Wars, pandemics, global instability, fuel crises… as the world finds itself in increasing turmoil on so many fronts, it is tempting to give up on the ‘rat race’ and search for peace and self-fulfilment in other ways. If we pare down everything we need as human beings to the essentials: shelter, physical comfort (warmth or cooling as required), nutritious food (without the air miles), good sanitation and access to clean water, we can, even in the 21st century, aim to simplify our lives.

Increasing numbers of people around the world, are turning to Earthships as an environmental and ecological sustainable living solution. These are not simply ‘tick-box’ solutions to satisfy the governments’ National Planning Policy Framework, BREEAM (UK’s Environmental Policy Briefing Paper) or Building Control requirements. Designed to be low impact, Earthships go much further than this. They are self-sustaining, off-grid homes, built with all the ‘vital apparatus for human life’ embedded within their structure. In other words, Earthships are designed to provide food and shelter for their inhabitants as well as collecting all their water and generating their own heating and electricity requirements.

The name and the concept for Earthships began in the 1970’s when the American architect Mike Reynolds was searching for a longer term alternative to sustainable dwellings in response to the news of huge environmental challenges and an inevitable “major energy crunch”. As around 30% of all energy produced in the world is used for heating and cooling buildings, Reynolds looked for a building solution using thermal mass and solar gain. He was driven too, to creating new buildings largely from waste materials that could take full advantage of natural resources: earth, sun, wind and rain. 

His solution was to construct walls from old car tyres tightly packed with earth, to create thermal mass ‘bricks’. These are pounded into place and staggered, like bricks, to form load-bearing walls for the roof and eliminating the need for a concrete foundation. The depth and solidity of the walls imbues them with the capacity to store both hot and cold temperatures.

Reynolds chose a highly challenging environment in the high mountain desert of Taos County in New Mexico for his prototype. With extremes of temperature varying between 40 degrees Celsius in the summer and -10 degrees Celsius in the winter, and with an annual rainfall of only about 300mm (UK precipitation averages between 800mm and 1,400mm annually), Reynolds was not only able to test his Earthship in the harshest of environments but was also to ensure it was adaptable to different climates across the planet.

The model of Earthship that has evolved since that early 1970’s prototype is a totally off-grid, self-sustaining construction capable of maintaining an ambient temperature internally throughout the seasons, right across the globe. Electricity is self-generated through micro-renewable sources. Every building has its own renewable “power plant” with photovoltaic panels, batteries, charge controller, inverter and in generally more cloudy climates, such as the UK, often also a small windmill. The electrical requirements of each home is ‘designed down’ by installing highly efficient lighting systems, pumps and refrigeration. This, together with the lack of needing either heating or air conditioning, means that an Earthship’s electrical requirements are about 25% that of a conventional home.

The basic idea is to surround each living space with mass on three sides and line the south side of the building with windows. Sun enters through the glass and heats up the mass of the floors and walls. In the evening, when the air temperature drops below the stored wall temperature, heat is naturally released into the space. In the summer, with the sun high in the sky, the building stays cool with the constant temperature of the earth.  Cooling is enhanced with natural ventilation through buried cooling tubes and operable vent boxes.

Rainwater is harvested and stored in large tanks beneath the ground. Greywater is recycled through indoor planters containing deep rooting plants which, as well as providing food, naturally transpire, evaporate and oxygenate the water, cleansing it and storing it in a sump for re-use in flushing toilets. Blackwater is diverted to a septic tank that flows into a reedbed or similar natural filtration system.

Earthships are not about privation but about improving our quality of life through ecological and sustainable means. They are totally self-sufficient, low-impact homes that harness the planet’s natural resources to provide comfortable off-grid homes which look after and care for residents’ needs and address our exploitation of resources by minimising their environmental impact and restricting their resource impact to their own footprint.

If you are interested in discovering more about Earthships, there are two currently in the UK. Earthship Brighton offers courses on Earthship building and the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland has an Earthship which is open to visitors on occasion. Additionally, in the U.S., the  Earthship Global Phoenix house is available to rent on a nightly basis or you can find similar ‘Earth homes’ options on Airbnb.

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