In the 1970s, a New Mexico architect built Earthships from tyres and cans for extreme weather

In the New Mexico desert, discarded car tyres, beer cans and bottles became the unlikely foundations of a different kind of home. Architect Michael Reynolds began developing his Earthship idea in the early 1970s, turning waste materials into thick walls designed to hold heat and houses built to produce and manage many of their own basic needs. For decades, the strange-looking buildings remained a niche experiment, often running into planning rules and scepticism. Now the idea is being viewed through a different lens. As hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and power failures leave conventional homes cut off from essential services, Earthships are attracting renewed attention for their ability to operate independently of the grid. What began as an experiment in using rubbish has gradually become a model for thinking about how homes might cope when the infrastructure around them stops working.How Michael Reynolds turned discarded tyres, cans and bottles into Earthship homesReynolds began developing the idea in the early 1970s in New Mexico, after becoming dissatisfied with the limits of conventional architectural practice. His early experiments involved materials that had little obvious pla...