Earth Ships

This is an interesting house built to be as self sufficient as possible located in Taos New Mexico. 

Much of the structure is built with recyclable material like pop cans, glass bottles and tires.

The houses face south to utilize the sun for passive solar heating.  Water collector systems are set up on the roof and higher places.  

Because of the passive solar and water collection processes the solarium is used to grow plants for food year around.  

These homes, one would think, would be pretty cheap to build and they can be made nice inside.  We took a tour of this one a while back, but not this time. Actually the homes can run from around $100,000 to $450,000. So they can actually be pricey.

They seem to be adding on some new part with "art" style buildings.  If the people that build these homes are trying to blend in with the earth they have failed here.  This earth ship that we were allowed to tour wasn't that appealing to look at up close.  I didn't think it was built that well.  They use some type of "cement" or "concrete" to put the walls up but it didn't look like good quality.  I am sure there are others that are built better.  They were in the process of building a convention earth ship right across the road that did look a bit better.  For $130 a night you can rent it.

There is a big pile of "building materials" that looks more like a trash heap that is constantly being "fed".  There is no landscaping, but there was a lot of trashy stuff laying around.  I did enjoy the art work on one of the "gates".  They used colored glass bottles and created a pretty pattern.  

Being self sufficient and growing your own food will help weather the storm in this current economy.  But in the looks department....not there yet. It was interesting to walk around the place. There seems to be quite a few of these homes just west of Taos New Mexico.  Some of them look pretty nice from a distance.