Planet Green
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Can we build a completely sustainable community? The architect Michael Reynolds has proven that it is possible. The Greater World Community he founded in Taos, New Mexico, solely utilizes materials that are within a hundred miles of the area. Each of the 130 homes that comprise the community are independent of the centralized utilities of the developed world. They produce their own energy through solar or wind power, collect water and snow in cisterns, and manufacture their own biodiesel fuel. Reynolds calls his homes ‘earthships’ because they do not conform to the preconceived idea of a house. The concept for a sustainable community was born out of Reynolds’ belief that every man, woman and child has a natural human right to shelter, water and food. Drawing his inspiration from the lifecycle of the natural world, Reynolds has created a unique system in which everything we use will ultimately be reused.
More About Michael
Michael Reynolds is an architect based in New Mexico and a proponent of "radically sustainable living." He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1969, and has become a forceful critic of the profession of architecture for its failure to deal with the amount of waste that building design creates.
Motivated by the energy crisis of the 1970s, his ambition was to build an affordable home that would produce energy (from wind and solar power), collect water and snow in cisterns, contain and treat sewage and manufacture biodiesel fuel. The structures built under his direction utilize everyday trash items like aluminum cans and plastic bottles. Instead of using conventional recycling methods, however, Reynolds takes the discarded item and uses it as-is. Reynolds calls this practice "Earthship Biotecture" and has dedicated his career to it.
In 1989, Reynolds started the first Earthship community, called Rural Earthship Alternative Community Habitat (REACH) on 55 acres just north of Taos. Today, there are Earthship developments all over the world.
