The Earthship has landed

Paula Cowie, director of the Earthship in Fife, was coming to the end of her Masters in Environmental Management at Stirling University when she took a trip to Taos, New Mexico and stumbled on the Earthship housing project.

She is now on a journey to discover whether we could one day see villages of Earthships here in Scotland.

Earthships are the brainchild of American architect Michael Reynolds. Each is a tailored environmentally sustainable housing project, designed to make use of natural supplies of water and energy and built from reused materials.

The Taos community was built over 30 years ago. There are now over 1000 homes around the world, adapted to each country’s climate and resources.

Earthships gather heat energy from the ground and sun to warm the living spaces. The thick, solid walls act like a battery, storing the heat during the day and warming the air in the rooms at night.

They harvest rain water, and use plant beds to filter and purify household sewage and waste water.

The building is powered by their own electricity source, from sun or wind. So owners are able to live independently from services like power and water utilities because the Earthship takes care of them. That means running costs are very low or sometimes zero. It also means they can be built almost anywhere.

Reclaimed materials like old tyres filled with compacted earth, cans and bottles are used in the building of Earthships to minimise the amount of new and manufactured materials needed for construction.

Earthship Fife
Paula decided to put everything she had learned into practice, by building her own Earthship.

Asked if there were any points when she thought it wasn’t going to happen Paula said, "Many times! At the beginning there were about 250 volunteers, but in the end it was a team of five."

The toughest parts were raising money and buying land. She also had to seek planning permission but found that the local authorities welcomed sustainable innovation.

So what does Earthship Fife do?
The Fife visitors' centre runs courses in renewable energy and has open days for visitors. Their aim is to share knowledge about sustainable living.

We asked Paula how successful it is at extending that knowledge.

"It's a great 'flag' and attracts people from far and wide. It could be immensely successful but we are a very small organisation so we can't open the centre all the time."

What's next?
The next step is to build a sustainable community housing project, like the one in New Mexico. Raising money for the scheme and finding land to build on is going to be the toughest task. But Paula's experience has given her a good feel for the planning system and put Earthships firmly on the map in Scotland.

A sister ship
The newest addition to the Earthship family is a visitor's centre project in Greenhead Moss Country Park. And they are looking for volunteers. Visit the Greenhead Moss website for full information.

Useful links

• Earthship Fife
• South Ayrshire council Earthship research project
• Stirling University
• Earthship
• Earthship at Greenhead Moss