In 2021, Mathieu Munsch walked away from the “normal” script— rent, bills, loans, a regular job— and headed for a sloping meadow in northeast France to build something radically simple: a small home made from the earth under his feet, wood from nearby, and straw bales from local farmers. He kept it to 50 m² … Read more
The Canelo Project, a family ranch in Sonoita, Arizona, uses the most basic of resources, dirt and straw, to build houses. Bill and Athena Steen, the husband and wife team that founded the project in 1989, use strawbales as the building blocks for their homes. They stitch together the bales, and plaster them with a … Read more
“We all grew up with the Three Little Pigs,” Greg Bossie says. “So people have a lot of misconceptions about the viability of straw as a building component.” But no one’s huffing, puffing, and blowing houses down that are constructed or renovated by Rare Forms, a unique construction company that Bossie founded in 2020. “We … Read more
Southern Oregon Climate Action Now launched its premier Green Business Recognition ceremony with a “green ribbon cutting” at a four-plex built out of straw bales in Ashland, Oregon. Lydia Doleman of Earth Dragon Natural Building said the company’s project was “to install the first multifamily straw bale building in Oregon. It’s got tons of unique … Read more
Minnesota appears to be the first US state on the path to adopting the newest official residential building codes featuring hempcrete and strawbale. The nine-member Technical Advisory Group voted in favor of hempcrete and strawbale, said advocates who had to appear before the advisory board twice with significant revisions to finally get approval. “When we … Read more
What if we could effectively store millions of tons of carbon in a way that helps solve America’s housing crisis, creates jobs, and boosts manufacturing — all at once? A report issued by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) sheds light on manufacturing building products from up-cycled biomass that’s already abundant across the United States. RMI’s … Read more