Architects David Arkin and Anni Tilt found a balance between passive design strategies—plenty of natural light, maximized winter sun, shaded harsh summer rays, and cross-ventilated breezes—and the latest in green technologies in this Santa Cruz strawbale house. Photo by Gabriela Hasbun. See the house come together in a "bale-raising" gathering here.

The entire house is made from slabs of prefabricated, formaldehyde-free compressed straw.

Straw Panels by Ecococon.

The entire house is made from slabs of prefabricated, formaldehyde-free compressed straw.

Framing the round straw-bale

Straw Dogs “Straw is basically a waste material,” says Tilt. “Farmers used to burn rice straw, but now they’re baling it up to sell, which takes tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.” It’s also a stellar source of insulation, both thermal and acoustic. With the guidance of structural engineer Kevin Donahue, Arkin Tilt, the couple, and a group of their friends and neighbors pitched in for a daylong “bale raising.” To minimize the straw’s volume within the walls (they used 150 bales), the architects tipped the bales on edge, placed them between structural wood I-joists used as posts, and finished them off with welded wire mesh and lime plaster.

233. Straw-bale building technology

Back side of round straw-bale home

A truth window shows the straw bale insulation of the main building structure.

Barnio, one of the straw-bale out building. Cerrillos Hills in the distance

Architect Michael Cobb uses sustainable materials like straw bales and rammed earth in the construction of this weekend home in Healdsburg, California.

A year after giving away his company, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has completed a home made of straw bales in Ventura, California.

The buildings follow the topography and capture passive solar heat in the winter months. They feature straw bale walls to the east, north and west.

Though visible elements of green design are found throughout the residence—from the recycled-glass and concrete countertops to the energy-efficient appliances—the straw bale that’s cleverly packed to make two-foot-thick walls is perhaps Siegel’s favored sustainable solution. A waste product that’s typically burned in the fields after the harvest, straw both acts as an excellent insulator and reduces the amount of wood used in construction. For Siegel and Subbotin, the act of packing the straw into the walls was the perfect excuse for a party. “After the house was framed, it came time to put the straw bales between the framing,” Subbotin says. “So we invited a bunch of friends, brought food and coffee, and everyone got to work and did it.” Over 90 percent of the baling (described by Siegel as “the modern-day experience of a barn raising”) was done in that one day. Easily inserted into the post-and-beam frame, the bales were cut to size, tied, and literally stacked within the walls of the house.

A 20-year-old off-grid artist retreat, Lazalu, is one of Kibbo’s first collaborators. The structures are made from upcycled and natural materials, such as adobe and straw bale insulation.

Rice straw bale, sourced from a local farmer, were placed on top of the Watershed Block walls, sequestering carbon while insulating the home.

Disposing of straw bales, a waste product, requires time and effort, says Johnson. Instead of discing it back into a field, farmers could sell it as a building product to the construction industry.

Straw bale walls with buff-colored lime plaster and douglas fir posts, beams and trusses are left exposed adding visual warmth at the interior.

The simple straw-bale and earth-plaster walls contains a grand living space that opens to a south terrace. A sleeping bay extends out from the main space.

Highly-insulating straw bale walls are featured throughout the main living spaces and bedrooms, coated inside and out with lime plaster for thermal mass.

A construction crew stacks straw bales to build Chouinard’s Ventura home, designed by family friend and architect Dylan Johnson. By using straw as a building material, the house is sequestering carbon that was absorbed by the rice plants during the growing season—carbon that would otherwise have been released back into the atmosphere.

Pyatt's office is the sparest room in the house, with the straw panels "left raw to give a sense of the monolithic nature of those walls," according to Pyatt.

It was a community affair getting all the straw bales into place. Anni Tilt referred to it as a "bale raising" in the Amish mode of a barn raising. Tershy echoed the sentiment, recounting how friends, neighbors, and the Arkin Tilt team all pitched in to get the 150 bales into place. Here we see Tershy and Zavaleta manhandling what would soon become insulation. Photo courtesy of Arkin Tilt Architects.

Before setting any straw in the walls, Arkin Tilt had to design a support system tailor made for big bales of hay. They relied on wooden I-joists here on the front of the house spaced at intervals so that a set number of bales (tipped up on their sides) would fit. Photo courtesy of Arkin Tilt Architects.

Designed by architecture firm Arkin Tilt, Bernie Tershy and Erika Zavaleta’s 2,500-square-foot straw-bale home marries cutting-edge green technology with natural building techniques and locally sourced materials.

Straw-bale walls wrap the north and west, while the wood framed south wall opens up to the sun, bringing daylight deep into the living space via extensive glazing. © www.edwardcaldwellphoto.com

Located northeast of Seattle, Washington, this two-home property is surrounded by a 38-acre land trust named Sharingwood. The front cottage was constructed using a naturally made material known as cob, while the rear studio was built using the straw-bale construction method.

The structures on the farmstead are to consist of cheap, salvaged, degradable, and transportable materials—like shipping containers, chain link fence, canvas, and straw bales. The buildings will provide storage for tools and produce, sheltered workspace, an office, a restroom, temporary housing for one employee, and even a small farm stand.

A builder sculpts a bale with his chainsaw so it stacks evenly. Johnson says that building the home with straw was as cost-effective as wood framing would have been, but thinks the method will only become less expensive as contractors become more familiar with the building style.

Draper Lake requires low-maintenance and sustainable native landscape. The Wax Myrtle, Dune Sunflower, Firebush and Beautyberry are planted in sand then mulched over with bales of locally harvested pine straw. Custom fabricated galvanized steel planters line the parking pad.

Sustainability was a popular topic at the 2008 London Design Festival. The British design collective Greenhaus featured Neil Barron's plastic-wrapped straw bale mixing natural farm materials with unsustainable packaging design to create a modern piece of furniture.

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard’s home in Ventura, California, was built using post and beam framing that’s filled with straw bales, a waste product, that came from rice farms in the Sacramento Valley. Photo by Tim Davis and landscape design by Morami Studio .

The rendering demonstrates how the orientation of the proposed building maximizes solar energy. The orange dots represent the sun's arc at its highest, middle, and lowest points. South-facing windows combined with rammed-earth and straw-bale construction will help retain solar gains during daylight hours.

A view of the back of the structure, highlighting both the long entry staircase and solar panels on the straw roof.

Most of the unusual materials and technologies used in the Straw Bale House were chosen not because they are novel or to impress award judges but because they are cheap and accessible; the novelty lies in thinking to use them in this context.This wonderful rambling farmhouse of a building is set beside one of the country's busiest railway lines - where the East Coast line approaches King's Cross, yet inside there is a calm that belies its setting and the eccentricity of the form. Cement bags buffer the office from noise, while the walls incorporate straw bales and gabion cages of recycled concrete. Designed by Sarah Wigglesworth with Jeremy Till as their family home and office, it interested Kevin McCloud who included it in the first series of Grand Designs, drawing public attention to the hitherto dry and academic subject of sustainability. It also challenged the polite manners of contemporary modernism.

At a fraction of the size of Ochre Barn, Stealth Barn is just one clear shot down the hall from the kitchen to the bedroom. OSB is an even stronger part of the interior here evoking bales of hay.