Just outside Taos, an entire neighborhood runs on sunlight, rainwater, and recycled trash

It’s a real town, not a movie set

About 14 miles northwest of Taos, on a high desert mesa with views stretching to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, sits what might be the strangest neighborhood in the country.

Roughly 90 homes spread across 630 acres, and not one of them has a power bill, a furnace, or a connection to the water main. They’re built from old tires and glass bottles, and they grow bananas inside.

The closer you get, the less it looks like anything you’ve seen before.

You might drive right past it

Approaching from the north, the neighborhood almost disappears into the landscape. A small windmill pokes above the desert floor.

Maybe a turret. That’s about it.

Come from the south, though, and sunlight bounces off walls of glass, and strange, beautiful shapes start rising from the earth.

These are Earthships, homes built almost entirely from recycled and natural materials, and they have a way of hiding until suddenly they don’t.

One architect’s tire experiment in 1972

Michael Reynolds arrived in Taos in 1969, fresh out of the University of Cincinnati with an architecture degree and a head full of ideas.

News stories about growing landfills and a shortage of affordable housing got him thinking about the materials people threw away. In 1972, he built his first home from discarded steel and tin cans wired into bricks.

Over the following decades, he worked in automobile tires, glass bottles, and passive solar design. He called the whole approach Biotecture, a mix of biology, architecture, and physics.

Walls packed with 800 tires and a thousand cans

The bones of an Earthship are used automobile tires, each one packed tight with earth and stacked in staggered rows, the same way a mason lays brick. A typical home uses somewhere between 800 and 900 tires.

Interior walls go up differently, with aluminum cans or glass bottles set in cement mortar, then finished in adobe mud plaster. The result looks sculptural, smooth, and nothing like a house made from garbage.

Run your hand along the wall and you’d never guess what’s inside it.

No furnace, no AC, just the sun doing its job

Earthships hold a temperature near 70 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, and they do it without burning a drop of fuel. The thick tire walls soak up heat from the sun during the day and release it slowly after dark.

Large south-facing windows pull sunlight deep into the interior, warming the floors and walls directly.

When warmer months arrive, underground cooling tubes pull fresh air in from outside, and operable skylights push the heat out. The system works because of physics, not machinery.

Rain falls once, gets used four times

Every Earthship collects all of its water from rain and snow that lands on the roof. That water runs through a filter system before it reaches the tap, making it safe for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

Once it goes down the drain, the journey isn’t over.

Gray water from sinks and showers moves to indoor planting beds, where it feeds fruits and vegetables.

From there, it’s collected again to flush toilets, and toilet water flows to a septic system that drains into an outdoor planting bed. Four uses from a single raindrop.

Plants growing inside a New Mexico winter

One entire side of most Earthships is a greenhouse corridor, and it runs the full length of the south-facing wall. Plants grow there year-round, fed by that recycled gray water.

The Phoenix Earthship and the Visitor Center both showcase what’s possible: banana trees, grape vines, herbs, peppers, and tomatoes, all thriving while the desert outside sits cold and dry.

The greenhouse also traps warmth between two layers of glass, helping the whole home stay comfortable. It’s part garden, part heating system.

Solar on the roof, no power line in sight

Rooftop solar panels generate all the electricity an Earthship needs, with small wind turbines as a backup. A system called the Power Organizing Module stores and distributes that energy for daily use.

Residents run washing machines, computers, refrigerators, and kitchen appliances without a second thought.

Because no electricity goes toward heating or cooling, the overall power demand stays well below what a conventional home needs.

There are no utility poles running to these homes, and no monthly electric bill waiting in the mailbox.

Walk through a working Earthship for $9

The Earthship Biotecture Visitor Center is itself a fully functioning Earthship, which means your tour is also a live demonstration. Self-guided tours run seven days a week and cost $9 per adult, no reservation needed.

You’ll walk through the greenhouse, watch videos and exhibits explaining how everything works, and follow outdoor pathways where construction details are on full display. Give yourself 30 minutes to an hour to take it all in.

If you’re visiting with a group, guided tours are available and can be booked through the official website in advance.

Live off the grid in an ecofriendly home

Several Earthships in the community rent by the night, with a two-night minimum. All of them come with full kitchens, Wi-Fi, and streaming.

The Phoenix Earthship is the one people talk about most: 5,300 square feet, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an indoor jungle greenhouse with banana trees, a fish pond, and birds.

Smaller options exist, from studio units to two-bedroom homes.

One thing all of them share is that they book up months ahead, so don’t wait until the week before to look.

Earn a master’s degree working with junk

The Earthship Biotecture Academy teaches hands-on design and construction right here at the Taos community.

Students come from every background, including architects, teachers, contractors, and people who have never swung a hammer on a job site.

The Academy partners with Western Colorado University, so the work you do here can count toward a Master in Environmental Management degree.

If you can’t make the trip to New Mexico, an online version of the program is available. Reynolds started this with one building in 1972.

The Academy is how it keeps growing.

Step inside and the quiet is the first thing you notice

There’s no hum from an HVAC system, no buzz from a refrigerator straining against the heat. Walk in and what hits you first is warmth and green.

Curved adobe walls glow in soft earth tones. Glass bottles embedded in the walls throw small spots of color across the floor when the light is right.

The greenhouse corridor feels tropical even when the desert outside is cold and dry. The kitchens are modern, the bedrooms are comfortable, and the whole place runs on sunlight, rain, and recycled trash.

It feels nothing like roughing it.

Visit the Greater World Earthship Community in New Mexico

To get there, take Highway 64 West out of Taos and look for the turn about 1.5 miles past the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. The address is 2 Earthship Way.

The Visitor Center is open daily, but hours shift by season, so check the official Earthship Biotecture website before you head out.

While you’re in the area, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is worth a stop, and Taos Pueblo sits about 20 minutes back toward town. Admission to the self-guided tour is $9 per adult.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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