This is a straw bale shed at the spitafields city farm in London
I was one of the particiapants and I edited it into a short video
thx for watching.

25 Responses

  1. This is an adaptation of cob housing. You make a clay plaster to go over the straw bales which seals them up from the weather. Then you do a lime wash over the dry clay and it will keep out any insects or vermin. These walls are incredibly dense and when the clay plaster drys its as hard as stone. The straw bale houses have been around since the 1800s in the US and Cob houses have been around for thousands of years and there are many all over Europe that are 800-900 years old and still in use.

  2. Compress the bails using Hazel stakes much more effective, and better for the enviroment as opposed to using metal wiring like that which is used in this video.

  3. You completely missed the boat here. Your comment didn’t address the logical question of why not a sloped roof to shed rain better. Anyway – the commentary on the video was explaining the insulative properties, it was quite obvious that a shed need not be heated. But a living quarters would be heated by some sort of means even in simple 0* winters of GB. I was asking why the commentary should crow about insulation when heating wasn’t a necessary topic for a shed.

  4. i used to go here as a child add the nostalgia to the sad soundind flute song and i was in tears its a shame i live so far away great vid very interesting keep up the good work

  5. the roof will leak for sure ,to fix it use a hand torch with a flat adapter , thick gloves ,peel the lap 1 inch n put the flame in the lap, move slowly then push it down with a trowel , make a small bleed n so on , the roof slop is way to flat , the way you did is fine if the slope is better then 30 degree angle n up

  6. Please, do NOT build this way. the wire mesh hung over the straw causes the plaster to separate from the straw and make a damp rot spot on the wall. The straw is plenty rough to accept plaster directly. Spray a primer coat on first, then daub or trowel the plaster to a finish depth.

    The big reason for lime plaster is NOT flexibility but breath-ability. The walls need to let vapor through but shed water.

    1. Yeah the metal oxidises. It’s a huge no no.
      A runny, clay slip mix (consistency of single cream) applied with a bristle brush would give your render coat enough of a ‘key’

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