BRE EP102 PDF

INTRODUCTION

Background

The first edition of this book was written when the construction industry and legislators in the UK were, for the first time, having to engage seriously with sustainable building and the challenges of a low-carbon economy. The 2006 UK governmentcommissioned Stern Review, The Economics of Climate Change, was one of the main catalysts for this engagement. It recommended that early action to try to both minimise and mitigate the damaging impacts of climate change was economically far preferable to inaction. In terms of housing, the report stated that ‘It is vital that homes and other buildings are as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible. Further tough action is still needed to deliver significant energy use reductions in existing homes, but within a decade [we] want every new home to be zero carbon'. Policy initiatives such as the Code for Sustainable Homes[1] and the Climate Change Act[2] soon followed. The first edition of this book published in 2007 argued that there were difficulties in using earthships as the prototype for the required new wave of zero-carbon, sustainable mass housing in the UK. But, nonetheless, we suggested that many aspects of earthship design could inform architects, legislators, housebuilders and others on the road to achieving this goal.

The prophecy that earthships would not become an integral part of plans for sustainable housing has so far been fulfilled. A small number of earthships, though, have been successfully completed across Europe. And it is these European builds that form the focus of this book – they essentially remain prototypes of a building approach that was first developed in the arid, high-altitude desert of New Mexico, and has now been translated to a variety of European climates. The key question is whether or not this transition has been successful, and if the future of earthships in Europe can now extend beyond a few high-profile projects.