Trashy homes

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Jahanshah Javid
by Jahanshah Javid
03-Apr-2008
 

I hadn't watched a movie at home for the longest time. I have Comcast cable which has a service called On Demand, with hundreds of films and other programs you can watch at any time. I looked at the menu of free movies. Not very appetizing, really.

I chose a film called "Guinevere", about a young woman who decides to skip going to Harvard and instead runs off with a photographer. Hmm... there's potential here, I thought (AND it's rated R). As soon as the girl and photographer met, I thought holy crap... this is way too cheesy.

I went back to the main menu and looked at films offered by the Sundance Channel. "Garbage Warrior" caught my eye. According to the summary, it was about an architect named Michael Reynolds who builds self-sustaining homes out of... garbage. Well, not exactly. But a lot of the material is garbage, such as used tyres, plastic and glass bottles, as well as aluminum cans.

I loved it. This is a guy who's determined to do things his own way; to build homes cheaply with available materials (natural or artificial), without any need to be hooked up to the power grid or the sewer and water networks. Complete independence. If you have Comcast On Demand, I highly recommend you watch it.

Funny enough, I think I have actually been inside one of Reynolds' creations. Around 1992, when I was a student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, I visited a dairy ranch a couple of hours outside the city. It belonged to an Iranian family friend. The home on the ranch was very similar to those built by Reynolds. See
www.garbagewarrior.com

Here's a trailer:

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Curious Joe

Watch out. This life style is not for soosools

by Curious Joe on Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:10 PM PDT

Remember the old TV sitcom "Green Acres" staring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor?

Sure, if you have been a "Do it Yourself" handyman, with talent in creating and maintaining your own sewer and water supply, plumbing, heating, air-conditioning, and using a Honda generator for electricity, and having the truck to haul the fuel needed for the generator, a cell phone node coverage for service in the boondocks, and the ability to grow your own food (and a gun to keep away the foxes and wolves going after your crops and chickens), then life can be dandy, if not a bit tiring.For most soosools behind the Internet in this forum, however, it is OK to spend a couple of hours watching the movie "Garbage Worriers".  But going beyond those 2 hours into romanticizing / hallucination of building and maintaining a home from tires and beer cans at the middle of "all that land" -- that is simply losing touch with reality.

Hey, where is the nearest hospital or a dentist in an emergency?!  Better have enough money/insurance for a helicopter ambulance.


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Nazy Kaviani

Green Design

by Nazy Kaviani on Fri Apr 04, 2008 07:58 AM PDT

That’s really interesting Jahanshah. I have read about Mike Reynolds in Taos , New Mexico , and the awesome houses he builds out of old tires. Two architects who worked with him in Taos now own a lighting fixtures company, Metro Lighting & Crafts in Berkeley , using “green” concepts to create lighting fixtures. Check them out.


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Jahanshah Javid

Illegal innovation

by Jahanshah Javid on Fri Apr 04, 2008 05:34 AM PDT

Kamngir, that's the same question Reynolds has asked for most of his career: Why not try new ideas? Car companies test new cars. Food companies test new recipes. So why shouldn't architects test new ways in home construction, especially when the world is facing a crisis in over consumption of electricity, water shortage and pollution caused by raw sewage? The amount of regulation in the construction sector stifles innovation. Of course, Reynolds recently did win a long legal battle just to get permission to build test homes (outside the rigid regulatory framework) in New Mexico, but one wonders why it's so insanely difficult to bring about real change for humanity's own good.


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default

Why illegal?

by Kamangir on Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:15 AM PDT

The only question that keeps repating itself in my mind is: Why is there a 'law' that stops these folks from building harmless and sustainable and enviroment friendly houses?

Is such law one of many other laws created to make humans abide by rules that the so called democracy imposes on us?

There's a plenty of land on this planet so nobody is homeless but yet there's a law that stops you from building a 'shack' or little shelter out there, far away from everyone, but yet that is 'illegal' why? Every single inch of land is 'private property' that you need to purchase!!???

Who owns the land? The state? The planet offers everything we need so there's no homelessness, no wars but yet this 'system' acts like a big prison with laws we better respect.


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