Tag Archives: straw bale

When a wall is looking this good you’ve got to love it!

Amidst grand sustainability strategies, the upcoming virtual green build expo and the recent corporate green build events, its sometimes easy to overlook the core basics of good green sustainable construction. I was reminded of this just this week by the nice people at Greenstone in Todmodoren, with an email and invite for their straw bale and cob building and courses this summer.

When introducing Living Building Challenge (as I did this week at the Lancs Construction Best Practice Clubs Earthday event and at GreenBuild EXPO) I love introducing concepts of biophilia to people, as often it’s new, an area not on most construction people’s sustainability radar at the moment. It’s a point in the presentations where people always come alive, ask questions and jot down the references to E.O.Wilson or Last Child in the Woods.

However, in addition to biophilic aspects in design that create better, healthier buildings to live or work in, and indeed in addition to applying biophilic considerations for temporary site accommodation, we need to understand better and promote biophilia in construction, working with natural materials that not only have no health hazards, possibly have health benefits, give real joy and satisfaction in construction as well as all the good local and community benefits.

 

Greenstone are running a series of self-contained green building courses, led by the wonderful Emma Appleton, with a focus on Straw Bale and Cob Building as part of building a new straw bale classroom at a local school in Todmorden. Courses are running in July and August, for more information contact info@greenstone-design.co.uk or check out the twitter accounts for GreenStone and Emma

Now I need to find the space in my diary and try to get to one of these courses!