All Things Tiny
Straw bales are stacked like bricks to form the outer shell of the home. Wood posts and beams are embedded in the straw bales to support the roof, window and door headers. Metal lath and plaster is used for interior and exterior finishes. The end result is a durable, environmentally friendly home.” – Off Grid Shelters
Continue reading about this Straw House.
If you’ve been drooling over earthen house pictures for any length of time then you’re probably torn. Which building method should you actually use?
- Cob is so beautiful. So sensual. The smooth curvaceous walls just make you want to rub your hands all over them.
- Straw bales are so sensible. They’re relatively fast to build and incredibly warm.
I used to change my mind daily from cob to strawbale and back again. After building henry the cob studio, I was madly in love and I didn’t want to miss out on that in our main house. But strawbales appealed to my logical man mind…” – Tom
Down to Earth designed this 500 SF strawbale studio apartment in Arlington, Virginia. It was built on an existing pad foundation. Walls are strawbale infill around a timber frame structure. Exterior has wood siding, while interior uses clay plaster dug from the site. Most of the interior materials were salvage or repurposed, including the windows, flooring, fixtures, and cabinets. The dormers have a planted roof to help absorb rainwater and keep the loft cool.” – Down to Earth Design
See more of this 500 Square Foot Strawbale Studio
This week I am with Andrew Morrison of Strawbale.com in Orangevale, California at a week long straw bale workshop. I will be giving you daily updates of our progress as we learn and progress on this timber frame straw bale barn. Though not tiny this “barn” has a 600 square foot footprint.” – Kent
Ziggy reports on a successful straw bale workshop.
“We just finished our awesome 10 days of the first The Year of Mud Straw Bale Workshop — what a blast. It was yet another great batch of students, and we had ample opportunity to get lots of progress made, and learn all the ins and outs to working with bales.”
Read more about this Straw Bale Workshop.
This looks like an amazing cob building workshop. Love the little building they’ve built.
“The SunDog nine day workshop is designed to teach ordinary people the skills to build their own cob cottages, from the foundation to the roof. Our projects are small, most are under 200 square feet, and geared towards attaining a high level of completion in a short amount of time.”
Read the complete Cob Building Workshop article.
This week Tiny House Blog has this tiny house in a landscape to share.
“This is a tiny house in Western Massachusetts, USA on a very fine farm (the best milk products in the region!). I love the living roof and the woodsy setting. They also built the shed next to the house – not sure of its use (outhouse?). The house is straw bale and homemade by the farmers.”
PAKSBAB, a non-profit organization, is building these earthquake resistant small houses in Pakistan. They measure 25′ by 25′ and can be built for about $2,250 in materials. Also read about PAKSBAB on Inhabitat.
