Mike Reynolds is far more than a "Garbage Warrior"!

I recently saw and thoroughly enjoyed the 2007 documentary film Garbage Warrior about the visionary architect Mike Reynolds, who developed and has been building "radically sustainable" earthship homes for decades. While his designs consistently and ingeniously employ "garbage" throughout, reuse is only one of the important aspects of his amazing work.

Of course, reuse of frequently discarded items is an integral part of earthship design, minimizing footprint and cost, as well as required construction skills. With the help of concrete, used cans and bottles become both structural and aesthetic elements, and used tires rammed with dirt from the site help form strong walls and act as thermal mass to store passive solar heat gain.

In addition to reuse, Mike Reynolds fully recognizes that properly designed homes can actually help actively sustain their occupants while simultaneously reducing costs and ongoing impact on the planet. Earthships are incredibly self-sufficient, providing their own power, heat, water (rainwater harvesting), sewage treatment, as well as year-round (indoor) food-growing capabilities. It's amazing that since the early 1970's Reynolds has been thinking, designing and building outside the box, literally and figuratively, of conventional architecture and homes, which generally seem inanimate compared to earthships. Through years of experimentation and design evolution, he and his company Earthship Biotecture have remained focused on structures which may look unorthodox, but are very deliberately designed to meet the needs of the occupants as well as the planet itself. I encourage you to see this film.