Last week I attended the excellent Self-building an earthship course run by Brighton Permaculture Trust. I've long had the idea I wanted to build a home with straw bales and have been inspired by my friends Simon and Jasmine whose amazing work I blogged about back in 2006. They're now an instrumental part of the Lammas project, have constructed another roundhouse and will be building an earthship for themselves. This form of construction is one I've found more and more appealing as, if approached correctly, is environmentally responsible throughout the build and subsequent years of habitation. It safely locks away used tyres, a material that would otherwise be considered hazardous, is a passively heated design requiring no energy input other than that of the sun and allows for the recycling of water and waste, turning this into food as a component of the design.

I regard the term 'eco' when appended to building work with the same jaundiced eye I apply to the notion of being 'green'. It's thrown around casually in mainstream discourse on programmes such as Grand Designs as part of the aspirational pornography that underlies the message of the show. Usually each project is underpinned by tonnes of concrete with a mere nod to efficiency in the form of a costly technologically controlled heating system or other expensively produced components. Environmental credentials are worn as a direct display of wealth and privilege dressed up as a courteous modesty, the very antithesis of the ethics that need to be at the core of modern construction if the embodied energy of the building is to be brought into anything like a sustainable frame of reference. Earthships can answer these considerations in both the short and long term if insulated properly, cement is avoided when more suitable alternatives will do and if materials are chosen carefully, always adapting to local climatic conditions. 

There is a difficult balance to strike here between wanting to see this kind of design become the favoured form of dwelling but without seeing the values that make it a viable alternative become co-opted and reduced in significance. Earthships are intended to be a philosophical outlook as well as an efficient, practical and enjoyable part of our habitat. 

Read Wikipedia's definition of an earthship.

You may also find the books Building with Straw Bales and the 50 Dollars and Up Underground House Book of interest.