The Earthship Has Landed

Thursday, November 17, 2011

October was a busy month for us at my homestead in Kensington. Aside from collecting the last harvest, putting the garden plots to bed for the winter, and taking part in this blog’s apple challenge, we also constructed what I believe to be the first Earthship structure in any major US city. If you want to learn more about Earthships, click here.

I was first inspired by Earthships after seeing it’s inventor, Michael Reynolds speak at the PA Association for Sustainable Ag.(PASA) conference three years ago. Since then I’ve been obsessed, but depressed because I thought the only way to live in one would be to move out to New Mexico. Being a Philly boy I have no plans of that. But almost a year ago, I gained a little hope. I met Rashida Ali Campbell, founder of the non-profit LoveLovingLove and Earthship Biotecture representative. Her dream was to bring the first urban Earthship to Philadelphia with the goal of using the structure as a school to teach low income residents how to build more affordable, earth friendly homes.

Although she has made great strides in the city to realize this dream, we both felt that visions come together quicker when people have something they can actually lay their eyes on. So after much discussion, and an introduction to designer and Earthship intern Eric Fulks, we began construction on a greenhouse that will provide seedlings for Emerald St. Urban Farm. As you can see from the picture, the back wall is constructed of 60 tires packed full of dirt (let me tell you, there is no better workout on earth than packing a tire full of dirt with a sledgehammer). This serves as both a secure wall and a built in heat source. The thermal mass traps heat and holds it through the cold months. 

The front wall is constructed out of 500 cut and stacked two liter bottles. The side wall is made from old discarded windows and we installed a rainwater catchment system off of the roof that fills the blue barrel seen in the bottom corner of the photo. By using thermal mass and water catchment, this greenhouse requires no utility hook ups and will hopefully run just as efficiently as a conventionally heated greehouse. All that and it only cost us about $300 to build after we diverted all of the scrap wood, windows, bottles and tires from the waste stream.

This is the beauty of Earthship. It teaches people how to make more with less, and how to use the materials around them, both trash and earth, to make more conscious, eco-friendly structures. Since the tires haven’t had a whole season’s worth of sun to charge up, the greenhouse is not operating at full efficiency. But by next fall, not only do I plan to be growing through out the winter and producing our spring seedlings, but I hope to be the one of the only, if not the only (I don’t know anyone else) person who is growing bananas in his backyard. But until then, please feel free to stop by the farm anytime to check it out.

-Nic