Michael Reynolds built his first house, the Thumb House, in Taos, New Mexico in 1972, three years after graduating from the University of Cincinnati. The reason why it is called the Thumb House is that the exterior of the building looks like a thumb. The most precious part of the house is that Michael Reynolds uses beer cans as building blocks. Using materials that others considered garbage not only relieve the burden for the earth but also the expense of a building is much less than the traditional one.