Experimental Straw Building

The client, a retired farmer with a strong interest in sustainable construction, commissioned Birkett Cole Lowe in 1997 to design an experimental building in load bearing straw bales.

It was to be the prototype for a larger project. As much straw as possible was to be incorporated in the construction and the building was to be monitored to establish the long term resistance of the construction to moisture ingress

The substructures are an insitu concrete waffle slab with straw encapsulated within it. The walls are load bearing straw finished externally in sand: lime render and internally in clay adobe. The roof is a double timber structure insulated with straw bales and covered with corrugated bituminous fibre sheets.

Originally the building was to be used as a workshop, but a stove and a timber extension housing washing facilities and a Vietnamese two compartment composting closet has been added and the building is now used as a dwelling by the client’s step daughter.

Monitoring has been carried out in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University. The straw has remained dry for five winters.