Very interesting designs. There was some initial concerns about the tires breaking down and causing seepage into the ground; however, they were able to prove that the breakdown of the tires is primarily caused by sunlight. Since these tires are not exposed to sunlight, this eliminated that concern. There is also the benefit that these "pounded earth" houses are extremely hardy against adverse weather.

Here is their main website (looks like they've revamped it quite a bit since I was there last):
Earthship main website

Two videos with more explanation on the construction:
Earthship construction part 1
Earthship construction part 2

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If you are interesting in intelligent house design, there are many websites out there. If you are looking for a more conventional house structure that is still decently self-sufficent, you should take a peek at the site below. It uses multiple method to control the internal climate. Very interesting read that hopefully many help some people include some items that increases the efficiency of their homes.
David Allan's Solar Home

Part of the appeal of the earthship is that you can grow a portion of your own food using the resources. Another alternative would be using a dome greenhouse. There are many different designs/companies that use dome greenhouses with a large pool for thermal mass and either a solar/electrical driven fan or expanding wax tubes (to push open vents) for ventilation when it gets too hot. I'm completely unaffiliated, but here is one website of a company that makes domes:
Growing Spaces' dome greenhouses

Personally?... Well, I would like to build something more along the line of David Allan's home, but include some of the ingenious water use/control of the earthships.

Thanks, curiosity. I saw Michael Reynolds speak last night, and found it amazingly motivating.

I have just bought a very environmentally unfriendly 50s weatherboard house, and am trying to find ways to make it more sustainable. At the moment it loses so much heat out of ceiling to floor single glazed windows, and it has no thermal mass to speak of. I'm toying with the idea of a tyre wall through the middle of it, but it's not a particularly practical solution.

But he made the point last night that every existing house has potential to be made more sustainable. You just have to think outside the square and come up with innovative solutions

Thanks for your links, I'll have a look.

Glad I could help. Efficient and self-sustaining design is one of my interests. I spend a little bit of free time at work wandering around the internet looking for interesting ideas and advancements.

Sounds like you are more concerned about keeping heat in than keeping the house cool at the moment. Can I assume you are in a northern region?

I think most people recommend adding wall insulation, insulation to the roof/attic, and updating the windows as the good steps to increase the R value of your old house.

lol... I reread you post. Floor to ceiling windows. If those windows get a good amount of sunlight, you might look into eutectic salt chambers (more information at David Allan's website.) That would help retain heat as it released it during fusion as your house gets colder at night.

I'm also toying with the idea of combining a eutectic salt chamber with a radial dish and fiber optics to heat rooms without large windows. They've been working on small radial dishes on the ceilings of houses that will track the sun (small photovoltaic cell and motor on dish) connected with fiber optic cables to run the sunlight into a building. They have been using a UV filter just before the fiber optic cables and disperser at the end to add natural light to the inside of a building. There is an immense amount of energy that comes through the fiber optics (without the UV filter) and they have actually been able to boil water with it. I believe that the commercial applications use plastic fiber optic cables instead of glass and don't allow as much energy through, but we'll see what advances come along in the future. If I can combine the eutectic salt chamber with an additional external case (reflective inside and a few slits for air flow at the top and bottom) and fiber optics bringing the sunlight down to it, I might just have a way to heat the middle of the house without having to loose heat with a window.

Well, I've got time. I'm still working and going to school. I'm years away from buying a house. But when I do, I would like to build my own on a piece of land.

Moving this video to kymbos's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*beg

Sending this video to Beggar's Canyon to plea for a little attention - beg requested by original submitter kymbos.