BY: SAMANTHA TAPP
Earthships, created by architect Mike Reynolds, are completely environment-friendly houses built with both natural and recycled materials that are constructed for minimal reliance on public utilities or fossil fuels. The homes are built with tires, bottles, and recycled plastic, and once built, you can live in these homes bill-free.
Last year there were already 3,000 Earthships constructed; one company was shipping pre-made Earthships straight to people’s front doors; but for someone like me, who tends to throw out a ripped T-shirt instead of attempting to sew it, the art of building an Earthship was a beautiful idea, but the actual reality of building it was lost on me…until now.
Meet Eric Ficinus. He just spent the last four years studying at the Earthship academy: learning the techniques used in Earthship design, living in multiple Earthships, and gaining experience building Earthships in New Mexico, Vermont and New York. After his graduation he used all of his Earthship knowledge to create a easy-to-understand book so an average Joe could understand these eco-friendly homes.
Eric’s book, the Earthship Model Kit, is a 32-page, full coloured booklet, with step-by-step graphic information about the 6 design principles of Earthships. The kit comes with a miniature build-able house that consists of 11 paper pre-cut pieces that you can assemble into a 3D model. The model is an exact replica of a 900 square foot Earthship home, and is fully detailed with a floor plan, so you can see exactly what a real Earthship consists of.
The idea is that the kits can be used for educational purposes; to inform people on how to live a more appropriate, sustainable lifestyle. The main goal of the project is for Earthship information to be available to anyone, anywhere. Eric is hoping that with the help of an updated, step-by-step guide, people will better understand how and why Earthships are important.
To start your journey to living a sustainable, bill-free life, see the kits here.
This is the DIY paper build-able model Earthship:
This is what the floorplan of an Earthship model looks like:
You can even combine several Earthships to make an Earthship city:
These eco-friendly homes are the world’s most sustainable homes. This is what an actual Earthship looks like:
Lots of these homes have organic greenhouses built inside of them:
