Light Straw-Clay with Japanese Timber Frame

This is elegant Japanese style timberframe by Robert Laporte. Once the timberframe is in place, plywood forms are filled with straw tossed with a clay slip, and bamboo reinforcing rods inserted. The moist and pliable straw-clay material is then packed down with 2x4s and feet. When the forms are removed within a day or two, the result is a beautiful, insulating wall eight to twelve inches thick, that gradually dries over several months.

It is then finished outside with wood siding or earth stucco, and inside with earth plaster. This home is at the Black Range Lodge in Kingston, New Mexico.

Light straw-clay as a bulding method goes back hundreds of years; it was popular in old Europe (often finished with whitewash over the stucco), where homes still stand in good repair after 700-800 years. The mixture of straw and clay is essentially fireproof, insectproof, and with a "good hat" and a "good pair of boots" to protect from moisture, such a house is practically indestructible. Something to consider with longevity of use of resources.