Sustainable Design Final Paper ~ Michael Reynolds

It's kind of a long one...

Michael Reynolds ~ Radically Sustainable Earthship Biotect

Theory

I chose to look into the career of Michael Reynolds after first hearing about the Sundance Channel’s April 2008 airing of “Garbage Warrior,” Oliver Hodge’s award-winning documentary following Reynolds’s work (Open Eye Media, UK, 2007). This recent “green” media spotlight has given an increased value to the concept of eco-conscious living something that I have long wanted to know more about from a functional standpoint. The documentary followed years of Reynolds career building his dwellings around the world, with or without government zoning approval.

Owning a home in the Southwestern United States, I find his style very colorful and intriguing as well as a hope for methods that could be borrowed to make existing structures such as my home more sustainable. Coupling this with my lifelong interest in recycled and second use materials, reducing domestic gridded energy use, and my desire to know more about home water conservation and filtration, his designs came to be what I feel are a very raw definition of Sustainable Design.

Biographic Background

Michael Reynolds graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1969 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture and a thesis that examined architecture’s need for “design that would reduce the stress level of the planet.” Directly after graduation, Reynolds relocated to Taos, New Mexico, after falling in love with the architecture and ambiance of the American Southwest. He also noted that he was seeking greater meaning as a child of the 1960s counterculture, as well as attempting to avoid the Vietnam draft.

Reynolds began designing and constructing structures utilizing recycled materials such as wire hangers and beer bottles as early as late 1969. His thesis was then published in the Architectural Record in 1971. He completed his first conceptual dwelling, which he called the Thumb House in 1972, using beer cans wired together into “bricks,” plaster, and mortar. In 1973, Reynolds was granted a U.S. patent for the Thumb House design.

Much like Reynolds’s use of items “as is,” he employs a trial and error method to his design and construction. This way, he is able to identify, examine, and fix and design or construction flaws. He has lived in each of his experimental homes all while developing his overall Earthship design core. This core element came to Reynolds as he discovered that through packing container items with dirt they could become insulated building materials. This allowed for designs to really become off the grid structures providing geothermal heating and cooling aspects.

Despite the breakthroughs in sustainability and building, Reynolds experienced defeat at the hands of the legal system several times through lawsuits concerning faulty zoning and construction. The complaints eventually led to his New Mexico architecture license being challenged. In 2000 Reynolds voluntarily surrendered his New Mexico credentials and licenses. This did not hinder his work to make his designs accessible to those who needed them, traveling globally with a team of builders to do so, often at great financial cost to himself. After his work became celebrated for the use of sustainable concepts in dire areas, he decided to begin working within the design and zoning parameters again in New Mexico, regaining his license.

Reynolds began to travel with his team of converted builders to countries where this low cost off-the-grid type of design was necessary, including disaster relief locations such as the Andaman Island tsunami (India, 2005), Honduras, and New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (2006). Earthships are by design hurricane and earthquake-proof. Their near lack of wood in structure creation leaves them with little to no pest problems, although there can be warping if the door and window frames are not installed correctly. The water filtration features are very necessary in places where sanitation has become a problem due to extreme weather.

Michael Reynolds is the author of five books defining his design goals and illustrating how to build Earthships, allowing the concept to be achievable and available to the public. Also, Earthship Biotecture, a Taos, NM, company now sells sustainable construction building packages, provides educational seminars, and runs a hotel for interested parties. A community of Earthship homes has been erected outside Taos, NM, and it has come to be known as the Greater World Community. Disaster relief seminars are set globally as the need arises or different groups request Reynolds’s teaching services.

Earthships ~ Biophilic Structures

“Earthships demonstrate a way to live in harmony with the planet by encountering natural resources without depleting them. An Earthship is a passive solar home made or natural and recyclable materials.” ~ Michael Reynolds

Reynolds defines the terms “Earthship” and “biotecture” as the following:

“Earthship n. 1. Passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials 2. Thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization 3. Renewable energy & integrated water systems make the Earthship an off-grid home with little to no utility bills.
Biotecture n. 1. the profession of designing buildings and environments with consideration for their sustainability 2. A combination of biology and architecture.” (http://www.garbagewarrior.com)

Reynolds unveiled his radical design in 1986 after many years of refining. He attempted to join the modern technology available to he and his builders with the ancient building techniques of such groups as the Anasazi Indians. Their designs harnessed the power of the sun and earth while conserving all the natural resources they needed to live, such as water and heat energy. For example, Earthships are embanked into hillsides, using land to create the rear, side, and interiors walls for insulation purposes, ideally facing south to southeast to capture the best solar rays.

At that time of his original unveiling, Earthship construction incorporated materials such as discarded tires, bottles, and beer cans. Currently, designs have been extended to use items such as landfilled cardboard, plastics, glass, aluminum and steel cans, as well as the panels from discarded refrigerators, cooking ranges, and washing machines. Aside from these materials, the structures utilize all natural building materials such as wood, rock, and mud plaster. Occasionally a manufactured item is used in building, such as glass or solar panels, however, all attempts are made to use these as secondary use items whenever possible.

Other design points include a long hallway on the front of the structure allowing sunlight to be trapped as well as heat to be conducted into the attached rooms. Photovoltaic cells are now mounted on the roof allowing the conversion of sunlight into electricity in order to power lights, appliances, and computers. Some of the homes designed feature propane tanks, which are then used to power the water heater and stove. Often vegetable gardens are utilized in the hallway fed by water recycled after domestic use.

Heat & Energy Elements

Earthship walls are constructed to be thick stacked with earth-packed items mortared together and plastered over. This structure creates a heat sink in which solar energy is captured and radiated using a geothermal heating effect. During summer months, the windows in the front of the structure are opened, as are those in the rear ceiling, allowing for the air to flow through, and creating a cooling effect.

Many of the items being used in this process would otherwise be nonrecyclable (tires) or would take commensurate fossil fuels in their renewal (aluminum cans, plastic bottle, and glass). The geothermal nature of the dwellings mean energy is not needed for heating or cooling. The solar panels provide the energy needed for other functions. Dependent upon the size of the dwelling or the location, wind turbines may also be utilized. These different techniques may all be used in differing climates, allowing self-sufficiency concepts to translate to any given climate extreme.

Water Features

Water conservation is another core concept of the Earthship design. Reynolds believes that water collection should be central to the design as well as a biophilic filtration system to utilize the water to the highest degree and as many times as possible. Water is funneled or collected from rain or snowfall from the roof or other structural methods. It is then channeled to a large underground cistern. This cistern water is filtered, pumped, and pressurized for domestic uses.

The first use is for washing and bathing. This water is then recycled through a grease and particle filter into graywater for edible vegetative plant irrigation. This cleaned graywater then is utilized for toilet flushing prior to being piped to a conventional septic tank. The blackwater separated in the septic tank is then taken out of that internal system and treated for use in outside inedible vegetative irrigation. Toilets may also be optioned as composting toilets if so desired by dwellers.

Interiors

Michael Reynolds does not provide interior design work, however, many of the aspects of his building design can be translated into an interiors finish with little effort. Opting to have the interior walls plastered to create a smooth surface allows for many options including low VOC paints or plaster dyes. Choosing different colors and configurations of glass bottles in the interior and exterior walls can give a stained glass effect to the home. Creative choices in vegetation inside the structure give latitude and greenery as well as serving as air filtration and a sink for water features. Bathroom and kitchen designs can harness the Southwestern flair using other recycled objects in the making of mosaic walls, tubs, shower stalls, and countertops.

In summary

Due to the current state of the planet and the moral and ethical push for increased visibility and accessibility of sustainable design, Michael Reynolds has risen to the surface as a forward thinker and pioneer in designing low cost, self-sustainable structures. His use of items that would otherwise lay dormant in landfills for hundreds and thousands of years leeching into the earth should be an inspiration to all architects and designers illustrating that innovation can come even the most everyday of concepts, like dirt and garbage. While it is true that Reynolds does not design with aesthetics at the top of his list of goals, his structures can range form million dollar celebrity mansions to nearly costless emergency housing. That flexibility and high quality of function is the part that is truly astounding and sustainable about the evolution of his designs.

“I think with the Earthship concept we have just scratched the surface of what is possible in terms of using the materials that are discarded by modern society. There are many things out there and once people start seeing that as a resource, looking at municipal dumps as a resource, the human mind is going to go crazy with it. I think the potential of it is off the wall.” ~ Michael Richards

Bibliography

Earthship Biotecture Official Website http://www.earthship.net/ [Accessed November 27, 2008]

“Garbage Warrior” Official Website (2007), Oliver Hodge, Open eye Media, UK, http://www.garbagewarrior.com [Accessed Nov-26-2008]

“Greater World Communities,” http://directory.ic.org/records/?action=view&page=view&record_id=2553 [Accessed November 30, 2008]

Green Home Building Website http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/earthship.htm [Accessed Dec-2-2008]

Irvine, Dan. (September 3, 2007) “Earthships: Future-proof buildings,” CNN.com, http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/08/29/skewed.earthships/index.html#cnnSTCText

“1973: Sorry, Out of Gas,” http://www.sorryoutofgas.org/ [Accessed December 2, 2008]

Reed, Susan and Michael Haederle. “Want An Ecologically Correct House? Architect Michael Reynolds Builds Earthships Out of Beer Cans and Tires,” People Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 1. January 14, 1991.

Skurka, Norma and John Naar. Design for a Limited Planet: Living with Natural Energy, University of Michigan: McGraw-Hill: 1971, page 149.

YouTube Channel for Earthship Biotecture, a Taos, NM, company, http://www.youtube.com/user/earthship [Accessed December 1, 2008]

Wikipedia. “Michael Reynolds” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Reynolds_(architect) [Accessed Dec-1-2008] [Accessed December 1, 2008]