My favourite set of books are the earthships series by Mike reynolds. Amazon sell them.

"My favourite set of books are the earthships series by Mike reynolds. Amazon sell them."
 
I'm fascinated by the idea of earthships, but wonder how difficult it is to build them in the UK. There are only two demonstration examples so far, and I'm not sure what the reaction of the planners, building control and local residents would be if I tried to build one on a typical British building plot.

The problem John, would be more of how or what could you fit what is essentially an earth sheltered home in the typical british building plot of 15 metres width and 50 metres length.
 
They are a nice idea but frankly adapting to UK scenario has yet to be established unless we are prepared to move everybody out into open countryside.
 
The Passivhaus concept would be the best to concentrate on replicating at present.

Keith, I agree about Passivhaus. But if it was possible to build an earth sheltered house on a typical building plot it would provide a lot more space for growing food. I'm not sure that tyres and cans would be ideal building materials, but the idea that an earthship is an antonymous building would be a good thing to aim for. Most building plots may have services laid on, but being able to survive if mains electricity or water isn't available might be a good aim for the future.
 
I like the idea of taking a building plot and doing a complete permaculture design on every aspect of it.

Don't forget JohnB. The permaculture principle suggests that you should observe a plot for a whole year (the full cycle of the seasons before laying down any permanent plans for it. Not an easy proposition to lay a builders door.
 
Mind you, the way some planners sit on green building proposals this would be quite possible?
 
I grabbed a general quote from a permaculture site to better explain:
 
"Permaculture is a holistic ecological approach to the design and development of human settlements takes into account food production, structures, technologies, energy, natural resources, landscape, animal systems, plant systems, and social and economic structures.
 
applicable to both urban and rural contexts, and to any scale of design.
 
about working with, rather than against, nature. It provides us with the tools to satisfy our needs in a way that sustains the earth, future generations and ourselves."

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I currently live in my van, wandering around the country looking for somewhere to live, so could quite comfortably spend a year living on my land, observing it and making plans, if no one tried to stop me!