Earthships and Tire Homes

Americans discard an estimated 253 million automobile tires every year. Nearly half of them end up in stock-piles or in landfills. - Scarp Tire Management Council.

The Nest takes the Earthship "Self-sufficient with ecological awareness" concept and combines it with the Volkswagen "economically available with limitations" concept. - Michael Reynolds, The Nest Concept.

In the words of Michael Reynolds, originator of the Earthship Idea, the earthship "is a completely independent globally oriented dwelling unit made of materials readily available in most parts of the world."
Let's see what Earth-Ship is. Webster dictionary defines it as "A registered trademark name for houses built with tires, aluminum cans, and earth".
these are passive solar homes made with indigenous readily available materials and waste products.
These are the structures made from automobile tires packed with dirt and stacked on one another like huge bricks, and are made in U-shaped rooms. The curving walls are covered with stucco or earthen plaster, which hides the evidence of tires and gives the look of adobe structures. The Front face usually consists of sloping glass that gathers up the sun to heat the house. Sunlight also supplies the indoor planters that provide food and purify waste water.
earthships are equipped with photovoltaics to generate heat and electricity. The Earthship sports a unique roof design that collects the rainwater or melted snow, which can be stored in the flanking two cisterns, big size water-storage tanks that collectively can hold up to 10,000 gallons of water. This is purified in a series of filters, this water supplies all domestic needs.
Earthship consists of two parts :- the U shaped living spaces and the environmentally interface corridor.

Advantages :-

1. One of the most environmentally sustainable forms of housing available in the industrial nations of the world, especially given the independent living systems that they incorporate.
2. Use of waste (discarded automobile tires) reducing the demand of natural resources.
3. Use of indigenous materials available near the building site such as vigas, mud plaster and packing dirt.
4. Materials required can be found worldwide in abundance.
5. Reduces stockpiles of tires that can catch fire and smolder for months on end.
6. relies on Passive solar heating and photovoltaics for electricity, reducing the demand of fossil fuel energy to light and heat the house.
7. reduces resource demand and pollution
8. decrease the dependance on utility power, saving money on energy bills
9. capture rainwater and melted snow, recycle wastewater and grow food
10. recycling of greywater protects groundwater and surface water supplies from depletion and pollution.
11. Earthships are resistant to fire, termites, earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes.
12. protect the inhabitants from outside noise.
13. Easy to build on one's own if the detailing is ready.
14. Durable form of housing than conventional housing giving the array of other benefits.
15. Could be used in developing countries to promote self-sufficiency.
16. Interiors are relatively humid and easy on nasal passage ways.
17. a proven technology often accepted by building departments.
18. compete well economically with other forms of earth-friendly housing.

Disadvantages :-

1. Getting approval for Earthship construction varies by state.
2. although earthships tend to be warm when the sun is down, it can be cold during cloudy periods, because the mass is situated too far back in the housing to absorb incoming solar radiation directly, so backup heating system is required.
3. Even though tire walls are easy to build, costly mistakes can occur with no or less experience.
4. tire walls are labour intensive and labour is costly in most of the parts of world.
5. Slanted glass designs can overheat, especially in the fall. Curtains or window shades required to avoid this.
6. as in any solar home, sunlight can be intense during much of the day, creating eye-straining glare on computer screens.
7. Due to planters and 'u'shaped walls, the effective livable space is lesser compared to conventional homes
8. lack of storages and closets as lesser niches so care has to be taken to incorporate that in design
9. Humidity can be problematic due to plants so a vapor barrier between ceiling and insulation is necessary.
10. the open design that gives good air flow, can be problematic for privacy and noise problems.
11. If growing vegetables in planters, insects like white flies and aphids can be a big problem.

Source :- The Natural House by Daniel D. Chiras

Inspiring Creations with Recycled Materials

Hello Friends,
Came across an article about use of recycled materials... I was amazed seeing this..
Hope you all will also like.

12 incredible creations that take recycling to an extreme

In the modern world many perfectly shaped materials are thrown away in landfills, which could have been used elsewhere to reduce production of new items and emissions associated with new production. Some creative minds are working to help the environment by creating unique works of art from discarded materials, at all scales. Some do this for sheer pleasure for art and conscience, while others do it on largest possible scales to bring out an all new meaning of the word recycling. Here we have tried to feature arts and creations of such brave minds that have given an all new direction to the concept of trash art and have left us mesmerized with the grandness of their works. Hit the jump to read on for 12 such out of the world creations, we love for their efforts and vastness in form.

• Bruce Munro’s Inland Sea

Artist Bruce Munro has reused about one million unwanted compact discs to create a shimmering inland sea at Long Knoll Field in Wiltshire, England. Apart from some local collections, the massive sea used more than 600,000 discarded CDs that were sent from as far away as Brazil and California. The 120sqm carpet of glittering CDs reflects light from the sun and the moon across a 10-acre field.

• WHIM Architecture’s Recycled Island

WHIM Architecture are proposing a gigantic recycled island that will be made from plastic waste collected from the North Pacific Gyre. The bold project will not only help clean the oceans, but it might just be a perfect home for climate refugees. Waste will be converted into 4000 square miles of recycled plastic land upon which plastic communities will be built. The habitable area of the island will be designed as an urban setting with a green living environment.

• Container City

Several Mexican designers have taken container recycling to a grand scale by creating a “Container City” out of them. The city offers 4500 m2 of urban space about two hours from Mexico City and makes use of 50 metal containers that are recycled into hippie stores, bookstores, art galleries, bars, restaurants, bakeries, juice bars and work and living spaces.

• Minnie Evans Bottle Chapel

Constructed as a garden retreat this recycling wonder is located at Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, NC, and has been constructed entirely from recycled bottles, cement and chicken wire by local artist Virginia Wright-Frierson.

• Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village

Built by Tressa Prisbrey (better known as Grandma Prisbrey) over a period of 25 years this bottle village is created from recycled beer bottles. The project includes 13 full-size structures, an impressive mosaic walkway and several shrines and wishing wells.

• Holiday Inn’s Key Card Hotel

The designer of this amazing plastic palace amassed about 200,000 unwanted plastic slips and converted them into a guest house. The hotel includes a guest room, bathroom and lobby, all fully furnished with life-size furniture all made from the same materials.

• Spiral Island

Created from over 250,000 plastic bottles and other recycled materials, the Spiral Island is open to public and could be one of the most impressive DIY projects of modern times.

• Minister’s Treehouse

Created by Horace Burgess the Minister’s Treehouse is a 10-story treehouse in Crossville, Tennessee. The enormous treehouse covers an area of between 8000 to 10,000 square-feet and is built entirely from wood that has either been donated or is salvaged from barns and garages. The designers has spent $12,000 on the building, most of which went into purchasing about 258,000 nails.

• Beer Bottle House

This Beer Bottle House is the creation of Tito Ingenieri who has spent 19 years in building this recycling wonder using about 6 million beer bottles. Quite obviously, the home doesn’t look sleek or chic but considering that the guy has spent close to two decades on the same, we have to give him some credit for recycling.

• Toilet Seat Waterfall

Created as an art project in China, this unique waterfall is made up of thousands of recycled toilet seats, urinals and sinks.

• Rock Garden

The Rock Garden in Chandigarh, India has been created by Nek Chand, a government official who started the garden secretly in his spare time in 1957. Today the garden is spread over an area of 160,000sqm and is completely built of industrial waste, home waste and other thrown-away items. The garden features man-made interlinked waterfalls and many other sculptures that have been made of scrap.

• Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew Temple

Created by some monks, this Buddhist temple reuses about a million recycled beer bottles. This spectacular structure uses the green colored bottles of Heineken Beer and brown colored bottles of Chang Beer, which not only makes it look beautiful but also serves as a good book to educate the disciples on the benefits of recycling and environment conservation.

Source:- ecofriend.com