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Straw Bale Building

Stylish Modern Straw Bale House Built From Scratch

By Straw Bale Building

Straw bale house

I will never cease to appreciate and ogle natural homes built by hand. Pretty spaces warm the heart.

I came across this stylish straw bale house pretty randomly, and was impressed with the unique style — check it out. I think this house is bigger than something I would ever consider building (just based on the sounds of it, and from the look of some of the images. I like to think homes should be kept as small and functional as possible.)

But anyway, inspiring images — check out the stunning timber frame details, the floors, nice lighting, and…. that kitchen — weird! Maybe it’s the angle, but that seems like a funky space — I want to see more of it to understand what is going on there.

I get excited thinking about all of the details that we will eventually put into our own straw bale house, and trying to imagine what the final space will look like, once I’m inside, sitting in the rocking chair, or looking out the window into the greenhouse to see how the plants are faring.

2012 Natural Building Internship: Build a Straw Bale House

By Workshops, Work Exchange, Timber Framing, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron


The Year of Mud is happy to announce that we are seeking an intern during the 2012 building season. We are offering a rare natural building internship opportunity — the chance to help build a straw bale house from the ground up, and to participate in two complete natural building workshops in an inspiring ecovillage community.

Interns will help to organize and get full participation in our Timber Frame Workshop, and Straw Bale Workshop. Come experience what it is like to build a natural home from step one at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage!

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Straw Bale Building Workshop 2012: Build a Straw Bale House

By Straw Bale Building, Strawtron, Workshops

The Straw Bale Building Workshop at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is now open to applicants! Come join us in July 2012 for a comprehensive 10 day straw bale construction course, where you will learn valuable skills you need to know to build your own straw bale house.

You’ll get hands-on experience stacking, securing, and pinning bales, and plastering the walls with local clay. Enjoy and learn from the incredible experience of helping to build an actual home in a well-known, inspiring ecovillage community.
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Introducing Strawtron: New Timber Frame Straw Bale House Design

By Natural Building Workshops, Timber Framing, Straw Bale Building, Strawtron

Conceptual drawing of our new house (north view)

Things are definitely shaping up in our new house design process. We are super excited to be collaborating with a few folks on this project, very notably Tom Cundiff of The Edgeworks, who is assisting with the design of a slick timber frame for what we are calling “Strawtron”, our new straw bale timber frame house project.

This fall, we plan on breaking ground for Strawtron, a three room, passive solar, straw bale-insulated house with a timber frame, greenhouse for passive heat and extended living space, screened-in north porch, and 1/2 story loft with a west-facing balcony.

But there’s plenty to do before that happens…

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