Highway 64 is a lonely, two-lane blacktop that runs east-west in northern New Mexico, spanning the Taos Plateau, part of the Rio Grande rift. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains rise in the east. The sky is vast. After the road crosses the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge heading west, the river, a slender green ribbon 650 feet below, bends north, and they come into view: curiosities half-hidden in hillsides, reminiscent of hobbit holes, Tatooine caves, or ancient cliff dwellings—earthships. These fanciful, rustic structures embody contradiction. They’re bona fide roadside attractions, cultural icons among the competitive real estate of Taos, a preeminent tourist town, yet they are also countercultural and highly individualistic, radical spaces that reimagine almost every part of contemporary life.
Earthships are self-contained and self-sufficient homes, bearing whimsical, curved adobe facades and tall, slanted windows. Straight lines and right angles are almost nonexistent because of the materials’ nonstandardized nature, and at the right time of day, passersby are dazzled by a chimera of reflecting glass. Though all earthships follow a basic formula, no two are exactly alike. They’re off-grid, proudly iconoclastic. Long before “sustainable design” was a buzz phrase, treading lightly was baked into earthship construction, from harvesting rainwater and snowmelt to processing blackwater and gray water to energy production via solar panels. Building and maintenance techniques are intentionally simple so that they can be taught and learned by laypeople. Recycled materials—trash—serve as building blocks. Dirt is sledge-hammered into old tires, which are stacked to form the outer, load-bearing structure; glass bottles, suspended in grout and concrete, become translucent, honeycombed walls. Dwellings are dug into the land for natural insulation. (Tubes run through a 30-foot earth
