The Last Straw: A Straw Bale Home Built With Native American Wisdom
(Page 3 of 4)
May/June 1999
By Laurel Lund
The design also pays homage to the 1930s log cabin originally on the site. “The cabin roof had burned and the logs had rotted,” Bennett says, “so we dismantled the structure and erected our straw-bale home in the footprint of the old cabin. This preserved land that hadn’t already been disturbed by human use and left the meadow untouched, pristine.”
RELATED CONTENT
New resources and cutting-edge tools make creating an energy-efficient home easy. These simple step...
Energy Star lighting can save you time and money....
Used motor oil can be a contaminant or be used as an energy source....
Healthy, slow-cooked, early American dishes....
Only the cabin’s beautifully hand-crafted stone fireplace remains, which the couple sealed off as an energy-conservation measure, but allowed to become the focal point of the home’s interior. “We preserved the fireplace as an important historical and sculptural element,” Bennett says. “Sealing it off is a reminder that this is an unsustainable, and, therefore archaic, form of heating.”
The actual design is based on using building materials that meet the multiple criteria of beauty, function, and environmental sensitivity. They also had to be non-toxic and highly insulative for this high-altitude setting.
Straw-bale construction was the obvious medium for the home’s architectural artistry. “Straw is a super-insulated, renewable resource that has four-plus times the fire retardency of conventional building materials, and, above all, is beautiful,” says Bennett. Before being lathed and plastered, straw bales also can be easily contoured into the sensuous shapes seen in the home, shapes that encourage dramatic plays of light and shadow.
Baling out
Once the bales were purchased and placed in position, Wakeman—an innovative environmental engineer—fashioned 4-foot-long stainless-steel needles to sew them together with lathing, a two-person process that came naturally to Bennett, a talented weaver of Navajo tapestries.
Next, the bales were covered with stucco, to which straw and iron oxide were added to create a deep, rich, earthy tone that echoes the palette of the woods surrounding the mountain meadow.
Also repeating the natural tones of the environment are the warm hues of the wood trusses that are part of the home’s post-and-beam construction. Made of shredded Douglas fir that has been glued together without toxic formaldehyde, the trusses met the couple’s multiple environmental criteria for beauty, function, and eco-sensitivity. “They’re twice as strong as Douglas fir planking,” says Bennett, “allowing us to have long, unsupported spans of space. And unlike dimensional lumber, shredded lumber utilizes the entire tree so huge beams can be made from small farmed trees rather than old-growth stands.”
Sustainability with sophistication. Energy efficiency with élan. Bennett’s straw-bale home has it all, by design. This artist’s aerie is truly a canvas that reflects nature’s palette, as well as the artist’s own.