The Walrus Magazine » Michael Reynolds » The Earthship Has Landed » Sustainable Green Architecture

The Earthship Has Landed

Michael Reynolds’ quest for sustainable structures

| by Chris Turner

Photos by Lorne Bridgman: www.lornebridgman.com

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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16 comment(s)

Bob SpasoffApril 21, 2008 08:34 EST

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

AnonymousApril 21, 2008 09:25 EST

@ 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...

AnonymousMay 11, 2008 17:14 EST

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?

Prince of AnadoluAugust 13, 2008 13:17 EST

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.

myna lee johnstoneAugust 26, 2008 01:20 EST

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.

AnonymousNovember 27, 2008 18:31 EST

Reminiscent of Arthur Beale's Nitt Witt Ridge, in Cambria, California-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cl0H8-YNm8

Jane ArmstrongSeptember 16, 2009 15:36 EST

Great to see Reynold's work given such recognition. His commitment to spread the detailed knowledge of this innovative yet simple, common sense housing approach is second to none. The merging of environmental imperatives with the affordability of what can be a basic dwelling should have taken off years ago!

s?n?rs?z bilgiJanuary 31, 2010 07:37 EST

As a result, the economic battle lines have been drawn for these two states,

yemek tarifleriJanuary 31, 2010 07:38 EST

nice post thanks

birdunyaJanuary 31, 2010 07:39 EST

thanks

firma rehberiJanuary 31, 2010 07:40 EST

güzel

dantel oya orgüJanuary 31, 2010 07:41 EST

dantel oya orgü modelleri

video izleJanuary 31, 2010 07:41 EST

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AnonymousDecember 22, 2010 11:57 EST

Sprachschule FrankfurtMarch 23, 2011 15:15 EST

hm i think that \"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 tsunam. its great..

mediation,April 27, 2011 14:51 EST

I believe that history will eventually show Michael Reynolds as a genius

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The Earthship Has Landed

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