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Mike Steffen's avatar

"The future we want is built with sticks and straw." Absolutely! The low carbon future we want is also likely to be built as walkable urban environments with higher density rather than one or two story single family homes in sub-urban or rural environments. We need a sticks and straw housing construction model that works at the goldilocks density, likely involving four to six story multi-unit residential building types. Light frame wood construction is the low carbon method that is currently best suited to these building types, using prefabricated wood frame structural components. It would be great to see straw based insulation products coming into the market that can be field applied similarly to how we currently use dense packed blown in cellulose or fiberglass. That would be a real game changer in terms of providing the grounds for scaling the use of straw by-product and for further reducing the upfront carbon in the typical assemblies at these buildings. They will need testing to demonstrate fire and sound performance (we practitioners will need listings!) and ideally they will be cost competitive with the current materials.

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David A. Bainbridge's avatar

After 40 years of experience I can say straw is a beautiful way to build. Light straw clay, bales, panels, straw rich adobe, and more. Some of the straw panels have been superb but never reached a large audience. The fire resistant walls with clay, lime or other plasters are very durable with good design detail. I visited some very old straw bale buildings in Nebraska - still porividing superinsulated, quiet, and stable walls. The big bales have been used in Australia and straw bale buildings are around the world. With true cost accounting for climate change we would see many more. The Last Straw Journal has been a good way to keep up. david bainbridge

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