Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ual home owners as opposed to speculative builders is one of the factors
which has allowed for experimental innovation and has been facilitated by
the flexibility in philosophy, cost, and housing style of straw-bale building.
Though some of the earliest straw-bale homes were built for exceedingly
low cost (as little as $7.50 per square foot), cost alone is not a true measure
of the commitment to straw-bale building. The homes built that inexpen-
sively were done by individuals who collected recycled materials well
beforehand, contributed much of the labor (unskilled and skilled) them-
selves, and built small. More luxurious straw-bale homes have run as high
as $200 per square foot, so cost saving obviously is not an independent
factor.
The earliest straw-bale revival builders were innovators who were inten-
tionally looking for different ways of building that expressed a form of indi-
viduality. They tended to be artists and musicians, alternative health
practitioners, sometimes disenchanted architects and contractors, but gen-
erally speaking, counterculture in political, ecological, aesthetic, or other
lifestyle orientation.What is interesting is that the act of building with straw
bale is sufficiently flexible both in practical terms and as a symbolic expres-
sion that people can use it in a variety of ways. It can be an expression of
ecological values as a model for others in ways to “live lightly on the land”
by coupling it with other “green” building materials, a water catchment sys-
tem, a composting toilet, and other conservation innovations.The first per-
son to obtain a straw-bale building permit in Austin states such values for
choosing straw bale:
We were looking for alternative ways of building a house, that is, alternative to con-
ventional stick-frame and something more in the direction of ecologically sound
building practices. So we looked at rubber tire houses. . . .We researched that pretty
carefully and decided we do not want to live underground. My mother-in-law
found a straw bale house book . . . in the Real Goods catalog out of California. She
bought and read it and said this looks pretty interesting and sent it to us.And I read
it and saw that the systems were worked out carefully, thought through enough, and
saw ways that I thought I could apply it.
The choice to build with straw bale could equally be an innovative
aesthetic statement, using the qualities of the bales themselves to create
stepped walls, window seats, and patio benches echoing Southwestern and
Mexican adobe architecture without architects. A retired couple who
choose straw bale for these reasons had looked at the modest dwelling an
