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P R O F I L E
An Earthship designed by Mike Reynolds, founder of Earthship Biotecture. The structure is designed to be fully functional even though it’s not plugged into a public utility.
The Earthship has landed Architect Mike Reynolds, founder and owner of an unconventional design-build company, uses recycled materials to construct a sustainable enterprise.
By RICHARD MASSEY Managing Editor M ike Reynolds, founder of Earthship Biotec- ture , rose from obscurity outside of Taos, New Mexico, to become the internationally known designer and builder of sustainable, “off-the-grid” housing made out of used tires, bottles, concrete, and aluminum cans. While he started out in the early 1970s by himself, he now has more than 40 employees, and if needed, says he can muster as many as 1,000 people for a specific build event. Featured in the New York Times as far back as 1974, Reynolds is revered for chal- lenging the status quo in the name of his Earth- ships. Even with a global following, Reynolds is not with- out controversy and detractors. Some people say his Earthships, for a variety of reasons, really don’t work that well, and that they are too expensive to build. To this day, Reynolds does not hold an ar- chitecture license in his home state of New Mexico, although he is registered in Colorado and Arizona. He drives a 1973 Mercedes Benz that runs on re- cycled grease, wears his hair in a tangle, and is
unabashed in his commitment to save the world, one Earthship at a time. To say the least, he’s an unconventional architect. But it appears to work for Reynolds. His backlog is healthy enough that he has to turn down work, and he can’t realistical- ly employ all the people who want to join his team. Reynolds recently returned from a month-long stay in Uruguay, where he oversaw a design-build for an elementary school. The Zweig Letter caught up with him by phone for an interview at his home base in northern New Mexico. A CONVERSATION WITH REYNOLDS. TZL: How has social media played into your jour- ney from “outlaw” architect to sustainability guru? MR: I started doing what worked for me. And then my friends and neighbors, people from around town, the country, and the world, started doing it. (Earthship has over 189,000 likes on Facebook, over 8,400 followers on Twitter, over 500 connec- tions on LinkedIn, and a raft of videos on You- Tube, in addition to over three decade’s worth of
Mike Reynolds, Founder, Earthship Biotecture
See EARTHSHIPS, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER April 25, 2016, ISSUE 1149
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