Rising out of the high desert landscape of New Mexico are dozens of futuristic-looking homes that are part of an ongoing experiment in off-the-grid living.
The Greater World Earthship Community, the brainchild of architect Mike Reynolds, includes nearly 700 acres of rural property. The closest town is Taos, a small artsy and ski community that has a population of less than 6,000.
Reynolds began his experimental community of self-sufficient homes in the 1970s. However, it hit some bumps with permits and regulations before the county government designated the community as an “illegal subdivision” in 1997. Government officials eventually changed their position.
Today, the community is thriving again and even includes a school for training students who want to learn how to build self-sufficient housing. The county also gave the organization two acres for designing and building homes that do not meet its building code requirements.
It is at that experimental section of “The Earthship Project” that video producer/reporter Kirsten Dirksen begins her interview with Tom Duke, an earthship builder and a long-time resident of the earthship community.
Duke, a former professional volleyball player from Los Angeles, and his wife moved to New Mexico about 18 years ago. Intrigued by the idea of an earthship home, they purchased some land and built and lived in a tiny earthship – a pod, as Duke calls it – for five years while they built their dream home nearby.
Today, that pod is their storage shed, and the Dukes and their two young sons live in a custom two-bedroom self-sufficient home. Like all earthships, it follows the following four principles:
- Harvests water.
- Uses and reuses sewage.
- Uses thermal mass for heating and cooling.
- Uses recycled and natural materials.
- Uses solar and wind power
- Produces food
With rainfall in the high New Mexico desert averaging only about eight inches a year, efficient use of water is a major part of an earthship home.
Reynolds designs the homes to collect and use water four times. Water that is first used for washing or drinking goes to plants in an indoor greenhouse that then filters the greywater and sends it back to the toilet. Then the blackwater is sent outside to four feet below ground where it feeds the roots of plants and trees.
“You don’t smell it. You don’t see it,” says Duke of the blackwater as he gestures to the thriving plants and trees surrounding his desert home. “But you are able to have this beautiful landscaping.”
With both the indoor and outdoor water systems in place, earthship residents only need to water plants to get them established. After that, they are sustained by the home’s water system.
In addition to recycling the water, the plants provide a natural heating and cooling system for the homes and produce food, as well. For example, the master bedroom in Duke’s home boasts a diverse garden, including tomato plants, mint and rosemary. His living room has a tall fig tree.
The newer homes can maintain a consistent year-round temperature of 71 degrees with their use of thermal mass and ventilation.
Duke is already teaching his young sons how to build a home “from trash,” and he points out the mounds of glass bottles, tires and aluminum cans that earthship builders use in home construction.
