Introduction
T his project started with one idea: Share the answers to the questions I got asked day after day about improving Earthships. What started out as 3 pages on the Archinia website a few years back has now grown into a coalition of designers, engineers, sustainability experts, and people in-the-know all sharing their knowledge so that we can try and help make the world a little bit better place.
We love the organic forms of earthen architecture and the idea of living freely and in concert with nature – growing our food, reducing our need for systems, rising and setting with the sun – these are noble, sustainable, and mindful ways to live.
Living in Taos, New Mexico at the epicenter of the Earthship phenomenon, we are impressed by these structures every time someone comes to visit, because they inevitably want to see them. We have many friends who have lived in them. We have visited them, interviewed their builders, and even gone to workshops about them. While we celebrate the Earthship’s successes… like the glass bottle walls that radiate a mosaic of blue, green, and amber light… we also see… and hear people’s frustrations over… their flaws.
We are often asked whether the Earthships are as good as the hype around them suggests. When we started posting about common problems on our website, people took notice and started asking us not only to help solve the issues they were having with their existing Earthships, but also to help them hack the design to make a more natural version. As a designer, I was intrigued by this idea because I also wanted to see if the Earthship could be done with natural materials. So, I rallied my team and we started working. We found research, collected data, took tours and made observations, and… in order to build a new paradigm… we got back to basics.
This return to basics started for me when I moved to New Mexico seven years ago. Previous to my move, I lived in Vail, Colorado and worked as a project manager for an architect who designed $7million+ homes in the most prestigious areas of the Rocky Mountains. Working on projects of that scale and quality gave me one set of values around architecture: the bigger, the prettier, and the more expensive… the better. I was quite literally at the top of the residential architecture game. I got to work on some of the most magnificent residential spaces there are.
Here in New Mexico though, I got back to my roots – in the earth – and I found my way back to great design for real people again. I realized that everyone deserves to live in a place that is safe, warm, requires little energy input, and is a space that can make their lives a little brighter. I also realized that the most efficient way we can change our world to a more sustainable one is to impact as many peoples’ homes as possible. Because for every new cruddy building that gets built, we all pay for the bad design by losing our incredible wealth of natural resources, which are mined, extracted, cut down, and otherwise abused in order to support these bad buildings.
I went back to what I consider the heart of great architecture. I re-read Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, which investigates the forms of architecture and landscapes designed by people of different cultures in different places. I re-read Kenneth Frampton’s essays on Critical Regionalism, which discuss designing buildings that are of their place and time and culture. I re-read Sarah Susankah’s The Not So Big House so I could remember how to do small-scale design well again. I joined the Architecture 2030 movement and the SEED movement so I could commit to sustainability goals that support our earth and its people too. I learned how to make adobes, install and repair earth plaster, and build naturally. And I started a 5-year research project on sustainable and natural earth-centered design in New Mexico and around the world.
Here in New Mexico, people have been living off the land and designing and building in concert with nature for more than 1,000 years. Many of our historic buildings work as well today as they did when they were built. I thought this might be true as I visited the many archaeological sites where our original architectures still exist intact. I confirmed it when Archinia was hired for two projects that allowed me to survey more than 500 historic buildings in Taos County – many of these adobe buildings were still in relatively good shape after 100 years! It became clear rather quickly that these natural buildings are a tangible offering that we can pass on to our kids. That is important because it is truly sustainable.
The story of how all of it worked together became a part of me and informed how I relate to every space now. And who isn’t looking for a deeper, more meaning-full connection to their place in the world? This is why I want to share so much of what makes great vernacular architecture work with you – I want to help you find your special connection to your Place. Connecting to Place has become important again for many designers around the world. In fact, now there is an entire discipline in architecture called PlaceMaking. PlaceMaking is less about making things than it is about honoring the Places we build in. I think this idea can help us build better buildings in general. And better Earthships in particular.
Forty years have passed since the earliest Earthships were dreamed into existence. In that time, Mike Reynolds – the father of Earthships – and visionaries like him have played a fundamental role in expanding ideas about sustainable design and natural building. This has helped to create a new generation of would-be home builders that are better-versed in sustainable strategies. Those who can afford Earthships also have a more discerning eye, as the price point of the buildings has risen dramatically, and with that comes a more sophisticated consumer.
The new generation of Earthship enthusiasts: Does not want to cart questionable building materials long distances in the name of recycling and call it “green”.Wants to build locally and naturally… and they want to build it themselves. Wants their buildings to be cool in summer, warm in winter, the humidity to be predictable and regular; and they want to minimize pests and allergens in their environment. Wants to be able to get a permit, and insurance, and resell their homes if they want to; or pass them on to their children if they can.They might have been influenced by the tiny house movement, and they want a smaller home that is “just right”… for their budget, time, ability, energy use, and maintenance.Oftentimes, they want to be able to spend the rest of their lives in their home, which means they want to make their home easy to manage, maintain, and get around in, even if they are in a walker or wheelchair.They want their home to feel like it is made from and relating to the earth: in views, in light, in fresh air, in the ability to grow food, and in a beautiful landscape that supports the function of the home.Finding the balance between all these desires is a delicate and sometimes lengthy process of discernment, study, and goal-setting. That is what this book aims to help you do.
Chapter 1 THE EARTHSHIP REALITY PROJECT addresses the Earthship ideal as it exists today, discussing the science behind the Earthships, as well as issues and resolutions of the design over the past 40 years.
Chapter 2 THE SCIENCE: ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND TIRE OFF-GASSING reviews some of the best academic and scientific research on Earthship design and performance, and then offers interpretations of what must be addressed to remedy the issues raised.
Chapter 3 A WAY FORWARD begins to lay out a path for those who want to utilize earth-sheltering and Earthship ideals as a basis of design for a truly sustainable home. In this chapter, we discuss designing a sustainable home, obtaining financing and insurance, tax credits, cost effective sustainable features, minimizing waste, managing the complexities of the build, visioning, and Code requirements.
Chapter 4 THE BUILDING’S CONTEXT AND SITE addresses design techniques for the site and landscape, and discusses methods for how to put both to work for you.
Chapter 5 DESIGNING FOR THERMAL COMFORT addresses natural, mechanical, and design options for improving thermal performance. Topics covered include passive solar design; using thermal mass versus insulation; using earth-coupling versus earth-sheltering; designing for thermal and moisture protection; and natural ventilation. We also touch on acoustics.
Chapters 6 through 8 are a three-part series on the basic building blocks of a building.
Chapter 6 THE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM specifically addresses the ways we can form the building’s structure.
Chapter 7 THE ENCLOSURE SYSTEM outlines methods for the construction of the building’s envelope or skin. We discuss traditional earthship building blocks like tire, glass, and can walls, as well as alternative systems like adobe, cob, rammed earth, earthbags, wood block concrete forms, timber frame, log, cordwood, and strawbale buildings. We also cover various roofing options as well as doors and windows in this chapter.
Chapter 8 ROOMS, SPACES, COLORS, & TEXTURES discusses the spaces within the building envelope and how we can decorate those spaces in order to create a home we love.
Chapter 9 MECHANICAL SYSTEMS outlines basic mechanical, electrical, and plumbing considerations for various systems, including and especially on-grid systems since those are what make an Earthship most affordable.
Chapter 10 IMBUING SPACE WITH SPIRIT is affectionately titled “The WooWoo Chapter.” This chapter addresses the psychological and spiritual aspects of design and covers a wide range of topics including psychology of space and color, locating power spots, astrologically-correct timing for cutting wood and other building tasks, and we even talk about Feng Shui and Vaastu. While my intellectual approach to design has always been rooted in the science of building, my heart resides in another place – one that is inhabited with a little bit of magic. While there may be overtones throughout the text, this chapter makes no attempt to reign in magical thinking. I hope that for those of you who are called to create spaces that are spiritually “more”, these tips are of benefit.
Chapter 11 CONCLUSION: A NEW SET OF EARTH-SHELTER BUILDING CRITERIA presents my conclusions about the kind of earth-sheltered home I want, after having gone through the process of asking myself the same questions you will as you design your home using this book. I am not offering a general conclusion that will work for you, because that is not possible for me to do. We will get into the reasons why a conclusion that works for me cannot work for you in the sections where we discuss how there can be no Global Model of design. I do hope that seeing the results of my investigation assists you in determining what works for you.
Chapter 12 OVERWHELMED? NEED HELP? discusses some helpful tips if you hire an architect or residential designer to help you design your space.
The APPENDICES offer lists of resources and worksheets designed to help you manifest a space you will love.
The opening photos of each chapter were selected with the intention of offering inspiration. For me, these photos represent the best of Earthships as well as earthen design… and abundance… which is what I wish for all of us.
We will post a list of links for the sites we mention here on our blog and we will post new and revised content as it becomes available between editions.
Finally, I want to offer that there were two other motivations for me writing this book. The first is that I have gone partially blind and there is a pretty good chance that I will end up totally blind eventually. I wanted to document all the tips and tricks I have learned in my career before I cannot see the words on the mountain of pages of sticky notes, notebooks, and files that I saved anymore. So I wrote down all I could remember and transcribed every tidbit of design advice that I could find in my files. Plus, I have this crazy idea that Architecture (the good stuff, with a capital-A) should not be reserved for the rich. Modern homes for regular people are rarely designed to last or work properly for their climate. This demands more resources and results in higher monthly fuel costs. These homes require still more resources when they must be repaired or rebuilt because they are poorly constructed… and on and on it goes. I want to help stop this crazy cycle that people, myself included, are getting trapped in. I want to help bring design back to the people. That is why, when my first editor told me on Christmas Eve that she couldn’t finish the book, and the second editor told me in late February she couldn’t finish it either… I kept writing. I care less about perfect wording and citations than I do about getting this information in your hands so you can make your spaces shine and start saving your money and resources NOW.
The second motivation is that I want what I suspect all of our readers want – a place of my own that fills the void created by living in a world that is not in alignment with my values. I want my own perfect little oasis that is of-the-earth and that feeds my body and soul. I have a solid background in this, as I have worked for many years to help people design and build their own perfect spaces. But there were things I did not know myself about some of the kinds of building that I have not already worked with. What I didn’t know, I learned, and shared here… so you don’t have to spend countless hours researching it all yourself.
This book is also a bit of an homage to the people and organizations who inspired and taught me through this process, and who joined in in this effort to help us identify truly sustainable ways of doing earth-sheltered buildings. There are so many extraordinary people doing amazing work out there. Their work can change the way we approach architecture and design! I want to celebrate that and help people to use design to improve their lives. So I will also share stories about the people who inspired me and include links to their work so you can get inspired too!
With all of my heart, I hope these pages help you manifest your dream home too.
We love the organic forms of earthen architecture and the idea of living freely and in concert with nature – growing our food, reducing our need for systems, rising and setting with the sun – these are noble, sustainable, and mindful ways to live.
Living in Taos, New Mexico at the epicenter of the Earthship phenomenon, we are impressed by these structures every time someone comes to visit, because they inevitably want to see them. We have many friends who have lived in them. We have visited them, interviewed their builders, and even gone to workshops about them. While we celebrate the Earthship’s successes… like the glass bottle walls that radiate a mosaic of blue, green, and amber light… we also see… and hear people’s frustrations over… their flaws.
We are often asked whether the Earthships are as good as the hype around them suggests. When we started posting about common problems on our website, people took notice and started asking us not only to help solve the issues they were having with their existing Earthships, but also to help them hack the design to make a more natural version. As a designer, I was intrigued by this idea because I also wanted to see if the Earthship could be done with natural materials. So, I rallied my team and we started working. We found research, collected data, took tours and made observations, and… in order to build a new paradigm… we got back to basics.
This return to basics started for me when I moved to New Mexico seven years ago. Previous to my move, I lived in Vail, Colorado and worked as a project manager for an architect who designed $7million+ homes in the most prestigious areas of the Rocky Mountains. Working on projects of that scale and quality gave me one set of values around architecture: the bigger, the prettier, and the more expensive… the better. I was quite literally at the top of the residential architecture game. I got to work on some of the most magnificent residential spaces there are.
Here in New Mexico though, I got back to my roots – in the earth – and I found my way back to great design for real people again. I realized that everyone deserves to live in a place that is safe, warm, requires little energy input, and is a space that can make their lives a little brighter. I also realized that the most efficient way we can change our world to a more sustainable one is to impact as many peoples’ homes as possible. Because for every new cruddy building that gets built, we all pay for the bad design by losing our incredible wealth of natural resources, which are mined, extracted, cut down, and otherwise abused in order to support these bad buildings.
I went back to what I consider the heart of great architecture. I re-read Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, which investigates the forms of architecture and landscapes designed by people of different cultures in different places. I re-read Kenneth Frampton’s essays on Critical Regionalism, which discuss designing buildings that are of their place and time and culture. I re-read Sarah Susankah’s The Not So Big House so I could remember how to do small-scale design well again. I joined the Architecture 2030 movement and the SEED movement so I could commit to sustainability goals that support our earth and its people too. I learned how to make adobes, install and repair earth plaster, and build naturally. And I started a 5-year research project on sustainable and natural earth-centered design in New Mexico and around the world.
Here in New Mexico, people have been living off the land and designing and building in concert with nature for more than 1,000 years. Many of our historic buildings work as well today as they did when they were built. I thought this might be true as I visited the many archaeological sites where our original architectures still exist intact. I confirmed it when Archinia was hired for two projects that allowed me to survey more than 500 historic buildings in Taos County – many of these adobe buildings were still in relatively good shape after 100 years! It became clear rather quickly that these natural buildings are a tangible offering that we can pass on to our kids. That is important because it is truly sustainable.
The story of how all of it worked together became a part of me and informed how I relate to every space now. And who isn’t looking for a deeper, more meaning-full connection to their place in the world? This is why I want to share so much of what makes great vernacular architecture work with you – I want to help you find your special connection to your Place. Connecting to Place has become important again for many designers around the world. In fact, now there is an entire discipline in architecture called PlaceMaking. PlaceMaking is less about making things than it is about honoring the Places we build in. I think this idea can help us build better buildings in general. And better Earthships in particular.
Forty years have passed since the earliest Earthships were dreamed into existence. In that time, Mike Reynolds – the father of Earthships – and visionaries like him have played a fundamental role in expanding ideas about sustainable design and natural building. This has helped to create a new generation of would-be home builders that are better-versed in sustainable strategies. Those who can afford Earthships also have a more discerning eye, as the price point of the buildings has risen dramatically, and with that comes a more sophisticated consumer.
The new generation of Earthship enthusiasts: Does not want to cart questionable building materials long distances in the name of recycling and call it “green”.Wants to build locally and naturally… and they want to build it themselves. Wants their buildings to be cool in summer, warm in winter, the humidity to be predictable and regular; and they want to minimize pests and allergens in their environment. Wants to be able to get a permit, and insurance, and resell their homes if they want to; or pass them on to their children if they can.They might have been influenced by the tiny house movement, and they want a smaller home that is “just right”… for their budget, time, ability, energy use, and maintenance.Oftentimes, they want to be able to spend the rest of their lives in their home, which means they want to make their home easy to manage, maintain, and get around in, even if they are in a walker or wheelchair.They want their home to feel like it is made from and relating to the earth: in views, in light, in fresh air, in the ability to grow food, and in a beautiful landscape that supports the function of the home.Finding the balance between all these desires is a delicate and sometimes lengthy process of discernment, study, and goal-setting. That is what this book aims to help you do.
Chapter 1 THE EARTHSHIP REALITY PROJECT addresses the Earthship ideal as it exists today, discussing the science behind the Earthships, as well as issues and resolutions of the design over the past 40 years.
Chapter 2 THE SCIENCE: ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND TIRE OFF-GASSING reviews some of the best academic and scientific research on Earthship design and performance, and then offers interpretations of what must be addressed to remedy the issues raised.
Chapter 3 A WAY FORWARD begins to lay out a path for those who want to utilize earth-sheltering and Earthship ideals as a basis of design for a truly sustainable home. In this chapter, we discuss designing a sustainable home, obtaining financing and insurance, tax credits, cost effective sustainable features, minimizing waste, managing the complexities of the build, visioning, and Code requirements.
Chapter 4 THE BUILDING’S CONTEXT AND SITE addresses design techniques for the site and landscape, and discusses methods for how to put both to work for you.
Chapter 5 DESIGNING FOR THERMAL COMFORT addresses natural, mechanical, and design options for improving thermal performance. Topics covered include passive solar design; using thermal mass versus insulation; using earth-coupling versus earth-sheltering; designing for thermal and moisture protection; and natural ventilation. We also touch on acoustics.
Chapters 6 through 8 are a three-part series on the basic building blocks of a building.
Chapter 6 THE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM specifically addresses the ways we can form the building’s structure.
Chapter 7 THE ENCLOSURE SYSTEM outlines methods for the construction of the building’s envelope or skin. We discuss traditional earthship building blocks like tire, glass, and can walls, as well as alternative systems like adobe, cob, rammed earth, earthbags, wood block concrete forms, timber frame, log, cordwood, and strawbale buildings. We also cover various roofing options as well as doors and windows in this chapter.
Chapter 8 ROOMS, SPACES, COLORS, & TEXTURES discusses the spaces within the building envelope and how we can decorate those spaces in order to create a home we love.
Chapter 9 MECHANICAL SYSTEMS outlines basic mechanical, electrical, and plumbing considerations for various systems, including and especially on-grid systems since those are what make an Earthship most affordable.
Chapter 10 IMBUING SPACE WITH SPIRIT is affectionately titled “The WooWoo Chapter.” This chapter addresses the psychological and spiritual aspects of design and covers a wide range of topics including psychology of space and color, locating power spots, astrologically-correct timing for cutting wood and other building tasks, and we even talk about Feng Shui and Vaastu. While my intellectual approach to design has always been rooted in the science of building, my heart resides in another place – one that is inhabited with a little bit of magic. While there may be overtones throughout the text, this chapter makes no attempt to reign in magical thinking. I hope that for those of you who are called to create spaces that are spiritually “more”, these tips are of benefit.
Chapter 11 CONCLUSION: A NEW SET OF EARTH-SHELTER BUILDING CRITERIA presents my conclusions about the kind of earth-sheltered home I want, after having gone through the process of asking myself the same questions you will as you design your home using this book. I am not offering a general conclusion that will work for you, because that is not possible for me to do. We will get into the reasons why a conclusion that works for me cannot work for you in the sections where we discuss how there can be no Global Model of design. I do hope that seeing the results of my investigation assists you in determining what works for you.
Chapter 12 OVERWHELMED? NEED HELP? discusses some helpful tips if you hire an architect or residential designer to help you design your space.
The APPENDICES offer lists of resources and worksheets designed to help you manifest a space you will love.
The opening photos of each chapter were selected with the intention of offering inspiration. For me, these photos represent the best of Earthships as well as earthen design… and abundance… which is what I wish for all of us.
We will post a list of links for the sites we mention here on our blog and we will post new and revised content as it becomes available between editions.
Finally, I want to offer that there were two other motivations for me writing this book. The first is that I have gone partially blind and there is a pretty good chance that I will end up totally blind eventually. I wanted to document all the tips and tricks I have learned in my career before I cannot see the words on the mountain of pages of sticky notes, notebooks, and files that I saved anymore. So I wrote down all I could remember and transcribed every tidbit of design advice that I could find in my files. Plus, I have this crazy idea that Architecture (the good stuff, with a capital-A) should not be reserved for the rich. Modern homes for regular people are rarely designed to last or work properly for their climate. This demands more resources and results in higher monthly fuel costs. These homes require still more resources when they must be repaired or rebuilt because they are poorly constructed… and on and on it goes. I want to help stop this crazy cycle that people, myself included, are getting trapped in. I want to help bring design back to the people. That is why, when my first editor told me on Christmas Eve that she couldn’t finish the book, and the second editor told me in late February she couldn’t finish it either… I kept writing. I care less about perfect wording and citations than I do about getting this information in your hands so you can make your spaces shine and start saving your money and resources NOW.
The second motivation is that I want what I suspect all of our readers want – a place of my own that fills the void created by living in a world that is not in alignment with my values. I want my own perfect little oasis that is of-the-earth and that feeds my body and soul. I have a solid background in this, as I have worked for many years to help people design and build their own perfect spaces. But there were things I did not know myself about some of the kinds of building that I have not already worked with. What I didn’t know, I learned, and shared here… so you don’t have to spend countless hours researching it all yourself.
This book is also a bit of an homage to the people and organizations who inspired and taught me through this process, and who joined in in this effort to help us identify truly sustainable ways of doing earth-sheltered buildings. There are so many extraordinary people doing amazing work out there. Their work can change the way we approach architecture and design! I want to celebrate that and help people to use design to improve their lives. So I will also share stories about the people who inspired me and include links to their work so you can get inspired too!
With all of my heart, I hope these pages help you manifest your dream home too.
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