Mike Reynolds’ radically sustainable homes crafted from earth and trash
Directed by Oliver Hodge
As you head out of Taos over the Rio Grande Gorge on Route 64, you’ll see lots of open scrub land and an increasing number of housing developments, but the tracts out this way look nothing like the subdivisions we’re accustomed to. There are scattered traditional homes and lovely Spanish-style haciendas, and eventually you’ll notice a series of structures that seem to push up directly from the ground, some in the shape of beehives, some long and low set halfway into the earth, others with jewel-like circles flashing in the sun, that turn out to be colored glass-bottle bottoms. These are sustainable homes, rammed-earth and recycled trash dwellings designed by architect Mike Reynolds.
Reynolds is an irreverent, dedicated visionary. As much as he’d like to save the planet, he also admits, “I’m trying to save my ass.” The climate is changing and we’re rendering Earth uninhabitable, and all the government can think about, in terms of housing, is regulations—rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Reynolds could’ve sat back with a smug grin, but instead he slogged through the state legislature (detailed in the film) pushing a bill that would allow him to develop something truly useful.
Living off the grid is in some ways a luxury—no mortgage, no utility bills, the freedom to live your life as you please. But for Reynolds it is also a mandate to develop and share ideas for sustainable housing, for which the Greater World Earthship community, thanks to the new bill, now legally serves as a test site. Here he continues to develop innovations, such as building houses made from plastic bottles. With a dedicated crew he taught this skill to survivors in the Andaman Islands after a disastrous 8.2 earthquake and tsunami destroyed nearly everything and reduced the population to a quarter of its former size.
This film will educate and inspire you. It’s a powerful profile of a visionary, and the music composed and produced by Patrick Wilson is beautifully attuned to each segment.
Reynolds’ message is urgent, distraught, begging us to pay attention before it’s too late. You can learn more at the Earthship Academy, an international school dedicated to teaching off-grid living and construction techniques. But the man himself will be in LA spreading the message this month. Go hear him; you’ll be inspired.
—Abigail Lewis
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~ Film: Force of Nature—The David Suzuki Movie
