Earth Ship Biotecture, Awareness & Outreach at the New School

Earth Ship Biotecture

Carbon emissions continue to collect in our atmosphere. Global energy corporations continue to lag behind their ethical duty to provide clean energy for their consumers and the environment. People continue to be offered only a handful of options for reducing their eco-footprint such as using paper instead of plastic bags. However, radical alternative lifestyle options are being developed for those individuals who wish to lead clean, sustainable, and independent lives that must be included in the discourse about sustainable living on the grassroots level. Such an alternative is the Earth Ship home that not only is entirely self-sufficient, but constructed using only recycled materials.

Believe it or not, the Earth Ship’s main construction material is actually rubber tires. The tires, laid over a rebar skeletal frame, form the internal structure of the walls of the building, are compacted together using earth, and finally, finished off with concrete. These walls are perfectly insulated, and coupled with a natural cooling system which pulls cool air from beneath the ground around the home, maintain a comfortable internal temperature. Furthermore, the use of old rubber car tires for these purposes is an environmentally positive, and super effective way of recycling a material that virtually never breaks down. On a global level, tire production, disposal, and recycling is an unbelievably massive endeavor, with huge negative environmental impacts. In the U.S. alone 290 million rubber tires are produced annually, 130 million being used to generate fuel by setting them on fire to extract the oil from the rubber compounds in a process called pyrolysis (which in uncontrolled scenarios can continue burning for periods as long as a decade), and 265 million tires stockpiled.* Two things should be noted about these statistics however, 1) the EPA’s estimation may be more modest than the reality (as is historically the case), and 2)energy companies currently advocating the burning of used and stockpiled tires in the U.S. have all the incentive to not disclose the health risks and environmental hazards associated with such projects. For further reading on this subject, see this article about the plans for a tire-fueled power plant in Eerie, PA: http://www.alternet.org/environment/90943/

*2003 Statistics, Rubber Manufacturers Association, http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/tires/faq.htm

Earth Ship homes allow home owners to live entirely off the public electrical grid by employing solar and wind harnessing technologies, cultivate their own food within the home, and manage the use of water by allocating clean, grey, and black water, for their separate uses, while also collecting fresh rain water in large cisterns which feed the home’s highly efficient water and irrigation system.

Earthship Biotecture – Off Grid Sustainable Green Buildings

Take 10 minutes to watch this video (in 2 parts) about the construction and overall design concepts of Earth Ships:

Outreach & Awareness at the New School
Here at the New School, in both Parsons and Eugene Lang, there are programs about environmental studies, focusing on environmental policy, science, and sustainable design. The Earth Ship embodies all of the principles taught in these programs, so I believe establishing a relationship with the Earth Ship Academy based in Taos, New Mexico would be to the benefit of both parties.

Potential Projects in Collaboration with Earth Ships could include:
organizing meetings about sustainability
invite lecturers to speak about Earth Ship biotecture living and technology
raise awareness about the exciting possibilities of these buildings/homes
organize student groups to participate in the Earth Ship Academcy in Taos, NM (research possibility of receiving credit for this educational experience)
invite others within the New School community interested in Earth Ships and sustainable living to figure out how they can contribute on a personal level.
network with the Earth Ship community online to find Earth Ship owners in the Tri-State area/Northeast who would be willing to let a small group visit, or find a construction site that could use the help of volunteers.

Environmental Science, Sustainable Design, Urban Planning, and Media Students could be particularly helpful with regards to this campaign. Media students could help Earth Ships by documenting construction sites, photographing the homes for producing web galleries, etc. Students in these other programs would probably be highly interested in the Earth Ship, and hopefully use the relationship we could establish with Earth Ship community to benefit their education, and eventually, career.

This project/campaign’s aim is really just to spread the word and raise awareness about sustainable design, and its often surprising, and very exciting possibilities. I could see this campaign developing into an official relationship between the New School’s Environmental & Sustainable Design Departments with the Earth Ship Academy in Taos, NM, so that hopefully students interested in Earth Ships could spend some time in New Mexico learning about Earth Ships while productively engaging with themselves, others, and the environment. However, if this project doesn’t develop that far, I think it would be great to at least have a representative from the Earth Ship Academy come to lecture at the New School.