The Earthship in Aguada, Puerto Rico
sustainable building materials, mortgages,
and wondering why sustainability is often poised as luxury
Carlos began building his Earthship in the wake of Hurricane Maria. So many people had lost homes and lives and loved ones, so many more didn’t have access to water or power. Helicopters and planes came with supplies for some communities, like in Rincon, Carlos told us, while other communities were left without any help. There were people without even a bottle of water.
The Earthship seemed to be an answer of sorts, not necessarily for helping with Maria, but for protecting his community in the face of future storms. The property is entirely self-sustaining. It is powered by solar. Carlos has a well and treats his own water. Next door there are goats and chickens for meat and eggs, and twenty hives of bees on the roof.
The hurricane was the inciting incident for a lot of things here. The impetus for a resurgence of local farming. Farming as a political statement and a method of community care. It was also the motivation for the move to solar. On the mainland you’re either wealthy or a self-proclaimed hippy if you live on solar power, but here, it’s more egalitarian. Just as many poor families seem to live on solar as wealthy ones. It’s not a luxury here, which makes me wonder about sustainability as luxury in the first place. There’s something askew about it.
I don’t have much of an inclination toward engineering, so when Carlos was talking about how the cooling and water treatment systems work, I found myself marveling at the beauty of the mosaics made from recycled glass bottles instead, but what I do remember is this: there wasn’t an air conditioner, but those rooms were cool enough to be comfortable, even in the midday Caribbean sun. It has something to do with the holes in the roofs, which they cover over with the second story of the dome. The hot air escapes from there. And then there is a cooling vent inside that tunnels under the soil. I didn’t catch how that one works.
The structures themselves were built of 50% waste, that is one of the stipulations that the Earthship organization makes. It’s a required component of their projects. So the domes are made from plastic bottles covered with earth, and Carlos went to the junkyard and cut pieces of metal out of dented cars to create a roof for the dining area. The base of the domes are made from stacked tires that have been filled with dirt, which apparently makes an incredibly strong retention wall.
Seeing all this — a beautiful home made from objects in a landfill and organic materials from the earth — makes you realize just how much waste we create in the construction of the average home. And it begins to feel ridiculous that given two options, we continue to choose the one that creates more waste and uses more virgin resources, when we have the knowledge and resources to make one that does no harm. Our resistance to the options that do no harm is perplexing and fascinating. We have been well-conditioned by the marketing dollars of pollutant industries. They’ve carefully controlled our taste and our desires.
There was something about being at the Earthship with Carlos that felt like a parallel reality. Here is a way we could live, the dwelling reminded us. Here is a way we could be.
Thus far Earthships have mostly been of interest to doomsday preppers and small-government advocates, but I wonder if there’s a way to expand the narrative. To make room in it for others who want a more “normal” life and home. It seems that the more people who live in sustainable homes in the centuries to come, the better off we’ll be.
Also, as the climate crisis worsens, more and more of us will want to create housing that feels safe and secure even in the midst of storms of different sorts. The fact that an Earthship is self-contained and you can live there with food and water and power no matter what the public grid is doing is a balm and reassurance. There was a time when “planning for the apocalypse” felt loony, but in the wake of Covid and Maria and storm after storm around the world and the power outages in Texas last winter — and everything else — it’s beginning to seem like a move any responsible person would make: creating a home that can keep you and your family safe no matter the conditions.
Cities don’t make it easy to get permits to build Earthships though. Officials aren’t used to approving such designs, and they’re still keen to require traditional systems and building practices. But this seems like it’s a matter of changing the nature of the conversation on a community level. Helping city permitting boards and building departments see the good these homes will do for the land and for the community in times of hardship. Helping them see that they should be encouraging and incentivizing these projects, rather than making people feel like rule-breaking rebels for wanting to build one.
Continue down the rabbithole …
Carlos’ Earthship on Instagram, available for tours every weekend until 3:30pm, no reservation needed.
The Earthship Biotecture Academy in Taos where Carlos learned Earthship design principles, construction methods, and philosophy. On their site you can see some of their other projects, including a public school, a Waldorf school, and a music school.
Garbage Warrior, a film about Earthship founder Michael Reynolds and his quest to introduce “radically sustainable housing”
Bryce and Kelly of Cre Natural Building are making beautiful homes of natural materials, and they created a directory of Natural Builders. They are quite different than Earthships, but in the vein of “organic homes,” these are lovely ones. They also offer inexpensive online courses, if you’d like to learn some of their building practices. Pete’s dying to make one of their Cob ovens.
(An aside on mortgages: We learned yesterday that you can’t get a mortgage to build a self-sustaining property. If you manage your own water treatment and sewage and power, you have to fund the operation on your own. If you hope to get a loan from the bank, you are required to be connected to the grid. You also can’t get a bank loan if you’re building with wood. But wood is far cheaper than concrete; it’s the families with less resources who want to build with wood in the first place. Families that could surely use a mortgage to help spread out the expense. Control the people by controlling the capital. And, speaking of control: Carlos told us that Earthship, the organization, prefers that people building earthships don’t care to get permits at all. Who are you asking permission from anyway? Why is permission theirs to give? )