PRESENTS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
A DOCUMENTARY DECLARED TO BE OF MUNICIPAL INTEREST
BY THE CITY OF USHUAIA
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
On the coast of the Beagle Channel,
before the forest
and the mountains,
and with the foxes,
buff-necked ibises,
sea lions
and seagulls as our friends,
with open minds and open hearts,
do you promise to get to know, respect
and make sustainable use of all those resources around us,
acknowledging how important looking after the environment is
for the quality of life of mankind?
Do you promise to protect the ecosystems
and life,
regardless of country-imposed borders, that nature supersedes?
From East
to West
from North to South?
Do you promise to love and respect
every last corner of this land that gives us shelter?
Do you promise?
Yes, we do!
This commitment has just been made, for it to travel back to the origins,
multiply and be renewed by generations to come.
Thank you, Ushuaia.
EARTHSHIP SUSTAINABILITY PRINCIPLES
CARING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT IS ALSO CARING FOR YOUR FUTURE
A year after being built,
the Earthship became the meeting point
for new generations to express their commitment to the planet.
A YEAR BEFORE
This story begins with an idea:
building our own house.
Out of the blue, someone would give us,
without even knowing,
a wonderful gift, a magic word:
Earthship.
We contacted its creator immediately.
We sent him an email with the phrase:
“Ushuaia, the End of the World”.
What would come out of it, we could not have imagined.
But it would change us completely.
Ushuaia,
the southernmost city in the world,
rich in mountains, lakes and clean air.
This mythical land, already tainted with pollution,
could spearhead a possible solution
to a worldwide problem.
We worked on this idea for three years.
Today that dream comes true.
This is how this trip begins,
towards “a new world at the end of the world".
EARTHSHIP A NEW WORLD AT THE END OF THE WORLD
January 4th, 2014.
The island is about to receive almost 100 people from all over the world.
They are coming to take part in the first Earthship building experience
in South America.
They will learn the concepts behind Earthships
and the building principles developed by its creator:
Michael Reynolds.
He is an American architect
and pioneer in building with urban waste,
internationally renowned for his activism in the search of sustainability
and humanitarian action in places struck by natural disasters.
The fact that Ushuaia is the southernmost island in the world
drove him to answer our email.
This made of Ushuaia
the ideal place to leave a mark on and from where to send out a message.
It´s water.
People everywhere on the world need water.
It´s treatment of sewage.
People everywhere need that.
It´s keeping people comfortable
with minimal or no energy from fossil fuels.
And it´s food and it is garbage.
What we know how to do
can vastly improve
the quality of life for people
and...
I don´t see how anybody on this planet can be
really comfortable and really happy
unless all the people on the planet are really comfortable and really happy.
In under two weeks,
all vacancies for the academy were taken
from Turkey to Easter Island,
from Alaska to Argentina.
They all decided to come to the end of the world
to learn and teach
a more harmonious and efficient way to build and live together.
I am Ariel Darre, from Paraguay.
Well, my name is Agatha, from France.
I am Brazilian and an architect.
My name is Sam Dineiras, I am Argentinian.
My name is Julián. I´m 30 years old
And she is Virginia,
-my girlfriend. -Hello, my name is Andrés
and I am from Chile.
I graduated as an industrial designer
at the University of Florence, in Italy.
Hi, my name is Dakshina.
I'm originally from France. I'm half American and half French,
and I have been living in Alaska for the last five years.
My name is Parker.
My residence is in a town called Wasilla, Alaska,
but when I'm in Alaska I'm travelling all over the place.
I came down here
because I would like to build an Earthship.
I´ve been interested in sustainable building for quite a while
and I came here to learn about building Earthships
because I´d like to build, hopefully, lots of them.
My name is Daniel Cabrera,
from the community Qom Potae Napocna Navogoh in Formosa.
January 6th.
The countdown begins.
From this moment onwards, we have only 26 days to build,
together with the municipality of Ushuaia and Earthship Biotecture,
the first Argentinian Earthship.
The Earthship is a self-sustainable construction
It is based on six concepts:
building with natural and recycled materials,
collection, use and reuse of rainwater,
food production,
power generation,
treatment of gray and black waters,
heating and cooling through the concept of thermal mass.
We understand sustainability
as a process in which we try to find a balance
between the development of man and the environment,
taking into account the economic, social and environmental aspects.
We have less than a month
to make 70 people from all over the world,
with different lives and realities
and varied occupations and ages,
reach the goal that brought them here.
The Academy is a one-month session with both classroom and hands-on time
going from one to the other throughout the duration of the course.
Michael Reynolds's team is completed
with six American and three Argentinean instructors.
So, since there´s so many of you and we all have a different background
and we have different capabilities,
the biggest thing for me is respecting each other.
I just want to show you
the look of these buildings can take on many, many shapes,
many, many different configurations.
The crew has all brought quite a few of their...
of their personal tools.
[in Spanish] The crew has all brought quite a few of their personal tools.
So it's...
And most of them I think are labelled with our names.
[in Spanish] And most of them are labelled with their names.
it is nice to try to...
give them back to the owner at the end of the day.
[in Spanish] Please return them at the end of the day.
And then there are a lot of job site tools...
[in Spanish] There are a lot of job site tools...
And at the end of the day
all tools will go into this container.
I think I understood. I´ll ask him again, just in case.
-Tarek, how are you doing? -I'm good, man. How are you?
The Earthship project is very important for our city
because, in a way, it makes us think
of paradigms that may create a better world,
that may lead to a better planet.
LANDS HANDED OVER FOR CONSTRUCTION
It is located in the center of the city and it's a very well-known place.
Tourists can visit because it's in the center of the city.
Children and adults can go.
There will be guided tours.
It has to do with protecting the environment,
with going back to how the original communities,
in their time, lived in harmony
-with the environment... -With nature.
...and didn't harm it, didn't damage it.
We got to know this project through a person
who is really loved by the city.
He is a son of this land. He is Mariano Torre,
now an important figure in Argentina due to his work as an actor.
He and his wife, Elena Roger,
introduced Michael Reynolds to us some years ago.
With that introduction,
we had the chance to look into the project
and see the message they were giving the world.
That's when we knew the city needed to take a more active attitude
and engage with them in... well...
what we are, fortunately, about to see come true.
Because everyday somebody else is going to set this up
and the elevations will be slightly different.
Make sure it's not doing this.
Make sure my hand is not here.
Interview Roan.
Hi, my name is Alina.
I´m from Russia, Israel, the States.
My name is Roan.
Hi, my name is Sally.
I’m from Canada.
I have three nationalities.
I was born in the United States,
I'm half British and half French.
And I´m here in Ushuaia building an Earthship.
600 CARDBOARD BOXES WERE REUSED
MUNICIPAITY OF USHUAIA
A few years ago,
five years ago, actually, a report from Patagonia Natural Foundation stated
that Argentina´s Atlantic coast
had a main source of garbage pollution and it was, precisely, Ushuaia.
Ushuaia has two or three specific issues.
First, we’re in an island.
This means space is very limited.
So when it comes to landfill,
that is how this city handles waste treatment,
we need to be careful, because it's a small area
and, as time goes by, it fills up.
'Ushuaia Recycles' removes waste that doesn't belong in the landfill
and it processes it.
USHUAIA RECYCLES
Less than a year ago, I wanna say last February,
we wanted to do a recon mission in South America.
So one day, as I'm walking around,
I'm standing on the corner and there's this mountain of garbage
and I'm looking at it, going...
There's buckets.
There's insulation.
There's cans, there's bottles, there's cardboard.
All... I wanted to...
I tried to put it in my pockets!
I was like... You know... Let me have all this!
This is... This is wealth.
Yes! This is free building material
to not only clean up the environment
but to lower the cost of construction,
and lower the demand on resources
that are being extracted from the earth itself.
So, instead of it being a problem,
we have solutions for what is viewed as garbage.
The landfill, planned to last 20 years, collapsed in eight.
If we all don’t do something about it,
I doubt anyone will come
and suddenly solve this problem for us.
We either progressively do something
or other things will progressively affect us.
-Good Spanish. -She's Brazilian!
There´s so many things that we can apply
from the Earthship concept to all the buildings here.
Retrofit is a huge thing to adapt a house,
to not dump sewage into the bay or whatever,
to not use as much natural gas...
or electricity.
Hey, look, don't be so quick...
To get rid of something. Don't throw that away,
that´s building material.
350 TIRES WERE REUSED
-Ready? -Okay.
Nelly, interview.
My name is Noman Nasoru.
-People call me Nono. -Yeah, go?
Hello, my name is Beth and I'm from the U.S.
Okay, then.
My name is Nelly and I'm from France.
And, so, I´m here
because I wanted to learn about sustainable houses.
...to continue learning and spreading the knowledge
and, hopefully, some day, make my own house or community.
I'm sure that...
Well, just like many people here,
I think I'll eventually build one for me.
5,000 GLASS BOTTLES WERE REUSED
Language, nationality, color, none of that matters.
We are all one
and we need the planet to keep on evolving.
-How many are working in the team? -Seventy.
Because this is an Academy.
35 students need translation into Spanish for the lessons
and 35 take lessons just in English.
So one day the Spanish group builds,
while the other 35 people have theory lessons
about all the concepts at Casa de la Cultura.
The next day they change roles, so this never stops.
And when back up is needed, the two groups come
and you have 70 people.
Four or five are architects from here.
We also have a local construction Manager.
The idea is that they can afterwards start...
-The seed is planted to continue... -Exactly.
That's great.
Hi.
I'm Tarek, coming from Turkey.
Interview with Pedro. Take one.
It’s literally almost like the end of the world for me
because I’m coming from a long way.
My name is Pedro. I’m from Brazil.
Pedro Rutwalski. And I’m a chef.
My name is Valeria Trotelli.
I’m an architect from the University of Buenos Aires.
I moved to Ushuaia three years ago.
I think it’s amazing how they manage to organize 70 people
to work on a construction site,
people who haven’t worked in construction before.
Kirsten came to me one day and said, ‘We need some help,
we need a carpenter down in Ushuaia.’
And I said ‘Sure! Why not?'
Of course I want to come here,
it’s a beautiful place.’
January 9th.
We have been working for less than a week,
but it feels like we have been in the Academy for a month.
New faces, unexpected bonds
and reflections that each of us will share with our people...
...when we return home.
The team is pleased with the progress so far...
...and the logistics for something...
...that turned out to be an epic moment is in the works.
The day has come. It’s early.
It’s windy, rainy and very cold outside.
Both anxiety and enthusiasm can be felt in the hostel.
There will be no theory lessons today.
Both groups are going to work side by side in the construction site
putting the roof structure in place.
We will need everybody’s hands on it.
Not even the wind wanted to miss out.
Just four days ago we were complete strangers.
Today, we are embodying team work
and living a moment that will forever remain with us.
The wind will whisper to the world
what human beings are capable of
when we work towards the same goal.
In front of the line... Shift it.
We have an option and it’s to grab this...
...and move it some inches this way.
And I think we should.
-Which? -This one.
From now on and for the rest of our days,
we are part of the Earthship at the End of The World.
I want to know how was the beginning of all this,
when everybody was buying and throwing away, buying and throwing away.
It was the big moment of that
and everybody was happy to be able to buy a lot of things
and throw them away without knowing
or without being aware of how much rubbish we were doing.
And you were doing the opposite.
And so you were the mad guy, the crazy guy.
How was that?
The truth is I didn’t know what I was doing.
I just saw good things being thrown away
and I thought we could use them.
I thought I could use them.
Pretty much everything started with what I thought would be okay for me.
I never thought of everybody else, I just thought of me.
These people are throwing this away, I can use it.
And then when I started using it,
I started seeing that, what you are saying,
that people are throwing everything away.
So it started as something for me, finding things and using them,
and it grew into this. I did not invent all of this.
This... this grew from little things.
And then you got these lands in Taos? Is it right?
When?
Before starting picking up all this stuff or after?
After.
Well, as soon as I got to Taos.
That’s when I first saw
that beer cans were being thrown away,
and soda cans.
And as soon as I got to Taos I started doing this.
But, again, I was doing it in a very small way;
I wasn’t making plans for the world.
I was just... looking at the world and how to relate to it for me.
And I think that’s how everything started.
I looked at it sincerely how to make it work for me,
and that could even be selfish but...
When I saw that it worked for me,
then I told my friends and it worked for my friends.
And then my friends told their friends...
and we have something now that is out of control.
And you said: I’m going to take these tires and will see what happens?
Or you study a little bit more before doing it, how it could work?
I studied a little bit, but...
The study is really... I built...
The first thing I made of tires fell down.
Oh! Okay.
So I thought ‘that’s not going to work’,
but I did think that it could work.
So when it’s a new thing, study does some good,
but you can learn the most...
from just doing something and having it fall down,
and doing a way of living and having it not work.
You know, I really think that we, as people,
learn more from failure than we do from success.
And so that’s how I justify my many failures.
I’m really excited about the city supporting the project,
beyond what I even expected.
At first, I thought ‘Wow! This is amazing.’
The red tapes have been cut, the mayor is supporting the project,
he shows up every day, he is excited about it,
he shows his support in many ways.
And that’s coming from a whole different perspective for us.
Typically we are like, you know,
like hiding out and we’re thinking
‘Men, let’s try to put something together here.’
And then the philosophy is asking for forgiveness versus permission.
So if you are going to ask for permission,
most cities are like NO!
I think it’s a big project,
the support of the municipality is important for the project...
and important for future projects to see that municipality
can partially fund and back something like this...
and say something that they believe in and support.
That’s really new and important.
And so I like to see the Academy do those types of projects.
So to have a project supported by the city
with the city’s muscle and financial support,
it’s unbelievable, providing me with heavy equipment!
Wow! Look at this, man!
I’ve got the support of the city, working on the heavy equipment,
to help the project move more quickly and more efficiently.
That’s just the opposite of everything I’ve ever seen.
I think it can help to fund these projects and make it happen,
meeting halfway with the local people.
They provide the materials, the land and the permission,
and we bring this incredible force, not only the instructors...
but students and their passion and knowledge to the project.
It’s all about people opening up their eyes
and thinking outside of the bureaucracy,
the red tape, the code book.
My name is Carolina and I’m an architect from Chile.
I work on the region of Valparaiso...
on a foundation constructing social housing,
projects for people who live at irregular settlements.
I’m Camilo, we are brother and sister.
I work on the environmental part for the preservation
of national parks of the North of Chile in the desert.
I think both things are of social and cultural benefit,
not of economic profit as most things related to architecture are.
3,000 ALUMINUM CANS WERE REUSED.
- This is Buena Esperanza stream. - Aha.
This stream starts at the Martial Glacier,
well-known by the city because it was and still is
the most important source of safe drinking water.
The truth about water streams has the same nature:
they are born at really pristine places
of extraordinary nature, glaciers mostly...
Very pure, the purest water. Isn’t it?
That’s right. They are born inside the National Park.
The Olivia River, the Pipo River and the Arroyo Grande
are born at Tierra del Fuego National Park,
in extraordinary places.
They cover big distances,
but when they enter the city they start being polluted.
And no river being born in such well-preserved areas,
crosses Ushuaia’s city and comes out clean.
All these rivers,
that cover dozens of miles among mountains, valleys and forests,
are polluted on the last mile, while crossing the city.
Ushuaia has two important bays at the foot of the city,
for those who don’t know the place.
One is Ushuaia Bay where the old population settled down
and where the old town and the government house are.
And the other one is to the South West, Golondrina Bay,
where the city grew over time.
Grey waters coming out of the sewers
arrive practically unprocessed to the coast.
The outfall of Ushuaia’s sewer system is at head of the airport landing strip.
Both black and grey water end up in the same place.
Originally, it was supposed to have a treatment plant.
Treatment plants have different levels of complexity.
Ushuaia had, if it ever had one, a primary treatment plant,
which only separates liquids from solids,
and the liquids flow into the water as they come from the houses,
without being cleaned.
What has been done so far is cleaning almost all solid waste,
that is to say trash.
We find trash when the tide brings it or when people litter,
a beer bottle here and there,
but most of Ushuaia’s shoreline is clean of solid waste.
Our next big challenge is to invest in a system that treats sewage sludge.
We have to get the people who come here
looking for a better future to blend in with the environment.
That’s no easy feat.
We hope the Earthship project will help us convey that message.
The most interesting thing about this project, speaking as a plumber,
is that we are coming here to help with a solution
for treating the sceptic, black water and waste.
When we send it back into the Earth, we are treating it!
Plants and nature treat it, filter it.
We contain that and we treat it before we send it back to Earth,
cleaner than any conventional methods.
SIDE VIEW OF THE HOUSE
The water system has four cycles.
Rainwater is collected on the roof, a kind of giant funnel.
The bigger sediments are filtered through rocks.
Three cisterns behind the south wall gather the collected water.
The water will be used first for the shower and the kitchen.
PURIFICATION FILTER
Food leftovers are trapped in a receptacle filled with worms.
These are grey waters and they have a secondary use:
the interior botanical cells.
The plants absorb the nutrients generating food
and filtering the water for a third use: toilet flush.
The resulting waters, known as black waters,
go to a septic tank made of tires which separates solids from liquids,
and liquids make their last journey to the exterior botanical cells.
Huge amounts of rain fall each year; yet, we are going without water.
We see that all over the planet.
Just people don’t seem to be conscious of the fact that
water that comes from the sky is available.
January 14th.
We started to put in place the structure on the front of the Earthship
made of local lenga wood.
We also used insulation, nails, glass, nylon,
water and electrical pipes, and recycled materials.
For the walls, we could use adobe but, due to time-constrains,
we used cement, as it dries quicker.
It’s my first overseas build with the company.
I wanted to come here last year but the construction was postponed.
So I’m just really happy to finally make it here.
I’m Poki Pakomio from Rapanui, Easter Island, an island in Chile.
Hello! My name is Camille and I’m from Quebec in Canada.
My name is Enrique Ica and I’m also from Rapanui.
I’m a construction engineer as well as a musician,
among many other things.
The clock keeps ticking.
Only two weeks left to finish the Academy.
The insulation on the roof needs to be set up as soon as possible
to raise the temperature inside the ship.
Winter sun rays reach the back of the ship
where the solar energy is transformed into thermal energy.
This energy is received and stored by the thick walls made of tires.
The big insulation wrapping prevents heat loss.
When the outside temperature drops,
the walls release heat keeping a stable temperature in the comfort zone.
In summer, sun rays penetrate the greenhouse only,
without affecting the comfort zone.
When the temperature is over the desired level,
a cross-ventilation system
generates suction through the south wall’s duct,
producing a draft that pushes hot air and lowers the temperature.
We want to show that you can stay warm.
The sun is making me warm right now! I’m in Ushuaia.
So the sun will work but half of our design is not sun,
it’s a physics concept called thermomass.
And so Ushuaia needs buildings that are warm without fuel,
Ushuaia seriously needs sewage treatment that is, for real,
not going to run into the bay.
And Ushuaia needs energy and electricity,
and Ushuaia needs food.
Everything is probably shipped in here
because they don’t have a growing season here.
So Ushuaia is an extreme place where we can go to extremes
and we like to go to extreme places
because that shows people a more intense message.
Anywhere I can go that it’s extreme to show people
‘If this works here, well, surely it can work for me.’
Plus it’s fun to go to extreme places.
I’m Miguel Herrera, I’m a construction manager
and I also work in a brewery.
I’m interested in sustainable development,
that’s what I studied in school.
The Earthship Biotecture brings all of that together,
and I’m really interested to see where those skills bring me.
My name is Alex Herrera, I’m from Australia.
My parents, from South America, Paraguay.
I’m interested in sustainable living and sustainable architecture,
especially for Ghana and the rural areas in northern Ghana,
where people need, you know, a better way of living.
January 23rd. Time to relax. A bonfire at the foot of the mountain.
Who was the first one to visit Taos?
I was. During our summer, 2012.
The Earthship Project meant a lot to me,
because it meant reconnecting with Architecture.
Studying Architecture required a lot of effort from me,
like from every other student, a lot of time, sacrifice.
When I got my degree I asked myself: now what?
I don’t want to be part of this business and of what architects are doing.
Then, I heard Michael Reynolds, also an architect,
speaking and complaining about the same thing,
saying “No, no, Architecture has got it all wrong.”
For me it was amazing because I started finding my passion,
my calling within Architecture.
This is the road I want to take in Architecture.
And discovering not just a way of doing
but also of understanding Architecture, just blew my mind.
January 23rd, probability of rain is high.
We need to put up the roof insulation...
and cover the Earthship or we won’t finish on time.
Once again, we will need everyone’s effort;
we have only 7 days left.
It doesn’t happen very often in life,
when you can just disappear from your ordinary life for two months.
I saw that window and said: the time is now.
I went to Taos and had a wonderful experience.
Having the experience of being in an Earthship,
disconnected from water and power lines,
knowing you are there on your own, having amazing experiences.
One day I was working in a publishing house
and two blocks from there was a camp
and I just talked to a man who is from the Qom community in Formosa.
For me it’s an honor to be sharing this job
with young people from different countries.
The only thing I think about,
now that I’m sharing this job that we have talked about every day
is that we can take this to our community
and pass it on to the boys there.
If it’s possible we are going to pass this on
to the other communities in Formosa.
For ages we’ve been trying to find a way out
of all the things that happen in our community.
The only thing we always try to maintain is Nature, to strengthen it.
For many years we’ve lived ignoring that tires and cans
and all of that is basic to everyone.
But now, through Michael’s madness,
we can take this madness with us and pass it on to the people.
That’s the main thing, and that’s what we are thinking about.
The rules and regulations for housing,
just like the rules and regulations for almost anything,
they’re like when a rocket is trying to take off of the Earth
and get into space.
Just to get out of the Earth’s gravity is where it takes the most fuel
and the most thrust of the rockets to break out of the Earth’s gravity.
Well, our dogma,
our belief system as humans developed, world humans on this planet,
has a tremendous amount of gravity
and it takes a lot of energy to break out of that
and I think that’s the biggest effort that we’ve had to deal with.
I’ve done everything:
I’ve fought it... I lost... I joined it and I didn’t like it.
And so now I’m trying to transcend it.
And it doesn’t offend anybody to transcend it;
it doesn’t cause any battles and waste of energy to transcend it.
I think transcending the situation that we are in
is the best way for humanity to evolve.
Were you there when we talked about the glass?
About making the spotlights out of the bottle necks.
Yes. We’re making a mold, and we will do that.
Measure the cable and all that. Then it’s just replicating.
Perfect, great.
The one we are making here is the Simple Survival Model
that is equipped with solar panels only.
It can’t obtain energy from the wind.
When we realized that in Ushuaia
there is little sun in winter but lots of wind,
we suggested using wind generators,
not to replace the panels but to supplement them.
When Michael got here and felt the wind himself he said ‘yes.’
We had already disobeyed and had already bought one,
but when he said yes, we bought another one.
The wind is converted into electricity by the wind generator;
photovoltaic cells absorb the energy of the sun,
converting it into electricity as well.
All this energy is stored in 6 batteries in a control panel,
which supply the Earthship with electricity for lights and devices
like cellphones computers and TVs.
My name is Lisa, I’m from Córdoba,
and I’ve been living in Ushuaia for 8 months now.
It was a pleasant surprise to meet very nice people,
who inspire you to do so much.
It’s nice to think that everybody did their share to achieve this,
and that each part of the construction was touched
by the 80 people in the group,
people from here and the whole world. It’s amazing.
My name is Cathy Krueger and I’m from Nebraska.
I think Eathships are an amazing way to live.
I live in Brooklyn, New York, right now.
Do I clap at the camera?
People have been amazing,
it’s one of the first times that I feel like I’ve met people
who want to have similar jobs that I want to do.
Earthship Project for me represents change,
maybe a change I’d like to be part of;
it also represents a lot of people
working for the same reason as you,
and getting out of the comfort zone.
It generates something that is very difficult to explain,
hard to put into words, for me this is incredible.
It’s better to put this than grass on the sides,
because people will want to touch the house.
If you put plants, they might not want to come inside.
They can step right down the center.
One, two, three.
Go ahead?
My name is Chris Coughlin
and I come from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
Since we are both switched into two different groups
for English and Spanish,
it was interesting everyday cause we would all,
if we’re in the classroom, we’d run over here to see
what the Spanish group did and how far they’d got along
and there’s always this mixture of excitement of,
what did they do, where can we see?
I’d like to think that many of us
are gonna stay friends for decades to come.
And I don’t think you can make this kind of friendship
without doing what we are doing down here.
You have to really live and work and deal with headaches and late nights.
We start with house plants because they get established
and start eating the sewage, and then, after they are established,
then, we bring in the food. We won’t start with food;
we’ll start with regular decorative plants.
This is just regular screendoor screen, peat moss and worms.
The water in here... of course you can’t use bleach
and there are certain products that you have to avoid using.
This is a new way of living. Inside the house,
there will always be a temperature between 18° and 22° C,
even if it snowing outside.
January 31st,
the Academy came to an end right on schedule
and the Earthship was finished.
The next day, Mike and his crew headed for the Philippines,
where they will build shelters that endure typhoons.
Sometime later, new projects came up in Ushuaia
and different places around the world,
such as El Bolsón, Easter Island, Valparaíso,
Qom Potae Napocna Navogoh community in Formosa
and maybe others that time will show.
Many people left their jobs and continued learning with Mike.
Something absolutely moving took place in the end of the world
and will live on forever among these mountains.
An idea taken to action, held in time, leads to real change.
If you have the good fortune of walking along the channel’s shore
or along Maipu Avenue, and turn towards Los Cauquenes,
between the mountains and the sea.
When Ushuaia’s unique lupine flowers get most colorful,
you can see the Earthship.
The name describes it with the perfection of the word:
it seems to be born from the Earth itself
and move towards one of the most moving horizons in the planet.
You can catch sight of the bottles in the back wall.
Those who say the house is made up of things...
we don’t use anymore are wrong,
it’s made up of everything that came along with us and helped us live.
It’s a celebration of things, not looking down on them.
It’s a way of saving them, and saving us.
Bottles aren’t just bottles:
they are witnesses of dinners we shared in the night, joy,
laughter and chats that won’t come back.
The tires have something of all the trips we’ve made over the years.
The Earthship is made up of all our days.
Recycling is a subtle way to honor,
it’s like having our own Noah’s ark with all that helped us live,
a ship that saves everything.
I see them working, from a distance;
suddenly there’s wind, clouds, some rain, some sunshine:
this is not the weather in Ushuaia.
What’s going on is that all the elements on the planet
are gathering up to appreciate how we build a house.
For me today is... extremely important.
I was born in this city and attended many ceremonies,
many of them freezing, like now, when I was your age.
I’m very excited because today, being 37 years old,
I see Ushuaia steering in a different direction,
looking towards a real future,
a future that has to do with preserving the planet,
preserving the family, and that has to do with preserving us,
being able to enjoy our woods, our lakes,
our glacier, being able to enjoy going outdoors,
and drinking water without thinking if it’s polluted or not.
I propose that we make an oath
and I thank the entire city for inviting me
and allowing me to be the one who reads this announcement.
If you hadn’t done it, I’ll still be by your side, taking it.
From east to west and from north to south,
do you promise to love and respect every corner of this land?
Do you?
Directed by
Written by
Produced by
Green Tara Producciones Culturales
Executive Producer
Production Management
Music
Editing
Sound Post-Production
Sound
Animation
Technical Crew
Camera Operators
Editing Assistant
Color Grading
Assistant Producer
Legal Counsel
Press
Music from Tiempo Mariposa, by Elena Roger.
Arranger and Director
Voice-over
How old were you when you came to Ushuaia?
I got here in 1947; I was 17, 18 years old.
Do you remember how many people lived here when you arrived?
At that time, there were more or less 1,200, 1,300.
1,300 people, you all knew each another.
All the neighbors knew one another;
we cooked with wood-burning stoves;
we got water from some faucet we found nearby or went to get it.
What changes do you see in Nature?
Nature changed because it’s not the same place we had.
There are more people, they throw away garbage.
The more people, the more garbage.
The beautiful places we had at that time are all populated,
so it isn’t the same.
Does that sadden you a bit?
It saddens you a bit, to see what you used to have.
Just as I did when I came here,
I would advise people to look after this beauty,
look after it like I did.
I get emotional, it’ll pass.
This land gave everything to me,
so I advise the youth to take care of it,
take care of it because everything in this life comes to an end;
so enjoy it, enjoy the land,
and look after the land of my children and grandchildren.
I can’t speak anymore because I get emotional.