The site Earthship.org defines and Earthship as, “a radically sustainable home made of recycled materials.” According to the site, a complete Earthship will have these elements:
* Electricity is from the sun with solar panels and wind with wind modules.
* Water is caught on the roof from rain and snow melt.
* Sewage is treated on site in interior and external botanical planters.
* Heating and Cooling is from the sun and the earth.
* Food is grown inside and outside.
Within those parameters there is a lot of room for creativity. Recycled materials can include anything from glass bottles and beer cans, to old tires, to traditional materials salvaged from old buildings before they are demolished.
The following video provides a fascinating introduction to the technology (called “biotecture”) of Earthships and opens with these words:
Imagine a home that cost you nothing to heat or cool. Imagine building this home yourself. Imagine growing your own vegetables year round in this home. Imagine no utility bills. Imagine easily available limitless natural resources to build this type of home. Imagine a more earth-friendly civilization. Imagine… Earthships.
Three more examples:
The description of the previous video says it is “two bedrooms, one bathroom. about 1600 sq ft&”. They use propane for the oven and clothes dryer and say it runs about $100 per year.
The video description for the previous video:
( 1,160 sq.ft 1 bdrm, 1 bath)
This off the grid, fully self sustainable earthship sits on 3 acres of beautiful sagebrush 12 miles from Taos, New Mexico in the Greater World Earthship community. The west side borders BLM land and the Taos Gorge is one mile away. It runs solely on solar power, catches rainwater and snowmelt, uses earthship systems of grey and black water treatment and is heated and cooled by thermal mass. This is a great home for 1 or 2 people who want to live environmentally responsible, who have a working knowledge of earthships and who enjoy the peace, nature and serenity of the mesa. The Greater World community sits on 660 acrea of rolling mesa, is the home of Earthship Biotecture, and the headquarters of Mike Reynolds, the inventor of Earthships.
See also “Earthship Design”:
Other House Ideas
- A different way to build a house #24 – The Future of Houses, The House of the Future
- A different way to build a house #25 – The Passive House
- A different way to build a house #26 – John Travolta’s Airplane House
- A different way to build a house #27 – The Sliding House
- A different way to build a house #28 – floating houses
- A different way to build a house #29 – The folding home
- A different way to build a house #30 – Billionaires’ Homes
- A different way to build a house #31 – Concrete House
- A different way to build a house #32 – Capsule Apartments
- A different way to build a house #33 – Prefab Duplex
- A different way to build a house #34 – bridge house
- A different way to build a house #35 – Tiny houses
- A different way to build a house #36 – Zero-energy and Triple-zero-houses
- A different way to build a house #37 – Build a house that is really thin
- A different way to build a house #38 – Foam and steel construction makes a quick, inexpensive, super-efficient house
- A different way to build a house #40 – The capsule
- A different way to build a house #41 – The ultra-secure house
- A different way to build a house #42: Print it
- A Different Way to Build a House #43: Add Secret Passages and Hidden Rooms to your house!
- A different way to build a house #44 – Display your finest car in the living room
- A different way to build a house #45 – Build yourself an Earthship for an ultra-sustainable green lifestyle
- A different way to build a house #46 – How to add an elevator to your home
- A different way to build a house #47 – underground and able to ride out “the apocalypse”
- A different way to build a house #48 – design your own house like an architect
- A different way to build a house #49 – A tiny apartment with moving walls becomes 24 different spaces
- A different way to build a house #50 – Build yourself a Ninja house, or add Ninja features to an existing home
- A different way to build a house #51 – An inexpensive home using recycled wood and natural materials
- A different way to build a house #52 – The flat pack house
- A different way to build a house #53 – inexpensive housing for the developing world
- A different way to build a house #54 – Log homes
- A different way to build a house #55 – Lustron homes – Amazing steel prefabs from 1950
- A different way to build a house #56 – Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion pre-fab house from the 1930s
- A different way to build a house #57 – Using an RV as a home
- A different way to build a house #58 – Virginia Tech’s LumenHaus
- A different way to build a house #59 – Making the most of small apartment spaces
- A different way to build a house #60 – Building custom houses from laser-cut plywood
- A different way to build a house #61 – Building a house for $3,500
- A Different Way To Build a House #62 – Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) construction
- A Different Way To Build a House #63 – An 1,000 square foot 2-bedroom apartment shrunk into 420 square feet
- A different way to build a house #64 – Fitting your whole life in a 90 square foot apartment
- How to build your own automatic Star Trek door for your home
- How to build an underground fallout shelter to ride out the apocalypse
- The $300 House competition
- Free Boat Plans
- How to live in your car