The Karuna Earthship is a 35 foot round house that will be totally self sufficient. It will harvest water from the rain, power from the sun, and thermal capacity from the sun and stored in the heavy tyre rammed walls. Waste water from the kitchen sink will feed planters inside the house that will filter and clean it and allow for reuse for things like toilet flushing. Also there will be a black water system to treat all the sewage from the toilet in a natural and simple way.
There are training places and also the project is looking for volunteers in exchange for the basics like cooking. The type of training will depend on what part of the build you join the project. Everything before March 2009 will be tyre ramming and plastering the walls. After July 2009 the focus will be on interior finishing. Building of planters, plastering of walls, and then the creative work of making the space and furniture and some interior walls. These will be made with cans and mud plaster.
In general work includes finishing off the tyre ramming and working on plastering with mud, roof work with timber, and building internal walls and water planters for use with rain water harvesting system.