The EVE Project is an earthship community where they have gotten permission from the building department to build outside of building codes for experimental purposes, much like a race track where new cars are tested.
It is really worth checking out. The earthship model is very similar to our Zero Brownstone model that Eco Brooklyn strives to attain: zero waste, zero materials, zero energy use.
The reason EVE Project is interesting is that the earthship community has realized that the traditional earthship is a little isolationist since it tends to be one family per earthship. In the EVE project they are attempting a more clustered design where several families might live in a cluster of earthships, possibly sharing some infrastructure.
This makes it a lot more similar to the Zero Brownstone model that is already cluster building, i.e. row houses.
I have spoken to them about how to incorporate earthship building techniques into Brooklyn plots, which tend to be 20″x90″ and three or four stories high. I would much rather existing Brooklyn plots be turned into community gardens, but if new construction is going to occur I would want it to be along Zero Brownstone standards.
So far the issue with earthship structures is that they have not been built over two stories, and even two stories is still experimental. So we have a while to go before Earthship Brooklyn breaks ground….but we are getting there!