Has anyone else seen this? Pretty interesting, and apparently going on now.

http://www.earthship.net/

I have no idea where on the island they are, but presume it's up north (on page 26 of the pics you can see a view from the building site which has old walls).

Jake

We read that story in The Bonaire Reporter too...interesting. Let us know if you find out where it is.

This is very cool!

This is the way to go.

This is so cool, I rec'd some info about the one in Taos but didn't know they were building on Bonaire!

I couldn't find it. The one picture I saw from their website looked like it was by Goto Meer. We have been talking about staying at the ones in Taos. I would love to hear feedback from anyone who has stayed in any of their locations. Travel Channel carries an episode on the earth ships every once in a while.

When I replaced my tires, I asked what would happen to the old ones. I was told me that all the old tires on the island were being bought by a guy that was building houses out of them.

Hi everyone
I,ve been there this afternoon and it looks so exciting what they are doing. To get there: When you are on kaya korona, take a right into kaya esther and then follow the blue painted rocks with a yellow sun on it. That will direct you to a site across from seru grandi. Take a look, it,s fantastic what they are doing!

Very cool! Definitely on my "to do" list for our next trip.

EXCELLENT - this is so exciting!

Hi, I am a partner (read: wife, and currently non-builder, child wrangler) to one of the people here to build the earthship happening on Bonaire. We are all here from Taos, New Mexico, where nearly all of us live in a community of nearly 60 of these solar-powered off-the-grid homes built largely out of garbage.

Have any of you seen the movie "Garbage Warrior"? It's a look at the obstacles that architect (inventer/construction artist) Michael Reynolds had to overcome in his development of this type of housing over more than three decades and his struggles to empower people to build their own, seen through the eyes of a British filmaker Oliver Hodge. Very funny.

I am falling in love with your bonairetalk forum after a busy day driving you all wild with fear about my daughter's foot. If you have any questions about earthships or Taos, I would be willing to try and answer them. Just ask
Sara
mother of "the foot"

Are any being built that are affordable for local people?

Sara you do know how to get to us, LOL. Mother of the foot should be your screen name.

Anyway back on subject, this does seem like a great idea and I wish you nothing but success. Now I have to put my engineer hat on and point out that a typical american household generates several houses worth of material every year (by volume). In other words we generate way more garbage than could ever be required to build new houses.

This is not true for tires there we generate fewer and more could be used for construction which seems to be one of your main materials. Anything to reuse old tires is a great thing.

Mostly it's about building them for yourself. The ones being built now are for a business, bring in eco-tourists. But, since many of the materials are cheap (cans, bottles, tires, dirt) the way to make it truly affordable is by doing the work yourself. Start small and add on. The books available on their site details house plans and how tos, with later books updating methods and successful techniques as experiments were tried over the years.