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What distinguishes Reynolds from the pack is that he has made thermal mass his first priority, and has demonstrated that it is best understood as the most powerful feature of a sustainable structure, perhaps the only essential feature. Not only has he located the proper starting point for sustainable architecture — a self-sufficient structure so solar-thermally efficient the power source is incidental — he’s made it functional. Not pretty to everyone’s eyes, but, as Reynolds says, “We’re building fully sustainable housing. And it’s tried and true.”

As a reward, he is largely excluded from architectural discussions. More than that: he is a counter-example, a punchline. He deserves a significant share of the responsibility for this. His contempt for design and most of the niceties of mass marketing and self-promotion haven’t provided much in the way of welcome for collaborators. Instead, he has performed most of his experiments among survival nuts and hard-core environmentalists, whose apocalyptic visions leave little room for the billions of us who live in cities far too intricately wound together to ever be rendered gridless by anything other than mass catastrophe. These incidental details, however, have almost entirely obscured the big picture.

On the walls of the Earthship visitors’ centre west of Taos, there are sketches of multi-level, multi-unit Earthships, great pyramid-shaped stacks of self-sufficient shelter — thermally massive, self-regulating mid-rise skyscrapers. I don’t know whether they’re feasible, but I do know that nobody’s looked into commissioning one. There’s a direct line of ancestry from Buckminster Fuller’s sustainability experiments, for example, to Norman Foster’s pace-setting work in more traditional forms; Reynolds, at present, remains mostly alone on his dusty patch of desert, waiting for a less fevered mind to link his innovations to the wider web of the mainstream.
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Comments (5 comments)

Bob Spasoff: Great article on Michael Reynolds's work. I immediately visited your website "to see more of Reynolds' Earthship in Tuos", and was much disappointed to find a total of one photograph, repeated several times. What does the outside look like? the rooms? Your endnote looks like false advertising to me. So on to Google... Bob Spasoff April 21, 2008 05:34 EST

Anonymous: @ Bob Spasoff:

Dude, you have to actually CLICK through the gallery up above to see the photos. There seems to be 9 or 10 of them...


April 21, 2008 06:25 EST

Anonymous: I am writing a paper on green architecture. The problem is I can't find a good website. The subject is experiments for green architecture in large cities. I need a good website and this one's not it. Help? May 11, 2008 14:14 EST

Prince of Anadolu: I believe that history will eventually show Michael Reynolds as a genius. His work is brillant and makes a great contribution to humanity. I hope to start working on my own earthship soon.

However, I think to say "he has performed most of his experiments among survival nuts and hard-core environmentalists" is both untrue and unjust. Michael has done a lot of work all over the world trying to help the less fortunate like in India after the tsunami.

Michael is a real hero for humanity and deserves to be recognized for his work. He has taken his work to the people with his own hands and,in my humble opinion, deserves a Nobel!! Certainly much more than that fraud Gore.

Keep it up Michael!!! Your work is priceless. August 13, 2008 10:17 EST

myna lee johnstone: On Sunday I saw Garbage Warrior. What a fabulous human being this Michael Reynolds is. What happened to us and housing all these years. We got lost. He is returning us to the basics. Simplicity, earth based and artful.Having a home is essential. The sense of home and a relationship with your house is important for survival and a sense of self worth.To have a home in or on the earth is to be human. To do what he is doing is .... what can I say.... REAL. VERY VERY REAL. It just makes sense. Why has it taken so long to get back to the basics? We got lost and he is bringing us back home. And.... it seems to be AFFORDABLE. August 25, 2008 22:20 EST

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