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The first earthen house I ever learned of was an Earthship up in Eastern Canada. I was a Masters of Architecture student at the University of Toronto at the time, and we were assigned to analyze any structure of our choice from an ecological perspective. Every other student in the class picked some skyscraper or other and tried hard to find green attributes. With a couple of other similarly-minded and -hearted classmates, I learned of Michael Reynolds' Earthships, and discovered that there was one relatively close by, only 2 hours out of the city. Our report, which I published online here, received a perfect grade, the highest-ever mark given in that class. I've since added other techniques to my toolkit, but the Earthship was my departure point for eco-architecture, and a lot of my earliest stabs at designing shelter (Earthpod, Hug House, Council House), reflect this, either in consideration of Reynolds' innovative ideas, or in reaction to his rigid orthodoxy.
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Recently, I flew to Taos, New Mexico, to document the other famous earthwn buildings in the area, the 800-year-old Indian Pueblo. But while I was already in the vicinity, I made it a point to check out the "stockyard" -- the largest concentration of Earthships in the world, and the home of Earthship pioneer Michael Reynolds, just for old times sake. I was impressed by what I saw, happy to learn that Reynolds has released his iron grip on the cookie-cutter model that he has been prescribing for the last 25 years. There are now all kinds of different houses that are based on Earthship principles, but deviate from Reynolds' strict instruction manual, and rather stylishly, at that. I was blown away by the sheer numbers -- literally dozens of the ships sprawl across the plateau, and another dozen creep over the hills of the REACH community. And I was reminded of how revolutionary Reynolds ideas still are even today -- using south-facing windows and doors to regulate temperatures and using a gray water closed system to grow tropical foodstuffs in northern climates!
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