Michael Reynolds
Over 40 years of research and development of self-sufficient housing made from recycled materials.
Development of Earth friendly and people friendly community living concepts that require little or no mortgage payment and no utility bills.
Earthship Biotecture
P.O. Box 1041, Taos, New Mexico, 87571
Phone (575) 751-0462
- Graduated University of Cincinnati, 1969, Bachelor of Architecture
- Thesis published in Architectural Record, April 1971, 3 pages
- Architect's License, Arizona #34518
- Architect's License, Colorado # C-3857
- Founder/Owner of Earthship Biotecture
Steps/requirements for becoming an Earthship Agent and/or hosting an Earthship sanctioned event or build.
1. Graduate from the Earthship Academy.
graduation requirements and info may be found here: http://earthship.com/school
2. Propose your event or build to Earthship Biotecture.
3. Negotiate a percentage of revenue to be shared with Earthship Biotecture.
(this is largely to compensate EB for time spent to digest information on the event and post on the EB website as we are getting a large number of these requests)
A few years back we all drove big cars. Those were the days of the big Lincolns and Chryslers, and Cadillacs. Even the Chevys and the Fords were big. They were made with thick metal and they were heavy and big. When the energy crunches began, and fuel prices started to rise a few brave companies put out compact cars. They were ridiculed at first. They were called “toys” and “unsafe”. The first models of compact cars were loosing issues in terms of profits but they illustrated that you can still get there in a smaller car... and get there a lot cheaper. The fuel prices never stopped going up. Sure they would take a dive here and there but the over all graph on fuel prices was up. So it is now with housing. Housing has been big and inefficient for a long time. Energy shortages and dwindling natural resources are making us look at smaller, more planet dynamic housing. The Earthship Simple Survival Concept is our answer to this issue.
Michael Reynolds, creator of the Earthship concept, runs his 'old Mercedes' on Waste Vegetable Oil, WVO, obtained from local restaurants.
Watch the video of Michael Reynolds explaining what he does below.
Still 'crazy' after all these years. In 1993 Michael Reynolds was way ahead of his time. Today, in 2012 Michael Reynolds is still WAY ahead of his time... The following article was published on January 10, 1993 in the New York Times Styles Section as America grapples with ecology and economy.
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
About 15 miles west of Taos, a road with no name tapers off into the flat tableland beneath the Tres Orejas, three small volcanic peaks. Soon the road disappears entirely. All that remains is a thick carpet of snow and a set of coyote tracks pitching toward infinity.
But if you can envision an Alternative Republic here, you don't need a road. Thus, a frigid winter morning recently found Michael Reynolds, a one-man Monkey Wrench gang of architecture, barreling through the snowdrifts, his Dodge pickup swerving every which way, destined for an unsightly pile of tires and dirt, his new Atlantis: downtown Star.
by Tyler Allen (from Outlaw magazine)
Twenty-five years ago. Michael Reynolds assembled progressive architectural prototypes into one seminal idea: Earthships.
Integrating solar, wind, thermal mass, rainwater harvest, gray wa- ter recycling and indoor food production, the Taos, New Mexico - based architect builds homes from re-purposed garbage. The exterior shell and interior walls are made from used tires pounded full of dirt, glass bottles and cans, stacked and mortared together with mud.
Trains are a good thing.
They gather up people and take them to places in a very efficient way.
Trains have opened up continents and developed countries.
There is nothing really wrong with trains...
except they can only go where there is track.
If there is no track, the train does not go... it is not possible.
The evolution of humanity on this planet has developed its own track...
belief systems, religions, economies, political regimes, laws, codes, regulations...
all have become “tracks” to our future.
They have opened up continents and developed countries.
There is a problem...
a changing planet and a growing population have created the need to go to a place
that the tracks can’t deliver us to.
There is a new frontier now...
evolution beyond the tracks.
01/2010
- Interview with Michael Reynolds by Aleksandr Bierig
Soon after Mike Reynolds graduated from architecture school in 1969, he disregarded much of what he had been taught and began a 30-year practice of building “earthships”—off-the-grid dwellings built from what the rest of society deems garbage (discarded cans, bottles, and tires, among other items). His radical and unusual structures have received resistance from zoning and code legislations, spurring a continuing struggle to change the building permit process.
Contributed by Mike Kitts
LONDON, England (CNN) -- CNN caught up with Michael Reynolds, "biotect" of Earthships, in Taos, New Mexico.
What are your hopes for the future of Earthships?
It started off as individual homes, now we have two or three communities going. I hope to see in my lifetime to see towns and cities built this way. If you're a huge developer and you want to build a small town you have to put in millions of dollars of infrastructure before you begin.
A way of life that gets people to the point where survival is a song we sing while living.
The concept for the HIVE is as follows...
It is after the developed world living systems - centralized utilities, economy, transportation, food production and government itself - have all gradually crumbled to the point of critical mass and fully collapsed. People are on their own. A small group of about a dozen people have stumbled on to a large building in the desert of New Mexico that has been abandoned. It was clearly an attempt at a sustainable building that failed. The basic structure was was quite beautiful with inspiring spaces built very well, but it ends there. There was a mis-guided attempt to provide luxurious, even decadent, systems in a sustainable way which in itself is a contradiction. In fact, this building is a testament to the inappropriateness that prevailed just before the fall.