In The Beginning there was ... you only get to start with darkness and void if you're God. Everyone else, please stand in line for your paperwork.
You need to start with a plan. It will change, and it won't turn out quite the way you thought it would, but you still need one.
Our neighborhood. As you can see, we don't exactly live in the wide-open spaces.
Like everyone else on our street, we have a long narrow lot. The studio is at the far back left corner, to provide as much quiet and isolation from the hubbub of the main house as possible.
The main floor plan of what will intentionally be a simple structure. Note the thickness of the strawbale walls relative to the overall size of the building.
Upper Left: back wall, which abuts trees so you can't actually see it. Upper Right: view from the garden. Lower Left: view from our neighbor's yard, obstructed by a high fence. Lower Right: the front, as viewed from the main house.
The interior views. These appear to be mirror images of the exterior views, but that's just because you're looking at the walls from the other side.
Look carefully at the total square footage: 199.33. The maximum allowed by our zoning is 200 s.f. so even a single inch longer or wider would have put us over the limit.
The licensed architect seal and signature.
The engineering sign-off.
And last, but most important of all -- Building Department approval to start construction. The last line is critical: "allowing strawbale".
2008-02-18 - Our backyard, just before breaking ground. We've lived in this house for two years, and this is the first time we thought to take pictures back here.
2008-02-18 - This used to be a lawn, but we stopped watering and let it go to weeds long ago -- no point in wasting water on grass that was going to be dug up anyway.
2008-02-18 - The construction crew went to work right away, laying out the foundation footings and starting to dig.
2008-02-18 - Excavation.
2008-02-18 - More excavation. As will happen throughout the project, the work crew is being "supervised" by our kids.
2008-02-18 - Bringing in windows and doors that were salvaged from another building. This not only saves resources, but we like the windows better and they're much cheaper than new ones.
2008-02-18 - More windows.
2008-02-18 - Continuing excavation. You can now see the size of the building, which we would have liked to make a little bigger to compensate for the thickness of strawbale walls, but we are in an urban area and this was the biggest footprint allowed by the zoning regulations. Once this structure is up as an example, perhaps we can get the regulations changed for the next folks who do this.
2008-02-18 - It wouldn't be a real project without paperwork.
2008-02-18 - Putting up a building is hard work. Here a couple members of the crew take a well-earned break
2008-02-19 - Delivery of foundation materials. What you can't see from this photo is how carefully we watched these trucks to make sure the raised beds didn't whack the rather expensive rooftop photovoltaic system that overhangs a little bit into the driveway.
2008-02-20 - And then it rained. And rained. And rained. Covering half the backyard in plastic wasn't exactly our idea of being environmentally friendly, but if we hadn't done it the footing trenches would have turned to mud and collapsed.
2008-02-25 - Even Noah eventually saw the clouds part.
2008-02-26 - Preparing the forms for the foundation pour.
2008-02-26 - There will be a pergola outside the door, and each post needs its own foundation.
2008-02-26 - This looks odd but it's actually where the entryway will be; almost like a little porch. Without putting a little notch in the building here, it would have been too big to get zoning approval.
2008-02-27 - The red tubes are for hydronic (radiant floor) heating. We're not currently planning to use them, but it's virtually impossible to go back and add them later so we hedged our bets by installing them now in case we ever change our minds.
2008-02-27 - You never know what you're going to find once you start digging. If you look closely at the side of the trench, a few inches below grade, you can see a layer of asphalt that we had no idea was there. It must have been buried for decades before we uncovered it. Inspired by this discovery we started sifting through much of the excavated dirt looking for gold, silver, or precious gemstones, but alas all we found were old bottles and rubbish.
2008-02-27 - Some people are do-it-yourselfers, but I can't imagine doing this without a crew of skilled craftspeople. Besides, I have to show up at my own job sort of like, every day.
2008-02-27 - It's a good thing our kids were in school while this was going on.
2008-02-27 - "Floating in" some decorative tiles.
2008-02-28 - Visible progress!
2008-02-28 - This will be the entry/porch area. The metal bracket on the lower left is for one of the pergola posts.
2008-02-28 - You have to have expansion joints anyway, so you might as well incorporate them into an attractive design. This spiral appears to rotate clockwise, which visually draws you into the building as you walk in the door.
2008-03-04 - Adding the sills. This will be a strawbale building, but for seismic engineering purposes it is considered to be structurally "post-and-beam." The metal brackets will eventually tie the posts and seismic bracing to the foundation. Remember, we live in between the San Andreas and Hayward faults, and we don't want our studio to fall over.
2008-03-05 - Adding the posts. These will bear the weight of the roof.
2008-03-05 - We don't rely on any wimpy toenailing nonsense here: look at the size of those big hunky bolts. You can also see the double sills in this picture, which gives you an idea of how thick the walls are going to be.
2008-03-05 - It's amazing how much wood goes into even a strawbale structure. This is all either FSC-certified or reclaimed lumber.
2008-03-05 - Once you have the posts, you add the beams. Voilà: post-and-beam.
2008-03-07 - This is only the second time in the last 50 years that I've been involved in assembling something whose bolts are bigger than a telephone.
2008-03-07 - We begin to realize how taaall the buildling is going to be.
2008-03-08 - The pergola begins to take shape.
2008-03-10 - The crew at work.
2008-03-10 - Mixing children and a construction site - very educational, but don't try this at home.
2008-03-11 - With the ridge beam up, you can see how high the building will be.
2008-03-11 - More beams on the pergola.
2008-03-11 - Next, the rafters go up.
2008-03-11 - Further additions to the pergola.
2003-03-11 - Even a strawbale structure involves a lot of carpentry.
2008-03-12 - Continuing work on the roof.
2008-03-12 - Installation of the rafter tails (painted white) on both sides, and some blocking along the eaves and the ridge beam.
2008-03-12 - On the left you can see the special framing where the skylight will be installed.
2008-03-12 - The view from the interior, looking out the future doorway and down the length of the pergola.
2008-03-12 - I'm really glad somebody drew up the plans for all this ahead of time.
2008-03-12 - You can paint things after they're up in the air over your head, or you can do it the easy way.
2008-03-13 - Addition of the steel cross-bracing. This ensures seismic stability when the earth decides to rock-and-roll.
2008-03-13 - The steel straps are bolted to steel brackets, which are in turn bolted to the concrete foundation. I won't be surprised if this structure turns out to be stronger than the main house.
2008-03-18 - The sides of the building already had eaves, and now the ends do too.
2008-03-18 - The space between the double sills is filled with clean gravel, then covered with fabric to keep the gravel clean. This will form the base of the strawbales, so drainage and moisture control are crucial details.
2008-03-18 - The sheathing on the roof, from the underside. The hole for the skylight will be cut later.
2008-03-18 - The roof sheathing, from the outside.
2008-03-20 - Around the edges, where it will be visible, we use wooden boards instead of manufactured sheathing.
2008-03-20 - The undersides of the boards were all painted before putting them up.
2008-03-22 - The roof now has tarpaper and gutters.
2008-03-22 - The eaves shaping up.
2008-03-26 - The skylight is installed. This will bring north light into the studio, as well as providing a roof vent to enable natural ventilation.
2006-03-26 - The beginning of the inner wall framing. On the left side of the picture you can see two sets of posts and beams; the space between them will be filled with strawbales.
2006-03-28 - Extending the top-of-bale framing.
2008-03-29 - The roof gets some insulation. Along the bottom left you can also see some framing for the storage loft.
2008-03-29 - If you look closely at the rafters, you can see the rows of nails that will help to hold the insulation in place.
2008-03-29 - This is where the sink drain will penetrate the foundation. It also shows the gravel which fills the space between the double sills to ensure good moisture control inside the stack of strawbales that will rest on top of it.
2008-03-31 - After over a month of work on constructing a strawbale building, some actual strawbales finally appear.
2008-03-31 - That's as far as she goes. At the upper left corner it looks like the bales are about to hit the solar panels, and that's no optical illusion. The driver really did - very carefully - get them within a couple of inches of each other.
2008-03-31 - The first step was to offload them from the truck into our driveway.
2008-04-01 - No, that's not a new car parked on our deck.
2008-04-01 - The first course of strawbales is put in by the contractor's crew.
2008-04-01 - The Three Little Pigs would be proud.
2008-04-01 - Here you can see how the strawbales fit perfectly onto the double-sill-and-gravel base. You can also see the nails that help to anchor the bales to the foundation and prevent them from shifting.
2008-04-01 - The strawbales need to be notched to fit snugly around the posts. In this design, the bales serve as insulation but are not themselves load-bearing.
2008-04-01 - The framing for the loft storage area is completed.
2008-04-01 - The loft area is now partially planked. This will give us a storage area that makes efficient use of the space over both the desk/drawing-table work area and the outdoor entryway.
2008-04-01 - Once there is exposed straw, and before there is any protective plaster present, we have to "tent" the whole building to make sure the straw stays dry. (Remember, "It never rains in California ... man, it pours.")
2008-04-03 - Straw is great insulation, but the windows still need some conventional wood framing to anchor them to the structure.
2008-04-03 - On the rear left you see the "ceiling" of the entryway, and slightly above that is the deck of the storage loft.
2008-04-07 - There is always some excavation debris that needs to be hauled away, but we tried to minimize it.
2008-04-07 - A used sink enclosure, which will gain a new life (with a bigger recycled sink) in the studio.
2008-04-07- The rear window, and some rough electrical installation.
2008-04-07 - The framing for the big front window. The window itself is visible in the lower rear left of the picture.
2008-04-07 - The remaining dirt from the foundation excavation. The rest has already been sifted through those screens in the center of the picture, to be used in the plaster that will protect the strawbales. (You may notice that our garage has no back wall - it was like that when we bought the house.)
2008-04-08 - A plug for our contractor.
2008-04-08 - Roughing in the electrical, with lots of wire ...
2008-04-08 - ... and lots of boxes. It's amazing how much electrical stuff you need even in a one-room building.
2008-04-08 - If you look closely you can see two rafters much larger than the others. These will be visible after the ceiling is closed up.
2008-04-11 - All the window framing is in place.
2008-04-11 - Ready for bale-raising!
2008-04-11 - The audience (at our free talk at City Hall, the night before bale-raising) looks over the literature we had available.
2008-04-11 - A representative of the California Straw Building Association was there.
2008-04-11 - The speakers prepare their presentations. Michele Landegger (our contractor) is 2nd from the left, and Noel Cross (our architect) is in the middle.
2008-04-12 - Workshop day dawns clear and warm, and we put out the welcome sign for the participants.
2008-04-12 - Janine displays some of her books and literature for people to look at (not that we'll have much time for reading).
2008-04-12 - The studio, basking in the morning sunlight and ready to be baled.
2008-04-12 - The crew gathers to begin work. Some are workshop attendees who are here to learn, but we also have a critical mass of experienced experts to instruct and keep things on track - plus one reporter taking pictures for the local newspaper.
2008-04-12 - The bales need to be positioned accurately, but they are not delicate. Climbing on top of them is often the best way to seat them securely.
2008-04-12 - Exploring all perspectives as work gets into full swing.
2008-04-12 - The most important part of any workday. In keeping with the project theme, lunch comes from Whole Foods.
2008-04-12 - Our architect (Noel Cross, left) explains the details of green building techniques to our city councilman (Pierluigi Oliverio, right).
2008-04-12 - Nobody lets me use the chainsaw.
2008-04-12 - A little foot action is sometimes needed to get the bales to cooperate.
2008-04-12 - Notching the corner of a bale with a bale-saw.
2008-04-12 - This bale isn't big enough for both of us.
2008-04-12 - Dhonyot uses "The Persuader" to position a bale. He's been doing this for years and probably has more experience laying strawbale than anyone else in California.
2008-04-12 - A tight spot between the door and a window proves especially troublesome, and it calls for careful measurement before cutting the bales to the exact size needed.
2008-04-12 - The kids get a birds-eye view of the entire process.
2008-04-12 - They may be "just" straw, but those bales are heavier than they look. Using bale-hooks makes them a lot easier to handle.
2008-04-12 - Rosemary threads string into a bale-needle.
2008-04-12 - The Persuader is called into action again.
2008-04-12 - Noel re-ties a bale. Compressing the bales is important, and manual tying often gets them tighter than the baling machine did.
2008-04-12 - We gradually work our way through the original 105-bale pile.
2008-04-12 - Cutting another corner notch. On a building this small, it seems like almost every bale has to be resized or notched - or both - to fit its specific location.
2008-04-12 - Here you get a good look at the tool used to cut the bales. Never come between a woman and her bale-saw. :-)
2008-04-12 - Attacking the work from a different angle.
2008-04-12 - The Persuader seems to be everybody's favorite tool.
2008-04-12 - The crew cuts a center notch. This is necessary everywhere a bale rests against one of the support beams, which happens a lot.
2008-04-12 - The walls gradually get higher, and you need to work them from both sides to get them straight. We are fortunate to have a very hands-on architect who joins the crew at the jobsite to really get to know the materials and techniques.
2008-04-12 - Where'd it go?
2008-04-12 - While most of the crew works on raising bales, we do some "parallel processing" by adding more insulation up around the roof. These are blocks of recycled blue jeans.
2008-04-12 - Nuria disucsses the fine points of "stickers" with the kids.
2008-04-12 - Threading a bale needle, which is needed to push strings through the middle of the bales before custom-sizing them.
2008-04-12 - The bales are tightly compressed, so pushing a bale-needle all the way through one requires a lot of force.
2008-04-12 - All the leftover loose straw - and the work generates a lot of it - has to be cleaned up. No smoking on the jobsite!
2008-04-12 - Janine Björnson, our Natural Plasters expert, begins a demonstration of how to test your recipe.
2008-04-12 - Earth plasters look a lot like mud. Hmmmm, this could have real potential.
2008-04-12 - Mixing a trial recipe.
2008-04-12 - Laying down a test application of a plaster recipe.
2008-04-12 - It's important to try out multiple recipes, because every soil is different and the results are not entirely predictable.
2008-04-12 - Everybody gets to stick their hands in it to see what the correct consistency feels like.
2008-04-12 - The audience watches with rapt attention.
2008-04-12 - A good day's work, viewed from the outside ...
2008-04-12 - ...and from the inside. All those little loops of string hanging out of the walls will be used to fasten the bamboo "pins" later.
