Straw structure to support farm
A building composed mostly from a clay mixture, wood posts and straw bales will be constructed to keep Student Organic Farm interns and volunteers sheltered from the elements.
The sustainable straw bale structure will serve as a storage space, educational resource center and a place of refuge for farm laborers when dark clouds creep in.
“This is exciting in that it will demonstrate to students and the public that it is feasible to build attractive structures with low cost and recycle materials,” said Jennifer Reeve, assistant professor of organic and sustainable structure, and adviser over the student farm.
The entire supply of straw bale needed to construct this 24-foot-long and 15-foot-wide building has been donated by other USU research farms in Cache Valley, said Ashley Workman, an intern for the student farm and initiator of the straw bale structure idea. She said the one-room building will cost approximately $2,500-$3,000, and $1,000 of this total has already been donated by the USU Sustainability Council. The contributors of the remaining funds have not yet been determined.
“It’ll be a warm and welcoming and very earthy place,” Workman said. “When it has rained or snowed in the past, we just get soaked through when we’re working. Having a well-insulated, dry building would be great. Farmers don’t stop for the weather.”
Sara Hunt, also an intern for the student farm, said the plan to have the building done by the end of October if everything goes as planned. She said with the help of engineering students who created the blueprints for the building and volunteers to construct the building, the final product will be an enduring building that exemplifies sustainability.
“It will be small, but it’s not like the big bad wolf will be able to blow it down,” Hunt said. “It’s important that the straw bales are dry when we start so the straw doesn’t mold from the outside. If it’s wet, it will decompose.”
Reeve said she worries that the sprinkler irrigation system threatens to douse the straw bales that must be kept dry, but because there is limited space on the student farm, there aren’t many options.
The building will not use electricity, and will feature glass bottles built into the structure in addition to the windows to let light in, Hunt said.
Though a straw bale structure’s cost is appealing to the student farm, which thrives on donations, there are some hurdles that must be overcome to complete the building. Jack Green, a member of USU’s sustainability staff, said a lot of sweat will go into the facility, and materials to build it are not easy to find, especially with the budget the student farm has to work with.
“It is very labor intensive,” Green said. “It takes a lot of grunt work, if you will, to make it work. a lot of folks haven’t worked with straw bale, so they are kind of shooting in the dark initially. Just the novelty of it, the strangeness of it, will be the struggle.”
The student farm’s straw bale structure will not be the first in Cache Valley. Green assisted the construction of a greenhouse composed of straw bale for Logan High School. A man in Avon constructed his house this way as well, Workman said.
Necessary procedures to build the structure are mostly simplistic, Workman said, and with the help Green and others who are experienced in working with straw bale, the volunteers may be able to complete the building over the course of a few weekends.
Construction of a straw bale structure begins by planting posts four feet in the ground into gravel. Then a rammed earth foundation is created made from nine parts dirt and one part gravel. This layer is covered with chicken wire and then the layers continue until they are one foot above the ground, Workman said. Wood beams create the shell of the building and straw bales are stacked to fill the spaces in between. These straw bales are then bound together by large metal wires that resemble staples. A plaster made from clay is packed onto the straw bales and beams, which is then sealed. This is what gives straw bale structures an adobe look, Workman said.
“If we do the clay right and seal it, the structure will last for a long time,” Workman said. “It’s a new and trendy thing to do in California, and people build their houses this way.”
She said anyone willing to donate their time and get their hands dirty is welcome to be a part of the new building’s construction.
– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu