New Mexico on the Margins of Eco-architecture in 1960s and 1970s America

In the late 1960s three young architects moved to New Mexico, Antoine Predock, Michael Reynolds, and Edward Mazria. They each experimented with finding a way to integrate the moral imperatives of the environmental movement into architectural form. Each architect gives an essential insight into the complex ideals, incentives and processes developing in the early 1970s. Predock follows J.B. Jackson's call to 'do right by the land' by focusing on the specifics of site. Reynolds responds to the problem post-consumer waste by experimenting with beer cans and tires as recycled building materials. Mazria develops, publishes and teaches a simplified system to fully integrate passive solar to mitigate resource depletion. Each of these architects developed a system for fully integrating environmental ideals into the building envelope. More importantly, they defined the minimal limit to the parameters of Sustainable Architecture.