Eileen Sutherland shares highlights from the UP STRAW 2020 Yearbook, as this pioneering pan-European project putting straw on the public and urban building map enters its final phases this spring and summer. Read more

Sophie Paterson reviews a valuable new addition to any natural building bookshelf in the form of A Complete Guide to Straw Bale Building by Rikki Nitzkin and Maren Termens, published by Permanent Publications earlier this month. Read more

This is part 2 of an interview with Paul Jennings, who has built his own straw-bale house and lives with his family on a smallholding in Carmarthenshire in Wales. They were able to build their house via the One Planet Development (OPD) policy in Wales. Here’s part 1 of the interview. Read more

This is an informal chat with Phil Christopher of Huff & Puff Construction. He’s a natural builder who has registered his business with the Open Credit Network. He sees mutual credit as a way to build an alternative economy – sustainable, based on small- and medium-sized businesses, and embedded in communities. We talk about ways… Continue reading Natural building and mutual credit: Phil Christopher of Huff & Puff Construction Read more

As the winter months approach here in the UK, natural builder Ziggy Liloia of The Year of Mud goes back to basics to explore the differences between insulation and thermal mass, and why they matter. Read more

Sigi Koko of Down to Earth Design shares her tips and tricks for how to plaster straw-bale walls with clay, this time tackling the second coat. Read more

Hosted by the UK for the first time last month, Lowimpact.org’s Sophie Paterson shares her reflections on the European Straw Bale Gathering 2019. Read more

Sigi Koko of Down to Earth Design shares her top tips for how to plaster straw-bale walls with clay, beginning with the first, or base, coat. Read more

Low-impact forestry hub and much more besides, the Hilliyfield are looking for volunteers to help with their barn-building project on Dartmoor this summer. Doug King-Smith tells us more. Read more

… and a special offer for our readers! We hear from Eileen Sutherland of The School of Natural Building about the straw-bale building event of the year, happening for the first time in the UK this summer. Read more

We hear from Joe Duirwyn of Hartwyn about a fantastic free natural building learning opportunity running from June to September 2019. Read more

We talk with Paul Chatterton of LILAC community in Leeds about what’s different when it comes to mutual home ownership societies in community-led housing. Read more

The European Straw Bale Gathering is heading to the UK for the very first time in August 2019. Learn all about it here. Read more

Leading straw-bale builder Barbara Jones shares news of an exciting opportunity to develop a growing design company in the natural building world. The author of Building with Straw Bales and star of our straw-bale building online course tells us more from here. Read more

This is the transcript of a talk given by Paul Jennings to the recent SBUK Big Straw Bale Gathering. Paul has built his straw-bale family home on a ‘One-Planet Development’ smallholding in Wales (costing £12,000). Read more

It’s not too late to join the biggest straw-bale building event of the year this August in Swansea. Jeffrey Hart of SBUK tells us about how you can get involved, learning all about building with straw from an impressive line-up of speakers to hands-on workshops. Read more

Rowland ran rammed earth building courses with us for years. He said then that a C-shaped, rammed earth house with straw-bales for external insulation, and as much glass on the south side and as little glass on the north side as possible, wouldn’t need any heating. We wanted to catch up with him to learn… Continue reading A south-facing, rammed earth, straw-bale-insulated house doesn’t need heating; why aren’t all new houses built this way? Read more

Natural building company Hartwyn are pleased to announce their summer 2018 free natural building internship programme is now open to applications. It’s over to Joe Duirwyn from here to tell us more. Read more

Jeffrey Hart of SBUK shares news about The Big Straw Bale Gathering speakers. A first of its kind event for all things straw-bale building related, find out who’ll be heading to Down to Earth near Swansea from 10-12 August 2018 below. Read more

Straw-bale Building UK (SBUK) presents The Big Straw Bale Gathering 2018 with the theme of sowing the inspiration, growing the industry & harvesting the knowledge of all things related to building with straw. Read more