As I am sure my Facebook feed to tell you, I am a massive fan of sustainable eco-architecture and for many years, I have been passively obsessed with earthships. For those of you that do not know or have hidden me from your news feeds, earthships our sustainable building concepts that utilise rubbish and trash as the foundations for their building materials. And as if that wasn’t enough, the homes themselves are designed to be fully sustainable, taking the heat from the earth and sun to regulate the temperature of the home all year round. Water is collected from the roofs into economical water cisterns buried underground. The essences was a grey water system, which reuses the same water for several different applications thus getting the most bang for your buck. The houses despite being cooled on the inside, the home acts as a greenhouse for fruits, vegetables and vegetation. There are now thousands of these earthships all over the world and their influence is growing every day. There is currently only one in the UK, a poor imitation of an earthship based in Brighton (a lot of modifications had to be done to the earthship, to bring in line with the UK building regulations) Until now this was my only experience of an earthship in person.
During my time in San Diego in January 2015, I decided to take a road trip to go and see the earthships in New Mexico, from which they originated. I hired a car from the airport and set off on my long journey. In eight days I drove total of just under 2000 miles. And I can confirm that there is the whole of nothing when driving across the US. Don’t get me wrong, the scenery is beautiful, but there was a whole lot of nothing. So I would listen to music on awesome radio channels, you don’t seem to do bad radio. I stayed with friends in Phoenix Arizona, and that a hostel in Santa Fe.
Refusing to spend an obscene amount of money one having and installed GPS system at $65 dollars a day, I was often pulling over to the side of the road and checking my location via my smartphone, but they seem to just add to the fun of the experience. I settle from Santa Fe in the morning, and drove an hour a half into the wilderness.
The earthships are located near town called Taos. Taos itself is a very artsy and alternative little town, full of galleries and starving artist exhibitions, it seems to be another place that has a lot of community. Maybe the community is just something that can be found in small groups, reinforcing that ’ everyone knows everyone around here’ mentality, but anyway. The town has a lot of character and the architecture is similar to Santa Fe in that it utilises a lot of Adobe throughout their architecture. It only seems to add to its charm.
The earthships are located about a 10 minute drive from from the town of Taos, so the people residing in the earthships I’m not completely cut off from the rest of the world.
After what can only be described as an epic drive from Santa Fe to Taos, I arrived at the Earthship Biotechure Visitors Centre, just before 11am to see the whole ground is covered in snow, I believe the elevation this area is 4000ft, so they get a lot of bad weather. The sun was out in full swing, there was not cloudy sky and it was glorious. However it was freezing cold. And with nothing to see for miles around except desert and mountains, you can bet they feel the wind as there is nothing to stop it.
Pulling into the earthship car park and looking around, you can see there are lots of current projects in the work. People come here from all over the world to study how to build earthships. The earthship biotecture company run internships and workshops the educate and train people about the earthships, what they stand for, what they represent and how you can spread the word. Consequently there are several building projects going on, which I believe it used as training as part of the workshop and internships.
Located behind the main visitor centre, is the first earthship community I can see. No more than 10 houses all within Close proximity of each other, popping out from the ground like sets from the original Star Wars Movie. Unfortunately it is on private property, is the owners of the homes do not simply want people walking up to their front door and snooping around, but just to be amongst this relatively new concept just blows me away.
The first thing I noticed once I stepped into that visitor centre, is that the temperature is so gorgeous warm compared to the outside. Despite the sun being out, the temperature outside was certainly cold, but I didn’t even notice this when I entered the earthship. In fact I had to take a coat because I was too warm. The girl running the reception desk handed me some paraphernalia, and I began my self-guided tour around the action. With my own eyes I can see baby pineapples, peppers, chilies and such all at various stages of growth, as well as plethora of other plants the all used to shade the inside of the house. It reminded me a little bit of the water feature section in a garden centre, where you can quietly hear water running in the background. This is used to irrigate all of the plants. As I move around the earthship you’re imagining living life in one of these things, and I feel excited. The main “living room area” has been turned into a gallery so that people can see the benefits and the examples of good work that the quality of work done throughout the world.
People often ask me how much earthships cost and the truth is that there is no fixed pricing structure for them. The idea that you can source the waste materials yourself, build the majority of the home yourself with no labour skills needed means and that you have some control over the pricing and financial costs of your own home. I know that some of basic 1 person earthships models have clocked in as little as $22000, but I bet some people have got it lower than that. Formerly one of the main costs is land. In the UK, that can sometimes be as much the house, however in parts of the US, and it’s cheaper, so it is perfectly feasible, that you can go off grid, build your house and then never have to worry about bills ever again. Just that concept alone baffles me as I come from a country where I cannot even get on the property ladder even at 37 years of age.
After bothering the lady on reception with my barrage of questions, I took pictures, made videos and left content knowing that despite the long journey this had been a worthy investment of my time.