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These aren't your typical bridges

Deep in the rainforests of the Indian state of Meghalaya, bridges are not built, they’re grown. For more than 500 years locals have guided roots and vines from the native Ficus Elastica (rubber tree) across rivers, using hollowed out trees to create root guidance systems. When the roots and vines reach the opposite bank they are allowed to take root. Some of the bridges are over 100 feet long and can support the weight of 50 people.  In time, a sturdy living bridge is produced.  Some can take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional.

Staircase to Nowhere, Pismo Beach, California

10 Reasons Why Earthships are Awesome

10 Reasons Why EarthShips Are Awesome

Earthships are 100% sustainable homes that are both cheap to build and awesome to live in. They offer amenities like no other sustainable building style you have come across. For the reasons that follow, I believe Earthships can actually change the world. See for yourself!

1) Sustainable does not mean primitive

When people hear about sustainable, off-the-grid living, they usually picture primitive homes divorced from the comforts of the 21st century. And rightfully so, as most sustainable solutions proposed until now have fit that description. Earthships, however, offer all of the comforts of modern homes and more. I’ll let these pictures do the talking…

2) Free Food

Each Earthship is outfitted with one or two greenhouses that grow crops year-round, no matter the climate. This means you can feed yourself with only the plants growing inside of your house. You can also choose to build a fish pond and/or chicken coop into your Earthship for a constant source of meat and eggs.

3) Brilliant Water Recycling

Even the most arid of climates can provide enough water for daily use through only a rain-harvesting system. The entire roof of the Earthship funnels rain water to a cistern, which then pumps it to sinks and showers when required. That used ‘grey water’ is then pumped into the greenhouse to water the plants. After being cleaned by the plants, the water is pumped up into the bathrooms for use in the toilets. After being flushed, the now ‘black water’ is pumped to the exterior garden to give nutrients to non-edible plants.

4) Warmth & Shelter

The most brilliant piece of engineering in the Earthship is their ability to sustain comfortable temperatures year round. Even in freezing cold or blistering hot climates, Earthships constantly hover around 70° Fahrenheight (22° Celsius).

This phenomenon results from the solar heat being absorbed and stored by ‘thermal mass’ — or tires filled with dirt, which make up the structure of the Earthship. The thermal mass acts as a heat sink, releasing or absorbing heat it when the interior cools and heats up, respectively.

The large greenhouse windows at the front of the house always face south to allow the sun to heat up the thermal mass throughout the daytime.

5) Energy

Solar panels on the roof and optional wind turbines provide the Earthship with all of the power it needs. As long as you’re not greedily chewing through electricity like a typical first-world human, you’ll never be short of power.

6) Freedom

With all of your basic needs provided for and NO bills each month, you’re free! You don’t have to work a job you hate just to survive. So you can focus your time on doing what you love, and bettering the world around you.

Imagine if the entire world was able to focus on doing extraordinary things instead of just making enough to get by. Imagine if even 10% of the world could do this. What would change?

7) Easy to build

At a recent Earthship conference in Toronto, Canada, a married couple in their forties shared about how they built a 3-story Earthship by themselves in 3 months. They had never built anything before in their lives and were able to build an Earthship with only the printed plans. They did not hire any help, nor did they use expensive equipment to make the job easier.

If one man and one woman can do this in 3 months, anyone can do it.

8) Cheap

Earthships are exorbitantly cheaper than conventional houses. The most basic Earthships cost as little as $7000 (The Simple Survival model) with the most glamorous models costing $70,000 and up, depending on how flashy you want to be with your decorating.

With these cost options, Earthships can fit the needs of everyone — from the least privileged to the most worldly.

9) Made of recycled materials

Much of the materials used to build Earthships are recycled. For starters, the structure is built with used tires filled with dirt.

If there’s one thing we’re not short of on Earth, it’s used tires! There are tire dumps like the one pictured here in every country in the world. There are even places that will pay you by the tire to take them away.

The walls (above the tires) are created by placing plastic and glass bottles in concrete. When the Earthship team was in Haiti after the earthquake, they employed local kids to both clean up the streets and provide all of the bottles required for building their Earthship. Plus, they look pretty sexy.

10) Think Different

The most powerful thing Earthships do is force people to think differently about how we live. If housing can be this awesome, and be beneficial to the environment, then what else can we change? What else can become more simple, cheaper and better at the same time?

It’s time for us to re-think much of what we consider normal.

——————–

Think Earthships are cool? Me too. That’s why some people have joined together to create a community of Earthships and to make sustainable communities go mainstream! It’s something they call the Valhalla Movement.

Want to know more? Read more about it on ValhallaMovement.com, and like us on Facebook.

This originally appeared on: HighExistence

Want to Visit an Earthship?  They have nightly rentals available here! 

Visit their website for more information

Top 10 Abandoned Amusement Parks

1. Spreepark, Berlin, Germany

2.  Pripyat, Chernobyl, Ukraine

3.  Nara Dreamland, Japan

4.  Okpo Land, South Korea

5.  Takakanonuma Greenland, Japan

6. Umoja Children's Park, Chake-Chake, Pemba Island, Zanzibar

7.  Wonderland, Chenzhuang Village, China

8.  Land of Oz, Beech Mountain, North Carolina

9.  Dunaújváros Vidám Park, Dunaújváros, Hungary

10.  Dadipark, Belgium

Italy's most famous drowned town

Lake Reschen is famous for the steeple of a submerged 14th century church, only a few miles from the Swiss and Austrian borders, in Italy. The steeple of the submerged bell tower is the only visible building of the once thriving village of Graun. In the mid 1900's, the entire town along with 163 homes and the 14th century church had to be sacrificed to make way for a new dam that would increase electricity production.

In 1939, the electric company Montecatini announced plans for a 22-meter deep lake, which would unify two natural lakes, Reschensee and Mittersee, and submerge several villages, including Graun and part of Reschen. Naturally, the locals were none too happy. They fought the flooding tooth and nail but despite the resistance the plan was approved and in 1950 the land was flooded. 1,290 acres of cultivated ground and 163 houses were drowned. Lots of families, in spite of the little money the company gave them, had a present with no future. Some moved away, some others tried to build a new life and home in upper Graun, where they still live today.

Today, the beautiful bell tower peeking up from the Reschen lake´s water, represents one of the most loved places to take pictures in Vischgau, Italy. In the winter, when the water freezes, the tower can be reached on foot.

Abandoned Railway in Paris

Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture, Paris, France

Extending around a circular loop within the fortified walls of Paris is an abandoned railway that once connected the city’s five main lines. Completed in 1852, the Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture has been partially abandoned since 1934 and completely silent for the last few years. The tracks and several stations remain intact, though its future is the subject of ongoing debate.  Many French railway enthusiasts and associations would like to see the abandoned railway and its remaining stations preserved and protected as part of France's national heritage.

A Giant Twisting Serpent Skeleton Emerges from the Loire River in France

 Serpent d'océan by Huang Yong Ping

Completed in 2012, Serpent d'océan is situated off the shore of the Loire River in St. Brevin-les-Pins, France. This giant aluminum sea serpent skeleton measures nearly 425 feet (130 meters) in length. The shape of the snake is similar to the near by Saint-Nazaire bridge.

Amazing Floating Forest in Sydney, Australia

Homebush Bay in Sydney, Australia is home to the remnants of a ship-breaking yard that operated during the mid 20th-century. Large watercraft that outlived their usefulness were towed to Homebush Bay and dismantled to salvage any components that could be reused or sold for scrap.

One such ship was the SS Ayrfield, a 1,140-tonne behemoth built in 1911 as a steam collier that was later used during WWII as a transport ship. In 1972 it was brought to Homebush Bay to be dismantled, but fate would decide differently. Operations at the ship-breaking yard subsequently ceased and parts of several large vessels including the Ayrfield were left behind, the largest objects in an area now infamous for decades of chemical dumping and pollution. But only this century-old transport ship would be transformed by time into a floating forest, a peculiar home for trees and other vegetation that have since sprouted over the last few decades.

From 2008-2010 a concerted effort was made to remove many of the lingering chemicals in Homebush left from the industrial era. Not far away is the Brickpit Ring Walk, a former industrial site where nearly three billion bricks were made from 1911 through the 1980s that is now a carefully protected natural habitat. As the forest has grown inside the SS Ayrfield, the bay is now a popular place for photographers who wish to capture the uncanny sight of this strangely beautiful relic of the bay's industrial past, not to mention nature's resiliency.

This Austrian park transforms into a lake during the Spring!

Grüner See (Green Lake) is a lake in Styria, Austria. In the winter you’ll find crisp, tranquil grasslands and lake that is only about 3 to 6 feet deep.  However, during the spring, when the temperature rises and the snow melts, the basin of land below the mountains fills with water. The lake reaches its maximum depth of around 40 feet from mid-May to June and is claimed to look the most beautiful at this time.