![]() It’s a slow process, because of the permits and also the developers are in the process of getting funding. We’re using an 80-foot tall mirror to reflect sunlight down onto the Earthship over the roof of a six-story building. It’s a ten-minute walk from the Empire State building. It’s a two-story Earthship built on a vacant lot between two brownstones on Pitt street. So, how is that Earthship going to be configured? Well, we can show them something different with this method of living. People realized how dependent they were on modern amenities. I was in New York during that time and I remember how difficult it was. It seemed like they were a kind of vessel, vessels of the future, and they’re on the Earth, so we ended up calling them Earthships. They’re a type of phenomena that the Earth uses to provide sustenance for people. We didn’t want the buildings to be called “houses” because “house” has a preconceived idea about it. And so, I’m not going to fight them anymore, because that’s a waste of energy. The regulations are inhibiting human evolution at this point. Those laws all evolved from an effort to protect the people, but it’s like an ingrown toenail now. I’ve read that your building methods have brought you into conflict with government regulators. It feels a lot better on your mind to be in a soft organic building than it does to be in a hard-edged, industrial-type building. But look at nature-a wasp nest or a beaver dam. The idea started out from the ease of producing hard-edged materials and shipping them. One thing led to another, and now I live an absolutely independent, decentralized method of living.ĭo you have a sense of why we make buildings the way we do? Why are straight lines the standard across the Western world? It’s still grown for money and has dyes and all kinds of chemicals in it, so I wanted to do my own food. And I didn’t like the food that I purchased, even in health food stores. Then I started seeing that sewage was not being treated right anywhere on the planet, so I wanted to be responsible for my own. I wanted to make my own power so I wouldn’t be vulnerable to power outages and reinforce the need for nuclear power plants. Then I wanted to harvest my own water because water’s getting to be an issue all over the planet. I wanted to make the buildings out of things we throw away rather than cutting down trees. I just followed my nose, responding to one thing and then another. Is that what you had in mind in the early 70s when you first started? The biggest change that happens is that p eople become less dependent on the powers that be and more secure in their own being. So what if the economy crashes? So what if the politics don’t work out? People are still in charge of their lives. Michael Reynolds: When you get in a situation where all of your utilities come directly to you from the sun, wind, and rain, it empowers you. VICE: How do Earthships change the lives of their inhabitants? Utilizing rainwater collection and recycling, solar and wind power, greenhouse agriculture, and thermal mass-regulated climate control, Reynolds has taken Tres Piedras completely off the grid. These new building methods led the innovator to abandon the square forms of traditional architecture for the rounded forms found in nature. Concern over environmental devastation in the early 70’s led Reynolds to begin constructing these Earthships out of scavenged materials such as cans, bottles, and tires packed with dirt. The homes, called Earthships, are the brainchild of 68-year-old architect, Michael Reynolds. Tres Piedras is home to the Greater World Community, an assortment of 70 homes built to be entirely self-sustaining. If civilization collapsed tomorrow, the old motto of the United States, “Out of many, one,” would be replaced with the more appropriate “Every man for himself.” The cities of our country would descend into total chaos, but in the quiet desert hamlet of Tres Piedras, New Mexico, nothing much would change.
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