Above Photo: Phoro by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The Earthships Have Landed
People who live in this desert community say their homes can serve as a model for how society can function happily without the infrastructure and modern systems we’ve come to expect.
This short film directed by Flora Lichtman and Katherine Wells for the podcast The Adaptors takes you inside the Earthships of Taos, New Mexico—a community of off-grid homes made from trash.
After studying architecture, Earthships creator Michael Reynolds decided he wanted to experiment with different materials. “We build out of trees, but we don’t want to get rid of them,” says Reynolds, explaining how the project began 30 years ago. “We want to get rid of garbage, so why don’t we try to build out of garbage? It started as kind of a contrived effort to recycle, and has ended up the best way I know of to build, regardless of recycling.”
People who live in Earthships say their homes serves as a model for how society can function happily without the infrastructure and modern systems we’ve come to expect.