permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

 The New Strawbale Book Signing and Slide Show Tour Oct 25-Nov 14
2003 in California 2003


> Laguna Beach Sun Oct 26 Wells Fargo Bank
> on 260 Ocean 6:00 social hour talk at 7:00 -9 PM $3-$5 donation
> DrRoley@aol.com 949-494-5843
> San Diego Mon Oct 27 Alliant International University  858-635-4616
> times location not confirmed
> San Diego Tues Oct 28 6:30 pm NEW SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE 1249 F Street in
> down town S.D. ,Reception 6pm , Drew Hubbell 619 231-0446
> LA Wed Oct 29 7pm  LA- Eco-Village 117 Bimini Place, LA, CA 90004
> Sliding scale $3 - $10 (323) 662-5207
> Meiners Oak Thurs .Oct 30  5pm Dinner with Catherine at the Farmer
> and the Cook (near Ojai) 339 W El Roblars 805-640-9608
> (reservations)
> Ojai Thurs Oct 30 Oak Grove School 7pm 220 W. Lomita Ave, Meiners Oak
> (805) 646-8236 X 104  ellenhall@oakgroveschool.com
> Ojai Fri Oct 31 rest, visit to first strawbale in Ventura County
> Santa Barbara Sat Nov 1 7pm S.B.Public Library Faulkner Gallery E Anapamu
> $3 donation sbpcnet@silcom.com 805-962-2571
> Santa Barbara Sun Nov 2 6:30pm pm Livingreen Store 222 Helena for
> Architects,Planners and Builders  805-962-2571
> SLO Mon Nov 3 Cal Poly SLO Hearst Lecture, 7pm at Business School Rotunda
> University of Calpoly SLO , 805-756-2490.
> Santa Cruz Tues Nov 4 confirmed details to follow Josho 
> 831-427-3311
> Berkeley Wed Nov 5 Builders Booksource 7:30pm 1817 Fourth Street (510)
> 845-6874 
> www.buildersbooksource.com
> San Francisco Thurs Nov 6  7pm METREON: A Sony Entertainment Center
> 101 Fourth Street at Mission Second Floor in the Action Theatre
> http://www.metreon.com
> Santa Rosa Mon Nov 10 New School North Bay Campus 99 Sixth Street, Santa
> Rosa $5 donation dbaker@newcollege.edu 707 568-2605
> Occidental Tues Nov 11 7pm  Occidental Arts and Ecology Center 15290
> Coleman Valley Road.
> www.oaec.org Brock
> Dolman 707-874-1557 x 206  Brock@oaec.org
> Arcata Wed Nov 12 The Common House at Marsh Commons Cohousing 101 South G
> St Arcata stina@igc.org
> Ashland Fri Nov 14 cancelled,
Prescott Arizona , Sat Nov 15
proposed details to follow

Book Tour is organized by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org
sbpcnet@silcom.com please contact us if you need any further info on the tour and visit Catherine's Wanek's Website at www.strawbalecentral.com to find more about her work
cosponsored by Hopedance Magazine www.hopedance.org 

Author and photographer Catherine Wanek organized the building of a strawb
ale greenhouse in 1992 and has been an advocate ever since. She produced and
directed the Building with Straw video series and spent five years publishing
and editing The Last Straw Journal. The coauthor of The Art of Natural Building,
she lives in Kingston, New Mexico. Check out her Webpage at www.strawbalecentral.com

Building with Bales has begun to enter the mainstream yet many people still wonder, what does a strawbale house look like? Catherine Wanek's new book The New Strawbale Home provides the answer, anything you want! Innovative architects & owner/builders are reinventing this century-old technology to create thick-walled modern houses of surpassing beauty, that also save energy and are healthy for its inhabitants and the environment.

This practical book compiles floor plans and images from forty cutting-edge homes across North America, discussing varying climate considerations & essential design details. Chapters include information on budget matters, code compliance, siting & energy efficiency, structural systems, & finishing touches. It also offers valuable insights & hindsights of architects, contractors & owner/builders, and a extensive resource section.

Author, photographer and filmaker Catherine Wanek is a pioneer in the strawbale movement. She published & edited The Last Straw Journal, co-authored The Art of Natural Building, and produced & directed the video series Building with Straw. She also helped co-found the non-profit Builders Without Borders. (www.strawbalecentral.com)

EXCERPT FROM NEW STRAWBALE BOOK
Introduction
A WONDERFUL IRONY about strawbale home owners is that they often started out
as complete skeptics. "Doesn't it rot? Doesn't it burn? What about the Big
Bad Wolf?" We converts who've heard this before have learned to smile
patiently. After all, it was little more than a decade ago that modern-day pioneers
seeking affordable, ecological, beautiful housing built the first code-approved
strawbale homes. Now they are found in every state in the United States and all
over the world.
It's not surprising that so many have been won over by the amazing
potential of the humble bale. Individually, stalks of straw seem fragile, but
hundreds together, compressed and baled, make a sturdy building block. Stack a
bunch of these blocks together and walls can go up in a hurry. Roof and plaster
it, and you have an energy-efficient house-the concept is simple and attractive.
Plus, soft, sculptable straw bales can be shaped into cozy spaces, forming a
home that feels like an embrace.
This home not only feels good, but you can feel good about it; straw is
commonly underutilized-composted or burned as an agricultural waste product.
The "staff" of the staff of life, straw is available at a cheap price
wherever grain is grown. Replacing conventional "stick frame" walls with bales can
cut by half the amount of timber needed in a modern home, reducing demand on
forest resources. And stacked like giant bricks to form a thick wall, bales offer
super insulation from the heat, cold and outside noise, providing a quiet,
comfortable living space with modest lifetime energy requirements.
Building with bales could also impact global warming by significantly
reducing fossil fuel consumption. And saving fuel saves money. Strawbale home
owners from New Mexico to Nova Scotia, California to China, live comfortably with
energy bills that are a fraction of their neighbors'.
Constructed with care, these homes have successfully
endured snow and rain, earthquakes and hurricanes.

Historical Precedents
Building with bales began over a century ago as pioneers began to settle in
the sand hills of Nebraska. Finding themselves in a sea of grass on a treeless
prairie, they utilized the relatively new technology of horse-powered baling
machines to create a stable building block from an abundant local resource. By
simply stacking up interlocking bales and plastering them with mud or cement
stucco to create sturdy homes, the pioneers saved their precious trees for roof
structures. But as soon as railroads came through, bringing brick and timber
and other supplies, Nebraskans began building "real" homes, and strawbale
houses faded into history.
Enough examples of strawbale construction survive, however, to give
modern builders evidence of durability and confidence in the structural stability
of bales.

The Strawbale Revival
While the occasional strawbale building went up in the intervening decades,
it was in the 1970s and 1980s that homesteaders , permaculturists and
alternative builders, motivated by the potential for affordable and sustainable
shelter, began rediscovering the concept of building with bales. The movement may
have begun in 1989 in Oracle, Arizona, when Matts Myhrman, Judy Knox, Bill
Steen, David Bainbridge and Pliny Fisk got together at James Kahn's house to
stack some bales, try some plaster mixes, and test the stability of load-bearing
bale walls.
This led to more research and experimentation and a journal called The
Last Straw, which began gathering information from old and new strawbale
pioneers, publishing techniques and success stories, and fostering communication and
cooperation. 'Within a few years, advocates in both Arizona and New Mexico
were lobbying their building-code departments for permits to build bale
buildings. They also initiated testing programs to prove the durability of the emerging
technology.
By 1993, unplastered, load-bearing, three-string bale wall systems had
successfully passed compression, transverse load and racking sheer tests in
Tucson, Arizona. And in Albuquerque, New Mexico, plastered, load-bearing, two-tie
wall systems withstood a simulated 100-plus miles-per-hour wind force and a
two-hour ASTM 119 fire test. The surprised lab technicians reasoned that
straw resists combustion when compressed into bales and sealed with plaster
because the fire is starved of oxygen. These laboratory results qualify a plastered
strawbale wall for a commercial fire rating.
The impressive results of these testing programs helped persuade cautious
code officials, and in 1994, Tucson and Pima County, Arizona, adopted a
"prescriptive standard" for load-bearing bale construction, while in New Mexico,
state officials okayed strawbale building guidelines for post-andbeam
structures with straw bales as infill. For better or for worse, these two codes now
form the basis of most permitted structures in the United States.
The positive effect of having building codes in place is that they
legitimize bales as a building material. Their negative effect is to limit building
techniques that can be employed. "While strawbale engineering and practices
have evolved since 1994, codes have generally remained overly restrictive.
Fortunately, a section in most codes allows for "alternative building materials and
methods" and gives local code officials fairly broad authority to approve
designs that meet standards of health and safety. And in many code jurisdictions
across America, strawbale homes have already received building permits, which
paves the way for more bale houses in the future.
During the last decade, advocates have developed book, video and Internet
resources for learning about strawbale construction, and helping to educate
building officials.
Straw-building associations in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, California and
the Midwest offer professional advice and hands-on workshops (see Resources). In
California, architects, engineers and politicians recently hammered out the
most progressive code language yet, and a state-funded testing program
administered by the Environmental Building Network will soon answer more structural
questions and offer insight into the relative strength of earthen plasters.

A Home for All Climates
In the meantime, architects and builders have successfully adapted strawbale
designs to local climates, from the desert Southwest to the rainforests of
the Pacific. The few thousand strawbale homes built in North America in the
last decade are generally proving to be durable and comfortable. Strawbale's
user-friendly construction techniques can also empower tentative owner/builders
to get involved with building their own dream homes.
This is also a house that considers seven generations. Unlike most
manufactured building materials, straw is very low in "embodied energy"- the
energy required to harvest, process and deliver a material to market. Combined with
solar orientation, natural plasters, daylighting, and appropriate
ventilation, a strawbale home blends energy efficiency and aesthetics with a healthy
indoor environment. It seems that this new/old building technology is poised to
enter mainstream consciousness.
So, what does a strawbale house look like? The answer is truly-whatever
you want. From southwestern Santa Fe style, to north-country alpine approaches,
to sleek urban designs, today's architects and owner/builders are thinking
beyond the box and shaping bale structures in response to climate and regional
traditions and to suit their personal aesthetic preferences. Look within these
pages to discover a wide spectrum of design ideas, plus building insights and
hindsights from all across North America. The preferred house of the
twenty-first century just might be a strawbale home.
The New
Strawbale Home
BUILDING WITH BALES has begun to enter the
mainstream, yet many people still wonder, "What
does a strawbale house look like?" The New
Strawbale Home provides the answer, which is truly, "anything you want!"
Innovative architects and owner/builders are reinventing this century-old
technology to create thick-walled modern houses of surpassing beauty. Their initial
choice often stems from the desire to build an ecological and healthy home, and
the result also saves on energy bills and encourages personal creativity.
The New Strawbale Home compiles floor plans and images from forty
cutting-edge homes across North America, from California to Quebec, New Mexico to New
England. It showcases a spectrum of regional styles and personal aesthetic
choices,
including urban homes that enhance their neighborhoods, home office
solutions, family havens, country homes and hideaways.
This practical book also discusses varying climate considerations and
essential design details for problem-free construction and low maintenance.
Chapters include information on budget matters, code compliance, siting and energy
efficiency, structural systems, and finishing touches. The New
Strawbale Home also offers valuable insights and
hindsights of architects, contractors, and owner/ builders, plus an extensive
resource section.
Author and photographer Catherine Wanek organized the building of a strawb
ale greenhouse in 1992 and has been an advocate ever since. She produced and
directed the Building with Straw video series and spent five years publishing
and editing The Last Straw Journal. The coauthor of The Art of Natural Building,
she lives in Kingston, New Mexico.


wes

The New Strawbale Home Catherine Wanek Publisher Cost 39.95 Gibbs Smith www.gibbssmith.com
(Excerpt from the newly published book with permission by Gibbs Smith the publisher from Introduction )