Abstract

Earthships are buildings which are constructed almost entirely of recycled materials and are built to be almost totally self sufficient through the recycling of rain water, the recycling of solar energy into electrical energy, passive solar techniques and sometimes the recycling of wind through turbines, also into electrical energy. This thesis draws out and demonstrates the logic that Earthship architecture emerges from and generates amongst its inhabitants. This logic, it is argued, can be characterized as containing elements of the baroque and Neo-baroque. It is a logic of following and interfacing the elements that folds them into itself. In such a space it is impossible to delineate any strict division between the inside and outside of a house. The inside becomes a node, interval, or point of passage of the outside and domestic life emerges from a complex and dynamic rhythmic arrangement with the outside. Such a space emerges from and generates a new sense of nature as cycles, flows, and interconnections which are fundamentally inseparable from architecture, technology or domestic life. This thesis also argues that to properly understand Earthships it is necessary to draw out the sense of historical and natural catastrophe that has impacted their origin and present incarnations.