Earthships – Taos and El Prado, New Mexico

So a long time ago in 2002, I went on an adventure in New Mexico.  I had worked at a boy scout ranch in 1999 and 2000, so I was familiar with the area, during a rock climbing trip near Taos, I came upon the earthships.  These were not entirely new to me, so I knew to seek them out.  Ended up going on a tour, didn’t take too many pictures, but here is what I had on an old drive, so I decided to share them.

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the green area there is were waste water comes out and gets filtered by the plants.  Also I recall that they had to have water shipped in or delivered, they have a large internal cistern.  Earthship concept works so well in New Mexico because it is such an arid climate they do not have problems with over humidity and condensation build up in the inside of the house.

I have also heard Earthships called sustainable toxic waste dumps, because of the VOC output from the tires that are packed with earth and stacked up to create thermal mass.  The solar passive design works quite well in arid New Mexico, and if humidity can be controlled, works surprisingly well in the mid west and east coast as well.

 

 

Author: PRO1

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