Earthship Volume 1: How to Build Your Own
About this book
"Earthship Volume 1: How to Build Your Own," published in 1990 by Solar Survival Press, is the foundational manual of the Earthship concept, written by New Mexico architect Michael E. Reynolds. The book presents—in practical, accessible, do-it-yourself terms—the design principles, construction techniques, and systems integration strategies that constitute the Earthship building type: a radically alternative form of residential architecture that uses primarily recycled and locally available materials, relies on passive solar heating and cooling, harvests rainwater, generates its own electricity from renewable sources, and processes its own waste water.
The Earthship was Reynolds's response to what he saw as the unsustainability, dependency, and alienation of conventional housing—a form of building designed not just to reduce environmental impact but to achieve genuine self-sufficiency. Reynolds began developing the Earthship concept in New Mexico in the early 1970s, inspired by growing awareness of the environmental costs of conventional construction and by the practical observation that the United States was producing enormous quantities of used automobile tyres that posed serious disposal problems. His first insight was that a used tyre, when packed tightly with compacted earth, becomes an extremely robust structural unit: the combination of tyre wall, earth fill, and compaction creates a mass that is comparable in structural performance to rammed earth or adobe construction, with the added benefit of using a material that would otherwise require energy-intensive disposal.
The tyre and earth wall—the structural signature of the Earthship—provides the massive thermal envelope that is central to the passive solar heating strategy. Earth has a high thermal mass: it absorbs solar heat slowly during the day and releases it slowly at night, creating a damped thermal response that keeps interior temperatures within a comfortable range without mechanical heating or cooling. The south-facing glass wall—the solar collector of the Earthship—admits solar radiation into the interior during the day; this heat is stored in the massive earthen walls and floors and released at night, maintaining comfortable temperatures through cold desert nights without any supplementary heating in most climates.
The book provides detailed instructions for each phase of Earthship construction. It begins with site selection and orientation: Earthships must be oriented with their principal glass facade facing south (in the northern hemisphere) to maximise winter solar gain, and they are typically built into a hillside or earth berm on the north, east, and west sides to provide additional thermal mass and insulation. The construction of tyre walls is described in detail: tyres are laid in staggered courses, each tyre filled with earth and packed with a sledgehammer until the tyre walls are solid and structurally stable.
Aluminium cans and glass bottles are used as fill material in non-structural wall sections, creating colourful decorative surfaces and reducing the amount of earth fill required. Reynolds addresses each of the systems that make the Earthship self-sufficient. The solar electrical system—photovoltaic panels connected to a battery bank and inverter—provides electricity for lighting, appliances, and communications.
The water harvesting system captures rainfall from the roof, filters it through a series of catchment and treatment systems, and supplies it to all domestic uses. The greywater treatment system processes water from kitchen and bathroom use through a series of planter beds where plants absorb and biologically process the water before it is discharged or reused. Composting toilets or constructed wetland systems handle black water.
Reynolds acknowledges throughout the book that the Earthship concept evolved through an extensive process of trial and error, and that many early buildings had problems—with thermal performance in extreme climates, with water system failures, with inadequate ventilation. The book is candid about these failures and presents them as learning experiences. This candour is one of the Earthship literature's most valuable qualities: it presents sustainable building not as a perfected product but as an ongoing experiment.
Sources: Solar Survival Press; Wikipedia – "Michael E. Reynolds"; Earthship Biotecture; Amazon; Goodreads.