Permaculture

Permaculture design principles extend from the position that "The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children" (Mollison, 1990). The intent was that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals could design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying the Earth's ecosystems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

I'd say the Gaiaship takes the Permaculture concept to a new high.  

Picking out Plants

http://www.pfaf.org/leaflets/pioneer.php

The idea of selecting plant for their desired attributes to manufacture a designed human environment is a long standing one - but it's been forgotten in recent years just how effective living walls - hedges and strips of forest - can be in shaping our spaces.  

Indoor and outdoor fireplace heatsinks

So I was kicked back with my feet stretched out toward my fire pit this early December Evening.  Flames burning brightly in the moonlit night and I thought about all that heat being radiated into space and I was humbled by an idea... 

I want to make this place really & truly self-sufficient; no matter what.  So I mentally traced how I would and could incorporate the common fireplace into the gaiaship design.  That fundamental and ancient building structure for providing heat to a human habitation.  

First; the fireplace itself could operate with natural gas supplied from waste reprocessing & syngas production; or regular old bio-mass... wood.  The combustion gasses are fast tracked up the central exhaust chimneys with multiple stages of heat sinks in play to capture the waste heat.  

First stage channels heat into the hot water system of the local house circuit.  This heat sink would be built right into the walls of the fireplace and flue system.  Hot water for the Gaiaship can be provided by a central always cycling circuit of hot water heated by power generation & boiler facilities; more traditional local loops of gas & electric hot water heaters; instant hot water made at the source and finally the re-captured heat from that pretty little fire.  

This hot water would be available for the hot tub; shower,  dishwasher or in floor radiant heating.

 Wouldn't you rather live in a place that could be totally heated by just burning a cheery little fire... no matter if you have electricity or not.  

Later stages would be channeled into the vortex heat chimneys to help generate a bit more electricity.  

Yeah; its rather pessimistic to think about how this facility could withstand the breakdown of modern society; but I honestly think if truly made self sustainable; it could and most definitely would.  And that self supporting but not contained environment could easily change the make-up of a broken society that surrounded it.  Think about a self contained outpost of food; shelter & technology in a war-torn region of Africa.   How quickly would it become a hub of economic activity?  How quickly could it change the region for the better?  There's no reason that this idea - as modular as it is - can't be built upon; expanded and applied to revolutionize entire cities.  It's knowledge of the interacting systems and a complete design on how to leverage them that's needed.  The technology only has to be brought together with a good design.