Garbage Warrior

Last night I went to the Barbican Theater to see a special showing of the documentary “Garbage Warrior” as a part of some London-wide architecture event. I first heard about the movie several months ago, and at the time I was so excited by the trailer that I resorted to downloading a torrent of it, because it was the only way I could see the film. Part of the reason I paid to see it on the big screen was to make up for essentially stealing it, but also because it was so inspiring I wanted to see it again.

Garbage Warrior is about rogue architect Michael Reynolds who has been pioneering radically sustainable housing and construction techniques since the 70's. He calls his buildings “earthships” and they strive to be entirely self sufficient. The houses collect and filter rainwater, treat sewage, grow food and generate electricity. They're mostly built in the deserts of New Mexico, a harsh environment where temperatures range from over a hundred to 30 below zero. The structures of the houses are largely build out of garbage, often using tires and beverage containers.

favorite part of the film is when Michael Reynolds describes the epiphany he started living in his first true earthship. Here he was, in an inhospitable desert with a home that stayed a constant 70 degrees from solar gain and thermal mass, collected and treated its own water, generated enough electricity, and grew most of the food he needed. He realized that this house had set him free. He didn't need to get up in the morning and work to pay for utilities, or packaged food. With very little effort, he could now live his life as he wanted, and do what he wanted. If he can do that in the middle of the desert, that gives me tremendous hope that we can develop similar regionally appropriate ways of living nearly anywhere.

Much of the film centers around Mike's struggle with the law to build these radical homes. Under current construction and zoning laws, most of what he was doing is illegal. Building homes in an extreme environment with no heating or AC, made from trash, with sewage being treated by living machines in the living room made by-the-books politicians very uneasy. Reynolds believes that in order to develop radical new housing, you need to be able to dream something up, and wake up the next day to build it and see if it works. He says if you can test bombs and cars, you should be able to test new types of houses. Unfortunately, our current system doesn't work like that, and so we're stuck living in essentially the same houses as 50 or 100 years ago. Likewise, utility companies have manipulated the law such that it is very difficult or impossible to start an off-grid housing development. For years, Reynolds got away with bending and breaking the laws, and built several successful earthship communities. However, a change in planning regime resulted in him losing his architectural license, and earthship development being shut down. I agree that it's good to have zoning and construction laws to protect citizens in public or commercial buildings, but if you are building your own home, the only life you're endangering is your own. I think that in a free country, we ought to be able to have the freedom to live and construct homes in the way that we see fit. Michael Reynolds is really a hero for fighting all these years to legalize his radical housing experimental test sites.

I've always dreamed of taking a few years off during my career to design and build my own home. I think thats why this movie was so inspiring to me. This group of people literally lived in tents in the desert and built incredible homes around them on a shoestring budget. I'd like to learn more about state and international construction laws to see where this sort of thing would be legal. Personally, living in such a desolate area isn't for me, but I think it would be incredible to try to build an earthship like building in an urban context. I can't find it anymore, but a few months ago I read about a couple in Philadelphia who bought a run down brick row house and were retrofitting it to be more sustainable. They had insulated the whole building with hay bales, collected rain water for the toilets and garden, and grew a significant amount of their food (including goats) in their very small back yard. They were living on almost no budget, so it wasn't pretty, but it worked. Maybe people in suburban mcmansions will start doing this sort of thing as the grim realities of peak oil set in.