.

Ramsden, Keegan. “PSCI.” PSCI, 3 Nov. 2020, psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/11/3/cement-and-concrete-the-environmental-impact. Accessed 14 Oct. 2022.