Emerging Earthships
By Morgan Maher
http://www.realitysandwich.com/emerging_earthships
When Earthship pioneer Michael Reynolds arrived in Haiti to survey the earthquake damage, what was intended as a recon visit quickly became the Haiti Earthship Project.
Guided by Reynolds, 40 local Haitians aged four to 50, built a permanent, sustainable structure from waste materials – mostly tires and glass bottles – in just four days.
Requiring very few, easily acquired skills, local people can build an Earthship – a building that will take care of you, while still being sustainable, affordable, strong and logical – and work towards and within “an entire method that is independent of corporations, largely independent of oil and independent of politics.”
An important key to the project is the sense of empowerment instilled in those who helped. “They built the building!” says Reynolds. “The real thing that shows it’s possible for them to do it, is that they did it.”
Michael Reynolds and Earthship Biotecture teams have built more than 1000 Earthships, including for disaster relief in China and the Andaman Islands. He plans to return to Haiti in October 2011 to add more sustainable systems to this building, again with the help of local Haitians, and attempt to move forward project H.E.L.P. – Haiti Eco Living Project – groups of Earthships the Haitian people can build themselves that are absolutely sustainable.
Beautiful use of found items to create a sustainable and durable, dry and comfortable light filled dwelling in which to live, work and play. I bless all with Love.
Let this become the norm in Haiti-- there is plenty of these materials everwhere enough so that all can be housed with dignity and respect and beauty.
Fairy
in Taos. michael Reynolds has built a whole community there over the years. Or, I should say,people have built a community of them. After the tsunami in Indonesia, all the government money went to bottled water and open sided metal shacks.even open sided,they were unbearably hot,and most of the people were sleeping in the street. There were hundreds of thousands of empty plastic bottles everywhere,and still no fresh water,as the salt water had tainted all the wells.Michael and a small crew went in and built an eartship that was a water catchment with a huge cistern. They had the people round up all the bottles and used them,not only in the building, but also as a septic system. There was a documentary made about this trip that showed in Taos about a year later.I had interviewed Michael on the radio a couple of times,and gave him a new product for the roof at that premier that night. I searched for it after seeing this post today, but didn't find it. I imagine that some of it might be included in his 'garbage warrior" video, but I didn't find a free viewing of that one on youtube.
Another group went into Haiti years ago,after they were hit hard by hurricanes.The government had done the same thing there, building metal shacks that they paid almost 5000 a pop for.(sounded like a fema deal). This group were domebuilders. They,along with the people, built small domes,(inpenetrable by hurricanes) for less than half the cost of the metal shacks. in hurricane country,they are the strongest option. I guess we just need smart people in the positions responsible for making these decisions. I would think that these little domes even survived the earthquakes, but have not seen anything about it.
I bought Michael Reynold's Earthship book last year. If I could get some people to help me, I'd love to build my home according to his plans.
This may be the video you are referring to, tscout...
I also posted some info about Earthships...
http://www.gatheringspot.net/video/new-energytechnology/garbage-warrior-earthships