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Special Thanks to Theo Lalleman, from OWAZE, for helping to arrange this internship. Paula Cowie, from SCI, for this opportunity and for supervising me. Geetam van der Dussen, from SCI, for supervising me during the building work. Jan Witte, from the University of Technology in Delft, for approving of this internship. Michael Reynolds, for creating the beautiful Earthship concept.

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Contents Introduction

page 3

Chapter 1 Sustainable Communities Initiatives

page 4

Chapter 2 Earthship Fife

page 6

2.1 How Earthship Fife works

page 6

Chapter 3 My tasks

page 9

Chapter 4 Ideas for graduation project

page 13

Chapter 5 Earthship compared to other sustainable building methods

page 14

Chapter 6 My view on “housing of the future”

page 15

Chapter 7 Arrangements

page 16

Chapter 8 Evaluation

page 17

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Introduction This report describes my internship at Sustainable Communities Initiatives from 03/05/03 until 15/06/03. This internship forms a part of a degree in Industrial Design Engineering at the University of Technology in Delft in Holland. Sustainable Communities Initiatives is a voluntary organisation in Kinghorn, Scotland, which shows people, through workshops and other activities, the potential of waste as a resource. At the moment SCI is building the first Earthship in the United Kingdom, a sustainable housing unit built from discarded automobile tyres and beverage cans, which functions completely independent from the common electricity and water supply systems and takes care of its own waste water. During this internship I have helped with the building of this Earthship and thoroughly studied the theory and workings of Earthships.

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Chapter 1

Sustainable Communities Initiatives

Sustainable Communities Initiatives (SCI) is a voluntary organisation in Kinghorn, Scotland, working to encourage and support sustainable living. SCI’s work brings awareness to the potential of waste as a resource. The processes of building and making items with waste develops creativity within the individual and brings people together in a like-minded community situation. History of SCI The voluntary organisation Sustainable Communities Initiatives was founded in August 2000. Since then Creative Waste Workshops have been run regularly, in which both adults and children participated. In July 2002 the building of Earthship Fife started, the first Earthship in the United Kingdom. SCI is run by Paula Cowie, Project Manager. At the moment two members of staff are employed by SCI to carry out the Creative Waste Workshops and various other projects. Most of the buildingwork on Earthship Fife is done by volunteers on designated volunteertimes, mostly weekends. Current activities of SCI At this moment SCI is concentrating on completing Earthship Fife, which will serve as an educational resource centre demonstrating the innovative Earthship building concept in the Scottish climate. Upon completion a monitoring programme associated with Earthship Fife is intended, which will break new grounds towards enabling future residential Earthships in Scotland. Financing SCI Most financial means of SCI are met by grants from public organisations and private companies, most of them involved in sustainable development. Some donations are in the form of buildingmaterials. At the moment non-grant income comes from Earthship visits, membership subscriptions, merchandise (t-shirts) and Creative Waste Workshops. In the future non-grant income may come from fact sheets on the different issues involved in building an Earthship in Scotland, additional merchandise (video, CDs, booklets), Creative Waste Workshops expansion and Earthship consultancy. Vision Statement “Our vision is that of sustainable communities, both in the rural and urban context, where people have the awareness and opportunity to act on their aspirations to live in a more balanced way with themselves, each other, and the global community. The word waste becomes obsolete and waste materials are valued and utilised as a resource, whilst the natural resources of the Earth are left to flourish. We will achieve our vision by 1. Working with communities and individuals in an encouraging and supportive way to enable them to create their own sustainable opportunities. 6

2. Practically demonstrating more sustainable living options that are creative and innovative. 3. Promoting awareness and understanding of the need to reduce waste. 4. Providing a resource base accessible to all who wish to live more sustainably. 5. Influencing policy.” Ideas for the next 3 - 6 years 1. Incorporate the organisation into a zero-waste community/village running as per the vision statement. 2. To make housing from waste viable as a residential social housing application anywhere in Scotland. 3. To encourage and support Scottish communities to work towards zero domestic waste

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Chapter 2

Earthship Fife

Earthship Fife is the first Earthship build in the United Kingdom. More than 2000 Earthships allready exist in countries all over the world. Earthship Fife is being build in the Ecology Centre in Kinghorn, Scotland. The Ecology Centre is a park situated next to Kinghorn Lake open to the public. Information and examples on an ecological approach to life are given throughout the Ecology Centre. Since Earthship Fife is built in a public centre it won’t be inhabited. It will serve as an educational example of a sustainable housing unit, which functions without use of the conventional power grid and the conventional water system. Upon completion a monitoring programme will show how Earthship Fife functions in the Scottish climate. Based on the results of this monitoring programme Scottish authorities can decide whether or not the building plans for Earthships in Scotland will be approved of in the future. The building of Earthship Fife started in July 2002. With a team of 20 people, in 8 days of work, the basic structure of the building was completed. This basic structure existed of tyre walls, the framing of the south windows and the ceiling. Michael Reynolds, the architect who developed the Earthship concept, with his experienced group of Earthship builders from New Mexico were part of this team, the other half were Scottish volunteers interested in the Earthship concept. Since then all the buildingwork on the Earthship has been done by volunteers, mostly on designated volunteerweekends. From the end of August until June there have been 43 volunteerdays, on which on average 8 persons participated. Since April 2003 one member of staff has been working on the Earthship three days a week. 2.1

How Earthship Fife works

Passive solar heating and cooling The walls of the Earthship are built with discarded automobile tyres. These tyres are rammed with earth. The strong tyre walls are loadbearing and have thermal mass. The Earthship is built on a slope. At the outside of the tyre walls soil is bermed up against the walls, so that all around, except on the south-side of the building, the walls are surrounded with soil. The Earthship is built “into” the sloping hillside. Glazing on the south-side of the building is positioned so that as much sunlight enters the the Earthship as possible throughout the year. The glazing is vertical so that in the cold Scottish wintermonths, when the sun is low, the sunrays hit the glass at a 90° angle, so no sunlight is reflected. The warmth of the sun that enters the Earthship through the windows, heats the interior space. The heat from the interior space is taken in by the relatively cool mass walls. The thermall mass of the tyre walls stores this heat. At night and in the winter, when the sun does not heat up the interior space, the relatively warmer walls give off their warmth to the interior space. In case of very hot summer days, quite rare in Scotland, the mass walls have a cooling effect on the interior space. A partition of glass about 1,5 meters away from the outside windows creates a separate space, the greenhouse, which helps keep the warmth inside when it is cold outside. Next to the outside door a vent can be opened for fresh air. If both this vent and the skylight are opened a breeze is created which will cool the inside air temperature if it gets to warm. A backup heating source will be present for extremely cold winterdays. A waterproofing material (voltex carpet) is inserted around the outside of the tyre walls to keep the moisture out. The roof is insulated with sheeps wool and building paper to keep the warmth from escaping. Interior partition walls are build with aluminium beverage cans and cement. These cans act as spacers, which creates a honeycomb of cement.

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Catch water system All the rainwater that falls on the roof of the Earthship is caught and led towards a watercistern, where the water is stored. The roof is lined with rubber and shaped to secure that every drop of rainwater and snow melt is guided towards a silt catch. This silt catch is relatively large to prevent overflow during heavy rains. It is the roof of the cistern. Water collects in the funnel roof of the cistern, overflows into the pipe in the middle and falls into the cistern. Pumice around the pipe captures most of the silt and dust in the water. If the cistern is full the rainwater that enters through the silt catch will overflow through six special ‘overflowpipes’. The funnel cistern roof is not insulated. This results in a temperature difference between the warmer mass of water inside the cistern and the cooler air temperature outside the cistern, which creates serious condensation on the underside of the funnel. This condensation is caught in a small trough at the bottom of the inlet pipe and piped inside the building to a container for use as distilled drinking water. A small problem in Kinghorn was that the peacocks of the farm liked to spend time on the Earthship roof. Their faeces polluted the fresh rainwater. Some rope has been stretched across the roof in an attempt to keep the peacocks off.

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Grey water containment, treatment and distribution systems The cistern is positioned to gravity feed a pump and filter panel (the Water Organising Module), including a drinking filter that filters out bacteria. Water is pushed by the pump into a conventional pressure tank and through the filters and household water pressure with soft, filtered rain water is the result. This fresh rainwater is used for the sink and shower, but not to flush the toilet. Waste water (‘grey water’) is directed into a grease and particle filter and then through a 30 inches deep interior rubber lined planter. Oxygenation, filtration, transpiration and bacteria encounter takes place in the planter. At the low end of the planter, water is directed through a peatmoss/charcoal filter and then recollected in a small well. Instead of the big riverstones at the ends, where the water flows in and out of the planter, bottles filled with earth were used as an experiment in Earthship Fife, since the stones were very expensive in Scotland. This twice used, clean looking but not drinkable water is pumped from the well to flush a conventional toilet. The toilet water (‘black water’) goes to a rubber lined, exterior landscaping planter set up very similar to the interior planter. After this use the water again tests below measurable nitrate levels. Electricity The powersystem of the Earthship is not connected to the grid. All the power the Earthship uses comes from renewable energy sources. It is generated by photovoltaic panels on the front of the building, a windturbine on the hill at a distance of about twenty meters and a hydro turbine at a distance of about thirty meters. The power from these different sources is channeled to the Power Organising Module. Here, an invertor changes the DC electricity to AC electricity of a usable voltage. The generated electricity is stored in batteries which are placed in a batterybox on the roof.

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Chapter 3

My tasks

During the six weeks of my internship with SCI I have done practical buildingwork on Earthship Fife for four days a week and studying the theory of the Earthship concept, using the books from SCIs library, on the remaining day every week. I worked together with Andre, the other voluntary worker, and with Geetam, staff member of SCI. Geetam supervised us during our work on the Earthship. Paula, the project manager, supervised my internship. On the volunteerweekends that were organised during the time I was in Kinghorn we worked with the other volunteers. Every volunteerweekend had its main subject. Two of them were about ‘energy from renewable resources’, combined with installing the photovoltaic panels and installing the hydro turbine. In the morning the electrical engineer who installed these energy generators gave a lecture on the theory and the workings of each type of energy generator, and in the afternoon they were installed. This was a very nice way to learn about these sustainable energy generators. An overview of the theory of the Earthship concept can be found in a separate report. Here I will focus on the practical buildingwork. On most of these jobs I have worked myself, which was a very direct learning experience, but also seeing jobs being done by others, by experts or other volunteers, was a good learning experience. Tyre pounding The typical Earthship job. All the walls of the Earthship itself were finished allready. I helped to finish off a retaining wall built to keep a path next to the Earthship open. All the tyres used on the same level have to have the same diameter, indicated by an “R” number on each tyre, for example 55 R 13. The tyre is put in the desired position on the wall, staggered like bricks. Some cardboard is folded to fit into the tyre and cover the bottom so that no soil will fall out. It works best to work with a team of two people, one person shoveling soil into the tyre and the other person lifting the edges up and pushing the dirt into the tyre with his hands. When the tyre is filled with soil one person takes a sledge hammer, and standing with his feet on the edge of the tyre, starts pounding the soil horizontally into the edges of the tyre. It takes least energy when one hand is brought close to the heavy part of the hammer when it is lifted and both hands are on the end when the hammer is brought down. It works best to hit the soil in between the legs and to move around with small steps to pound another spot. The other person keeps shoveling more soil in when needed. Each pounded tyre takes about two wheelbarrows full of soil. The tyre stretches vertically and becomes almost 1,5 times higher then it was. With the help of a spirit level it is made sure that the tyre is level with the rest of the course and level on its own. It is important not to hit the rim of the tyre, because it will loosen all the earth that was rammed into place. When the tyre has reached the right height the rest of the soil is pounded into the tyre vertically with the long edge of the hammer. When a course is finished soil is bermed up against the back of the tyres. When the soil is too dry it is difficult to pound and when the soil is too wet it sticks to the sledge hammer. Unfinished walls should be protected from rain with a plastic cover. On half of the courses the end of a wall needs to be filled up. Metal mesh is nailed to the last tyre. A couple of nails are also hammered into the edge of the last tyre (as a grip for concrete). Then it is filled with concrete up to the same height as the last tyre, with the help of a spirit level. According to Michael Reynolds a team of two people can pound about four tyres an hour. Experienced tyre pounders of Earthship Fife say 10 tyres a day can be done by a team of two people. It is hard work, but the building blocks are cheap, sometimes you get paid for taking the tyres, because disposing of them in landfills costs money. Can walling 11

The cement used for can walling is normal Portland cement, a mix existing of one part of cement, three parts of gravel. The cans are deformed a bit so they have a dent, this way they can’t be pushed out of the wall when the cement is dry. A layer of cement is applied, the cans are pushed into it, another layer of cement is applied, etc. If the cement runs it is too wet. There is a maximal height of can wall (about 3 or 4 layers of cans) that can be built at once. The cement needs to dry a bit to be strong enough to carry the next layers of cement. The cans should never touch each other. Nails in the wood attach the cement wall to its surroundings. The mouth openings of the cans should all be facing the same way if you want to leave them unplastered. They create a natural lath surface for the plaster, so if you want a plaster finish on both sides of a can wall the direction of the mouth openings of the cans should be alternated. Plastering Plaster is applied in several layers. First the tyre walls are packed with a stiff mix of half soil and half concrete-sand and chopped straw. A can is pushed into the the mud to reduce the amount of mud needed and for faster drying. This mud is left to dry and made wet again to apply the next layer. With the same mix the cans are now covered and two more cans are stuck on. When this is dry in two more coats a mud wall with little sections of tyre tread showing through is created. Now the scratch coat of mud is applied with a hock to hold the mud and a swimming pool trowel (rounded ends). The mix is still the same, but now the dirt is sifted through a 0,25 inch screen and the sand used is plaster sand. It is not as stiff as the fillpacking mud. The mud is scratched with a scratcher when it is still wet. This makes the surface rough enough to receive the next coat. I have been applying the final plaster coat, which has a mix of one part of finely sifted soil, two parts of finely sifted plaster sand, half a handfull of finely chopped straw. This mix depends on the clay content of the the site-dirt. As always the last layer needs to be dry and wetted with a plant-mist bottle before the next coat is applied. For the final layer it works best if the plaster is so wet, it runs of your hock. By misting applied plaster again very smooth surfaces can be created.

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Creating round windows Concrete is applied up to the level where the window starts. A mould is placed in the desired position, and the space around the mould is filled up with cement. Where possible cans are used as in the rest of the wall as spacers. Putting in a mould can be done best in two or three stages, allowing the concrete to dry and become solid enough to carry the weight of the next layer of concrete, without bending to either side. The glass is cut in the same size and shape as the mould. When the cement is dry the mould is taken out. A nail is inserted in the top of the windowspace. The glass can lean against this nail. With the help of a spirit level the window is positioned vertically straight. Now on both sides a little ridge of cement is applied. When this is dry a bigger ridge of plaster is applied under an angle, creating a smooth surface from the outside of the can wall to the window. Preparing wood The wood for the ceiling was donated, recycled wood. It took a lot of workhours to prepare the wood before it was ready to be put up as the ceiling. A lot of the planks had broken while they were taken away from their previous home. First of all we sanded all the planks with an electrical sandingmachine. Then we painted them with two coats of fireproofing and a topcoat. At this stage we tried to put them up, but because it was recycled wood it was very difficult to fit the tongues and grooves together. It was decided it wood be easier to take the tongues of. So we took the tongues of all the planks using both an electric planer and a hand planer. Now it was possible to put the ceiling up, but it still was a difficult and precise job. Wood is a beautiful material and worth recycling, because sanding makes it look as good as new, but expressed in man workhours it is very uneconomical (the same thing goes for pounding tyres). Planter The planter was dug out after the basic structure of the building was completed. The bottom of the planter has a slight slope towards one side and at the end a square meter drops four inches. All sharp edges are smoothed with a hammer or by applying some plaster. The plumbing pipes at both ends are inserted first. Rubber lining, in one big piece, is fitted to cover the floor and all the planter walls. Instead of the big river rocks of the original design, bottles filled with sand were put in at both ends of the planter. The plumbing pipes are positioned so that their ends are inside these piles of bottles. They were kept in place with a net while the planter was filled with a layer of gravel, also covering the bottles. A construction of board kept two separate spaces next to each other free of gravel. One of these spaces is filled with peatmoss and one with charcoal. This is the filter that removes sulpher smell and further cleans the water. On the gravel a layer of sand and next a layer of soil are inserted. The soil is level with the bottom of the windowframes and covers the peatmoss and charcoal. Now the planter is filled with water and plants can be planted. Their roots will make their way down to the layer of gravel and add oxygen to the water. The combination of traveling through pumice and oxygenation by plant roots cleanses the water to a point where it looks and smells clean. It is used to flush the toilet. The plant roots will also suck up a large part of the water, this is called transpiration.

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Chapter 4

Ideas for graduation project

The Earthship is a very beautiful concept. A lot of thought and experimenting has gone into the concept over the last 30 years. Discarded automobile tyres have proved to be the best material to build an Earthship with for several reasons: -tyres rammed with earth create a wall with high thermall mass -tyres rammed with earth create strong loadbearing walls -tyres rammed with earth create walls that are their own foundations (also earthquake proof) -tyres can be assembled and rammed with earth by human hands and power without the need for expensive machines and the expertise of using them -tyres are available for free and the soil used for ramming them is available on site -tyres are a ‘natural resource’ of the twentyfirst century. They are everywhere. If not used, but disposed off in landfills they form a problem. Lots of them have created big fires that were difficult to stop. Pounding tyres is very labour intensive. Expressed in man working hours it is not very economical. If you enjoy the physical work while you are building your own house and are willing to spend a few years of your life on this building project, there is no problem. I think that for the majority of people the labour intensiveness might discourage them from building an Earthship, even when they are interested in living in a sustainable way. I think it would be very nice if building an Earthship would be easily accesible for the majority of people. There are three basic subjects, closely related to Earthships, which I find interesting for a graduation project for Industrial Design Engineering: 1. Design a tool that would make ramming earth into the tyres of an Earthship quicker and easier. Important is that it can either be created by the builder himself or that it can be purchased relatively cheap. During this internship in Kinghorn I have tested an idea, which was aimed to make ramming earth into tyres easier. The idea was to cut the top edge of the tyre in two places, so that the top parts could be lifted into a vertical position. A simple device on both sides of the tyre would hold it in place while the tyre could easily be filled and rammed (vertically rather than horizontally). The test showed that, although it was easy to saw through the metal in the rim of the tyre, the shape of the tyre was too firm to lift the top parts into a vertical position. Also with four cuts in the top of the tyre it was still too firm to lift the top parts into a vertical position. 2. Design a buildingblock that holds water or phase-change materials (high thermal mass), specifically for building an Earthship. 3. Redesign the solar oven, solar refrigerator or solar toilet, used in an Earthship.

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Chapter 5

Earthship compared to other sustainable building methods

Other sustainable building methods at this moment focus on one or more of the following issues: -passive solar heating and cooling (thermal mass and south orientation) -active solar heating and cooling (energy for heating and cooling generated by photovoltaic panels) -highly insulated buildings (strawbale) -efficiency of heating, ventilation and airconditioning -recycled, recyclable, biodegradable or rapidly renewable buildingmaterials -active solar hot water (energy for heating water generated by photovoltaic panels) -wateruse reduction -composting toilets These are all very interesting solutions to create more sustainable housing for the future. Often these methods focus on one or two of the issues above. The Earthship concept brings solutions for several aspects of housing together in one design. I like the comparison with a tree. A tree takes from its environment what it needs for survival and gives back to its environment what it doesn’t need. The waste of the tree feeds its environment. The tree and its environment help keep each other alive. Like a tree, an Earthship takes from its environment what we human beings need for survival: energy and warmth from the sun, energy from the wind and a stream, water from the rain, waste as a buildingmaterial. And the Earthship gives its waste back to the environment in the form of unpolluted water.

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Chapter 6

My view on “housing of the future”

I personally think housing of the future should be much more integrated with nature. Making use of natural phenomena rather then building structures that resist natural phenomena, making use of biodegradable and renewable buildingmaterials and forming a visually pleasing combination with the natural surroundings. Ancient buildingmaterials can be used in innovative ways and new buildingmaterials will probably be evolved from natural and renewable resources. These buildingmaterials will create a more natural environment than the buildingmaterials mainly used in housing of this moment, it will create a living environment which is pleasing to all our sences. At the moment there are enormous amounts of waste as a byproduct from our society. Until our society has found new ways which create less waste, waste can be used as a buildingmaterial. All energy used in the housing unit will be generated from renewable energy sources. The energy generators will be feeding one housing unit or a small amount of housing units. The housing unit will make use of passive solar heating and cooling. All the water used in the housing unit will be extracted from its direct environment, at this moment from rainwater, in the future maybe by use of a new technology. The toilet will not use water. The housing unit of the future will not give off any polluting waste to its environment. Waste water will either be completely used up by (food) plants grown within the housing unit or given back to its environment in a clean, harmless way. Housing will be easily accessible for everyone. It will either be relatively easy and cheap to build the housing unit yourself or it will be relatively cheap to rent or buy it. The housing unit is completely independent of the water and electricity supply systems we know at this moment, and can be taken anywhere. This is the Earthship concept. In other words, I think housing of the future will be based on the Earthship concept evolved to a state where it uses new technologies to achieve its goal: to be in harmony with its environment, extracting from its environment what we human beings need and returning its waste to it in an unpolluting and where possible life enhancing way.

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Chapter 7

Arrangements

Theo Lalleman from OWAZE, the Dutch organisation involved with Earthships, has helped arrange this internship at SCI. Paula Cowie from SCI, who supervised my internship, also arranged accomodation. Craigencalt Farm is a big farm on the same property as The Ecology Centre in Kinghorn, which houses the office of the Ecology Centre, the office of SCI and two families. It was possible to rent a room at ground level, with use of a kitchen and bathroom relatively cheaply. The atmosphere was very friendly, with staff, owners, a cat and dogs passing through the kitchen. It is a beautiful, peacefull and warm place.

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Chapter 8

Evaluation

One of the things I enjoyed most was working with my hands a lot and not only with my mind. I really liked the practical building, not just designing something, but making it. I discovered that theory and practice are quite far apart. To understand the working of something does not mean you can make everything yourself. In building a house all these little things need to be done, which require experience. With just logic I would not have been able to figure it out. I needed more guidance from experienced people than I would have expected. The experience of making things with my hands has given me more insight in the design of a house in general and specifically in the design of an Earthship. The combination of practical building and studying the theory on the subject was very good. It helped me form a clear view on ‘housing in the future’. There was a slight misunderstanding about the books available in the library of SCI. I thought the library included books on several sustainable design methods. The books available were all about Earthships. So the literature research I planned to do has resulted in a thorough study of the concept and workings of Earthships. Paula and I agreed on a workweek existing of four days of practical buildingwork and one day of individual studying. It was nice to use my designpractice trying to find a solution to make pounding tyres easier and faster, inspired by being out of breath halfway through pounding a tyre. I focussed on finding a simple and cheap solution, which could be used and made by everyone building their own Earthship. It was too bad a little test showed that the best idea I came up with didn’t work. I must say I had some problems understanding the Scottish accent, but Geetam, also from Dutch roots, helped translate here and there. Alltogether it was a very nice learning experience, meeting lots of similar minded people, especially on the volunteerweekends. It was a wonderful place to be for six weeks, the lovely green environment close to the beach. For other Industrial Design Engineering students interested in an internship at SCI I would like to emphasise that the focus is entirely on Earthships. But if you are interested in the Earthship concept it is a very nice learning experience. The Earthship concept is very beautiful and unites all aspects that matter for sustainable housing. I am definitely building my own Earthship one day!

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