[strawbale] Happy reading

[m.ep@laposte...]

Hi, 

I received this email yesterday and felt it is worth sharing. 
For those who don't know, TLS is The Last Straw (the worlds best magazine on SB and some other natural building). And Judy Knox is the one who (with her partner in crimes Matts Myhrman) started TLS. Mark Piepkorn has been a TLS editor.

Happy reading

Mark Piepkorn wrote:
I'm sitting in a camper in a campground with a laptop working on a 
long-needed redesign of the TLS website (which won't be done and uploaded 
for at least another week), and just had the opportunity to re-read a piece 
that Judy Knox wrote back in '96 for the first resources issue. I was 
particularly moved by some of her words in the second part of the article, 
which ring as true today as they did then. Truer! 

I thought some of you might enjoy reading this again. 

And if anybody wants to forward it to the CREST list, g'head. I'd 
do it myself, but not having a phone line anymore and hence only sporadic 
access to the 'net and email, I had to get off that high-volume group. 
Since I'm not joined up to it, I can't post to it. 

Oh, and also, people on that list (and maybe this) would 
appreciate some photos of a low-tech bale retrofit project in Maryland, 
along with some shots of a new SB addition on the same house. They're at 
http://www.potkettleblack.com/misc/sam1.html (it's Sam Droege's place, who 
some may remember from the CREST list if they've been around for a while, 
or from the '98 Colloquium East if they were there). 

Sam embodies the spirit of an excellent essay by Rod Miner with 
Marty Stomberg, also from the pages of TLS, which can be found reprinted on 
the web at http://www.strawhomes.com/main/back/21_1.html 

----- 

Knowledge In The Making 
by Judy Knox - Tucson, Arizona 
Issue #15, Summer 1996 

A Resource Directory for Straw-Bale Construction; 
it's certainly grown into a necessity, and promises 
to be one of the most useful issues of TLS ever 
produced. As with any directory, however, it's 
functional when you need to access specific 
information, but can be pretty boring fare in the 
eyes of some beholders. 

My eyes may be a bit more "straw-crossed" than 
most, but when I behold this compilation of people, 
tools, materials, information systems, and 
collaborative support networks, I see a brilliant 
kaleidoscope of people's creativity, curiosity, 
mistakes, risks, changed choices, cooperation, 
courage and commitment... weaving and 
connecting into designs that we may never fully 
understand or replicate, but which have, from the 
beginning of this modern-day straw renaissance, 
inspired our growing community to stretch and to 
reach toward new visions of what is possible. 

Seven years ago, as Matts Myhrman's article 
"Ruminations of a Hunter-Gatherer" [see page 32] 
reveals, the information base for straw-bale 
construction was as sparse as the numbers of 
people who even knew it was an option. Those few 
people, as well as the straw-bale houses they built, 
were widely scattered around the United States 
and Canada, with little or no awareness of each 
other. 

Their predecessors - the early 1900's Nebraska 
straw-bale homes, and those surviving pioneers 
who built them, lived in them and remembered 
them - were scattered in isolated pockets of the 
Sandhills. Roger Welsch's valuable research about 
them, reprinted in Shelter (1973), connected 
readers of that book to historic straw-bale 
structures, and kindled the mostly private 
imaginations of others to discover more. Welsch's 
article guided Matts and I on our first research trip 
to the Sandhills in August of 1989, where we 
documented the homes, memories and stories of 
these straw-bale pioneers. They were generally 
unaware that anyone else beyond their ken had 
built with straw bales, and surprised that others 
would be interested in their experiences. 

I see the most far-reaching effect of our Nebraska 
roots in the way we have thus far perceived the 
technology and its fast-growing information base 
as public domain. Here's the formula for our 
community-based revival: gather the existing 
information, use it - with your own innovations - to 
build with bales, record what did and didn't work, 
and pass that information on to others. Today, this 
culture of inclusiveness and grassroots 
participation at every level of both growing and 
using our collection of resources is the beating 
heart of the straw-bale construction revival. 

In 1989 the sum total of compiled and distributable 
information consisted of the Shelter article; a Fine 
HomeBuilding article about an architect's straw 
-bale studio in Winters, California; two articles in 
Mother Earth News; David Bainbridge's working 
paper on straw-bale construction; and some local 
newspaper or newsletter reports. That was just 
about it, other than the scattered buildings 
themselves and the knowledge and images stored 
in the minds and photo albums of the people 
connected to them. 

>From 1989 through 1991, information was 
gathered and distributed in very word-of-mouth, 
hands-on ways. People like Bill and Athena Steen, 
Steve Kemble and Carol Escott, Virginia Carabelli, 
Tony Perry, Matts and I, and others, began building 
and experimenting with straw-bale construction in 
New Mexico and Arizona. Matts and I would often 
show our historic slides, adding current ones as 
more buildings were built. Growing groups of 
people showed up for wall-raisings, and, as word 
spread, we began showing our "straw and piggy 
show" to more and more groups and 
organizations. Simultaneously, Matts injected his 
enthusiasm and knowledge through phone lines, 
letters, visits - connecting people and information 
with tireless zeal. He pursued every lead on other 
straw-bale structures and/or people who might 
know anything about them. Our file cabinets began 
to bulge with straw-bale information. He wrote 
articles about what we had learned so far and 
published them. A short bibliography, and then a 
"cobbed together" information packet were 
developed to meet the growing requests for 
information. Soon, some of us began teaching 
workshops as a way of distributing the growing 
information-base, which required us to develop 
some teaching materials. Matts and I produced the 
brief Straw Bales for Shelter video, while Steve 
and Carol began planning their introductory video, 
The Elegant Solution. David Bainbridge (who had 
been loving and researching straw-bale buildings 
longer than any of us), along with Bill and Athena, 
planned to produce the first simple information 
booklet, while Steve MacDonald and his son Orien 
began work on the first Straw-Bale Primer. 

As Matts and I headed for the Sandhills of 
Nebraska for our second research trip in the 
summer of 1991, there was a small but growing 
straw-bale community, excited about participating 
in this grassroots revival. Straw-bale construction 
was not the primary involvement for any of us 
(though Matts was fast approaching his full-time 
bliss!), and none of us could have predicted the 
tidal wave headed our way which would threaten to 
engulf our lives, and would change them forever. In 
a few short months, interest in straw-bale 
construction would be kindled into wildfires 
nationwide, fueled by a media coverage blitz. Our 
principal challenge would become how to compile 
and transfer the rapidly-growing information base 
into adequate information resources, and develop 
distribution systems quickly enough to meet the 
explosive public demand without being totally 
overwhelmed in the process. 


The Gospel According to Judy 

Five years later, as TLS approaches the 
completion of its fourth year of uninterrupted 
quarterly publication, including this 15th, resource- 
packed issue, I have a few thoughts and 
ruminations about the straw-bale revival and 
growing our wisdom and knowledge as straw-bale 
resource providers and users: 

* Straw-bale construction carries its own power to 
excite people's interest and to transform the lives 
of people who use it. There is something about 
straw-bale construction that touches our deepest 
yearnings and reconnects us to our personal 
source of power. Straw-bale resource providers 
are not the message, only the messengers. 

* Straw-bale construction is a dynamic, fast- 
changing technology. Its grassroots-grown 
information and resources are only a composite of 
many people's experience, including some 
research and testing, of what works and doesn't in 
differing situations and environments. Just as straw 
-bale construction is one choice among 
appropriate construction methods, its resources 
are choices or options for how to build with straw 
bales, rather than "the way" to do things. 

* Our work as resource providers is most powerful 
when inspiring resource users to fully and 
responsibly participate as straw-bale innovators 
and community members. 

* Good resource providers have a primary 
responsibility to remain actively informed and 
engaged in the fast-changing information and 
resource network. That includes doing the work of 
"the commons", i.e. that work that benefits the 
whole straw-bale community, present and future, 
but that does not necessarily bring immediate 
personal gain. 

* Resource users have a primary responsibility to 
be accountable for their own choices, thoroughly 
checking on the reliability and competency of 
resource providers, and choosing appropriate 
information and human resources as a tool to 
guide their own problem-solving process. 

* Resource providers and users are most 
empowered by straw-bale construction when 
choices about which resources to use and which 
people to work with are clearly connected to 
essential values. For a straw-bale designer/builder 
who left conventional building behind because of 
its destructive environmental consequences, a 
7000sf straw-bale home with a four-car garage that 
your potential client wants may be equally 
inappropriate and harmful. For an owner/builder 
who is just rediscovering the "I Can", a straw-bale 
"expert" who is telling you "the way" to do things as 
though you have little of value to contribute may 
shatter your fragile confidence with a shrug or 
raised brow. You deserve an advocate, so find 
one. 

* Both straw-bale resource providers and users 
must be realistic and honest with each other about 
what to expect, what is offered, and what is doable 
according to the circumstances. Taking the time to 
come to absolute clarity with each other is time well 
spent in the long run. 

Now, in the summer of 1996, the information and 
resource base for straw-bale construction 
continues to grow rapidly, but even more dramatic 
are the changing needs and opportunities that 
continually challenge the usefulness, dependability 
and availability of these resources. There's lots of 
new information pouring in, with people climbing on 
board to teach, build, design and innovate. The 
moment of choice nears, whether this powerful 
straw-bale alternative can include this new rush of 
people and energy, while holding firmly to its deep, 
nourishing grassroots. 

Crucially, I see the inclusive and transformative 
power of this revival dependent on the degree to 
which each and every participant becomes both a 
learner and a teacher, both a resource user and a 
resource provider. 



The Last Straw 
http://www.strawhomes.com 
http://www.thelaststraw.org 



* 

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Information Center on ECO-LOGIC Habitat

Andre & Coralie de Bouter
Le Trezidoux
16290 Champmillon
Charente, France 
Tel. (0)5 45 66 27 68 

m.ep@laposte...
www.la-maison-en-paille.com

We are currently building our Straw Bale house/'hotel' to receive people for guided tours, Straw Bale workshops, as well as other workshops.
We offer multimedia presentations on SB construction and are working on a (copyright free) CDrom on Natural Construction.