Eighteen years ago, Kirsten Jacobsen moved to Taos to build Earthships - sustainable buildings made with recycled materials such as earth-filled automobile tires, aluminum cans, and glass bottles. The brainchild of architect Michael Reynolds, the Earthship exceeds LEED standards and building codes while integrating its own power, water, sewage treatment, and food systems.
Jacobsen - now Education Director for Earthship Biotecture - finished her own New Mexico home in 2006. It heats and cools itself with no utility bills in a climate that reaches 100 degrees in the summer and minus 30 in the winter. She customized the functional design with “more modern-looking finishes and other things like stainless steel, a clear glass bottle-brick wall and bamboo floors in the bedroom.”