The basic building block of the earthship walls are used car tyres. The UK throws away over 48 million of these annually and they are now banned from landfill. The technique is simple. Roll the tyre upto the site, line it with cardboard and fill it will earth and ‘ram' the earth down with a sledge hammer until the tyre is fully inflated. All tyres are worked on in situation and ‘pounded' a course at a time and together with a 1m of rammed earth behind them they create thick walls of thermal mass. Finally the tyres are rendered over with mud, adobe or cement.

Another waste material used in the earthship are glass bottles, which are cut up and taped together to form glass bricks. The glass bricks are then laid in courses in cement to form a wall, which are finally rendered over and look like stained glass. The floor in the picture opposite is made from reclaimed granite and marble off-cuts from a local monumental mason in Brighton.

To continue the online tour click here.