Posted on 08/15/2010 12:43:37 PM PDT by beaversmom
Architect Michael Reynolds thinks he has an answer for rebuilding in post-earthquake Haiti: earthships.
Made from used tires, discarded bottles, cardboard, Styrofoam and other waste materials, Mr. Reynolds designs and builds these homes to be essentially energy self-sufficient. Earthships use solar energy and wind to generate their own power and heat; homes are designed to collect usable water from rain and snow and are built with greenhouses where resident can grown their own food. (Tour a Taos earthship.) Instead of just surveying the city, Mr. Reynolds and his team ended up building. A non-governmental organization called Grassroots United, which had contacted Mr. Reynolds before he arrived, met his group at the airport and told him that they had some land upon which he could build. Anticipating his arrival, the organization had gotten Haitian children to collect tires and plastic bottles from the tent camps.
Mr. Reynolds himself had one arm in a cast because of rotator cuff surgery, and the two builders with him both got sick from the water and heat. “The three of us were worthless, pretty much,” he says. But 40 locals, ranging in age from four to 50, built an earthship in just four days under his guidance. “They had nothing to do. They were all eager to learn, and it turns out all the skills we could do, they could do.”
Mr. Reynolds has built more than 1,000 of the environmentally-friendly structures, including a community of them outside Taos, N.M., through his company, Earthship Biotecture. (Read more about Mr. Reynolds.)
Now he’s bringing earthships to Haiti. Earlier this month, Mr. Reynolds and two builders, along with a cameraman, went to Haiti intending to survey the area to see how they could help. “There was nothing but tents, nothing but cleanup,” Mr. Reynolds says of what...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Well, it beats a plywood shack hands down, but I rather doubt they can scare up enough old tires for more than one village.
The big US earthships are pretty cool. I’ve gotten to stay in one.
Interesting. Where did you do that? Do you have any pics you can post?
It’s really just rammed earth. They could do it without the tires.
Inspiring story! We need a few of them at this time, thanks.
Folks probably cant afford them or they would be building them already.
Innovative.
Ha! A place to send all our old tires! Haiti!
As if they don’t have enough problems.
When each tire is filled with dirt it weighs over 200 lbs. I think they also tie each row of tires to the next with rebar (or something else, if they don't have that). The guy has been making these things since the late 70's or 80's I believe.
Well that would make a difference.
Sometimes they plaster over the tires with stucco or concrete or something to give it a smoother appearance. If you couple that with a curving surface it helps to dissipate the force of high winds.
Sorry about the dissertation - I saw a program years ago called "Dennis Weaver's Earthship;" it was about this type of construction.
What do they do for a roof? I see in the picture they are building some sort of dome frame.
Would not be somewhere you would want to be if it caught fire.
I think in their “homeland” they put these on someone’s neck and light em off, i.e. Winny Mandela “necklacing”.
Is there a “bizzaro-world” or “alternative-universe” ping list?
If there is please DON’T put me on either of them...
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