Ronemtz - Earthship Project: 4. Inside views

Pansa Llena, Corazon Contento

In the far background, of the image below, you see the vision of the promised land. Somewhere in the near foreground is a stick, or maybe a board. You (and many others) can't see that this is the Japanese garden dedicated to Flora. At 92, she no longer walks on water because of old age. Instead she wills the water to be, just be. I'll digress for a moment. One day I walked in and she says to me. "Eee Ronnie, llegates nomas en tiempo. Ahora me trage' un doily." She must have been 88 or 89-years old then. What she meant, really, was that she - a very short woman in old age - was on the ladder,, in the kitchen, the vacuum was on the floor, and while she was vacuuming the 'telaranias' from above the hutch the aspirator swallowed the ornamental mantelito up there. Now that I had arrived, it would be easier for me to turn off the vacuum, retrieve the doily, and let her get on with her business without her having to climb off the ladder.

Okay, now back to the stick and the Japanese Garden. Eventually the Japanese Garden will be there, yes, it will just be... It will be green because she wills it but it will also be green because of use of grey water, roof runoff water, and because in a wet year we get a whopping 10-12" of moisture. Already we are preparing transplants imported from Siberia to live, survive, and thrive in this harsh climate of 90-frost free days. Other plants like Malus antonovka rootstock are being tested to see if they can stand the -30*F temperatures of winter. The list is long but the list is private.

In the middle ground is a mountain range where grampa chased sheep as a kid. Of more recent vintage is the lake. And, the focal point in this image is the basic frame or really the armature of what is becoming 'El Pesebre'.

In the images below you'll see what might be referred to as Phase II. Sticks, Blocks, dirt, backfill, our research staff, supervisors, and the benefactor's trustees of this Multi-Million-Mile project.

On the cloudiest day of summer we started positioning the vigas. Still at this point and for years into the future, observers, critics, cynics, and apostles alike mumble - pues que vera' ese simplon del Ronnie en esas llantas pudridas? Alah maquina, en de que llego de la guerra a sido muy cambiado, pobresito, no?

It next became...

Here a ridge beam to define the roof. WHAT? A pitched roof on an earthship.

You can also see that the tires are getting buried with soil being excavated from the Japanese Garden. On the mountain you can see a shadow covering the spine of the dinosaur laying on the shore of the ancient limestone bed lake shore. Some days, when the wind is just right you can see the fur move along its spine.
(This particular species were not scaled specimens. They had evolved much earlier to address the Darwinian postulate of necessity being the mother of invention, and in this case adapting genotypically to the thermal requirements prescribed by the elevation and latitude of this clime -- clearly a few millenia prior to the antediluvian milestone in some people's mind and before the mink stole, I think.)

We start our engineering students at a very young age. They arrive with lots of spirit, energy, and enthusiasm and our more experienced journeymen are already at an age of contemplative meditation by the age of 10. The cycle of life, maturation, wisdom, free thinking, doing... Pero con ganas, muchachos.

We can live the path provided or we can create our own destiny. The philosophy of La Escula de mi Tierra Contenta is of the latter. Where some of the more expensive universities apply the principle of 9-5. We offer a more active curriculum that is based on the 5-9 principle of Life is Short, Rock n Roll pal.

Se puede? O, no se puede? "Como que no!... aqui todo se puede".

And yet, not everyone agrees in the whole non-conventional way of life. One of our professors has lived a life that has made him pull his hair out. As the tenured philosophy professor, he has become enamored with the concept of "Ya Merito" in concept but is a dyed in the wool 'dicho y hecho' paternal figure (of sorts). Here he is simply Pater Nuestro Sentado acerca de la mesa...

In a blending of Contemporary and Green and Geometric and Poetic and Artistic, we can now begin to see a damned frame house.

And more framing...

And more...

In the end, you will realize that this skeleton is not framing, it is an armature around which the very essence of life takes shape.

While you'd think this engineering student was a 12-foot giant, at just less then 9-feet, his task isn't learning to fold a tape measure. Instead he is estimating the hypotenuse of the triangle to derive the rise/run ratio of our 'techo'.

At this point of construction you begin to wonder, ah ha!, we can now see more. But, as most, you are at the point in which you see less, and less, and less. Your mind's eye does imagine more but it is a figment of your imagination.

Back on the point of Solar Gain, you are looking at the South-facing wall. By the shadows of summer, you can see that it is about 4:45 - 5:15 pm in the afternoon, MST. The angle of the sun is in the illumination phase but not in the heating phase. Even without the roof overhang in place you can begin to focus on the concept of the impact of declination across seasons relative to the rotation of the 3rd rock from the sun. You can see that, can't you?

A view from the inside looking out. More of that armature.

Las Costillas - a view from the inside out.

Would you believe, the door at which you arrive after climbing the stairway to heaven? The view is phenomenal. But as in life, you can't just read about it, you have to live it.

Thick as fleas. And who would have thought that minutes before he had tried to emulate Flora walking on water and tried walking on air 9.5-feet above the ground. No se le hiso nada. But the concept of gravity wasn't lost on the apple falling on his head while his ass was sitting in the shade. He was living life. It isn't all fun and games. Si no miras la pala y el cabador alla atras. Sudamos como perros, con la lengua de afuera y colgando.

Inside the building - Temporary ramp to the Loft

This is the beginning of Phase III. You have just walked in the front door, and to your left is the downstairs suite. Ahead and below is the plaster wall that holds soil that serves as an expansion/contraction buffer and the gas barrier in case there is any residual release. ' Se me hace que no, ya estas llantas echaron su ultimo pedo'. In the end, it, (gas, heat, odor), gets vented through the convective air flow modulator designed here at Tierra Contenta University. Here the modulator is often referred to as "la otra comosellama". The view up, out of your line of sight in this image, is the loft. Eventually, it will include a cantilevered lounge for singing opera or for peaceful meditation. A virtual performance stage for the so inclined.

The stacked boards in the middle of the image are where the Stairway to Heaven has been molded into the ramped entrance to Heaven. You can see them, can't you?

The tires are all wrapped in cement, soil, blocks, and galvanized wire retainers. In the end, a very secure thermal battery with lots of miles to go. No balancing or alignment required.

The steps being born along the inside walls of the thermal battery. To some... chaos, to others - organized chaos. And yet to some "mira que suave" y "bien pensado". Perspective and perception is key to understanding, que no? Mental visual imagery. Who needs a pencil when you have imagination?

Each stair is molded to a contemplative contour to provide the Japanese Design aesthetic of a focal point at each step. It becomes an act of peaceful meditation for any diurnal ambulatory. Pero, prendete bien o te das un ranaso.

Back filling the Block/Tire Bale interface. Separation of the thermal battery and the biosphere, or is that a troposphere? This image required students to perform parasympathetic levitation to successfully gain this perspective in actual implementation of the design.

The next level of block, dry stacked, cement filled and tied with rebar

Where we would have preferred a flying buttress, we ended up with the less sophisticated Roman Arch key. From the outside, an Arabic Arch would have been much more visually stimulating and offered a better stained glass mounting point. However, the inside still needed infrastructure support for the remaining vigas that make make possible the path to the view of El Cerro de Las Moras por las vigas voladizadas and the memories... Te acuerdas de una ves que fuimos a juntar moras... One of my mom's stories.

The view of growth from an explorer's spirit. Looking at life through the morning sunshine. Probably 9:30 AM. This youth is still a few weeks away from being admitted to the University but has expressed the capacity to explore.