The Power of Garbage

"There's nothing coming into this house, no power lines, no gas lines. No sewage lines coming out, no water lines coming in, no energy being used ... We're sitting on 6,000 gallons of water, growing food, sewage internalized, 70 degrees year-round ... What these kind of houses are doing is taking every aspect of your life and putting it into your own hands..." -Michael Reynolds


You've never heard of architect Michael Reynolds. I'd never heard of him until SilverDocs a few years ago when I decided to take a chance on a documentary titled "The Garbage Warrior." Wow. Visionary? Courageous? Slightly kooky? All of the above.


Reynolds was kicked out of AIA for his experimental work which stood in defiance of building codes and zoning laws in New Mexico. (He was later re-instated). Reynolds insisted that homes should be built without infrastructure. That is, no water, sewer, electrical or gas lines. The homes would collect their own water from rain and snow, grow much of their own food, treat their own waste--they would function as closed life cycle systems in tune with their surroundings. And. They would be built mostly of trash--principally tires, glass, plastic bottles, beer cans. He called his approach "earthship biotecture". The original dwellings look..... odd. And yet, they are quite fitting for the landscape into which they are integrated.


What the film does best is to document an act of creative thinking. In this particular case, Reynolds saw abundance and grace where others saw nothing. And he went to work.


It may be that Reynolds' aggressively brilliant methods won't gain broad acceptance. But his biotecture vision, as it influences others, is likely to emerge in forms that are accessible.


Take the Enviro Center in Jessup, Maryland. This commercial office building and educational center was designed and built with sustainability as its defining purpose. Now a much more ambitious Phase II is poised to break ground. Architect Stan Sersen, the leader of this project, says the building will not merely conserve energy it will regenerate and give back. The building is designed to clean its own waste water and grow much of its own food for the occupants.