Houses made of straw
Durango to host national building symposium

A straw bale house nears completion outside Durango earlier this week. The Colorado Straw Bale Association’s Sixth Annual Natural Building Conference lands in Durango this weekend. Normally held in Carbondale, event organizers selected Durango largely because of the growth in the amount and quality of natural building throughout the area./Photo by David Halterman

by John T. Rehorn

Mark Schueneman, the executive director of the Colorado Straw Bale Association (COSBA), sat in his Boulder office last March and had a face-to-face with the facts. He planned to break ground soon on his own straw bale house. On top of that, his Front Range circle of ecology-minded builders, architects and solar energy advocates had their collective eye on hosting the International Straw Bale Conference in 2009. Putting on COSBA’s annual statewide conference, usually held in Carbondale, would require a gigawatt of energy and organization. It just wasn’t in the cards for him or his Boulder crew this year.

Schueneman sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes, weary of negotiations with the local building department regarding his prospective home. “But what about the ‘07 conference?” he wondered aloud. It would be a shame to break the five-year streak of educating and encouraging builders of both the would-be and experienced varieties about the virtues of straw bale building methods.

Durango natural builder Andrew Phillips couldn’t have had better timing if he tried. Just about the time Schueneman had resigned himself to shelving the COSBA conference for a couple of years, Phillips telephoned him with the idea of holding it in Durango. Without hesitation, Schueneman told Phillips to run with it. “I was thrilled,” Schueneman said. “We have needed to bring the state together. It’s the Colorado Straw Bale Association, not the Boulder Straw Bale Association. Everybody on this side of the mountains was elated that the Durango group was taking it on.”

Phillips promptly brought on board his partner in straw, natural builder Kelly Ray Mathews. “I was talking with Kelly, and told him that when I took the straw bale home tour in Carbondale last year, I realized the work we were doing here was really different as far as using more natural materials,” Phillips said. “Wouldn’t it be fun to showcase what we do here in Durango and maybe drum up some community and regional interest?”

Before the two knew it, they had formed a core group of organizers. Six and half months and some blood and sweat later (no tears, there’s no crying in straw bale), the sixth annual COSBA Natural Building Conference has come to fruition and will kick off Saturday morning, Sept. 22, at the Smiley Building, 1309 E. Third Ave.

The voice for changing the title of the conference from “Straw Bale” to “Natural Building” came loud and strong from Mathews. Although a bona fide straw bale devotee, he thinks a responsible builder shouldn’t stop thinking “natural” after the four exterior walls of the structure have gone up. As a result, he uses natural and local materials inside as well, like locally milled lumber, natural clay and bamboo plywood to enhance the sustainability features of his homes. Building with potentially harmful materials like oriented strand board, or OSB, which is impregnated with formaldehyde, can be avoided, he says.

“The main thing we’d like to promote is taking a serious look at what we can really do to be actually sustainable,” Mathews says. “We’re taking steps locally to take that concept to the next level.”

However, the two faced a challenge in what to call the conference. For starters, over the last several years, the term “green” has become so watered down that it can mean anything in the building trade from installing energy-efficient appliances in a 6,000-square-foot trophy home to blowing an extra inch of petroleum based-insulating foam on adobe walls. Likewise, the word “sustainable” risks a similar fate. However, the truth was, whether it’s due to market demand or the unfaltering, quiet voice of conscience, more and more builders are making choices that avoid needless waste of natural resources.

“Sustainability is about being able to reproduce something generation after generation,” Mathews says. “Generally speaking, manufactured materials are not sustainable, whereas mining clay out of the ground for wall plasters, or using a waste product of food production, like straw bales, is.”

In the end, Mathews and Phillips chose the word “natural” because it had less mileage than the other adjectives. And though the host group is called Colorado Straw Bale Association, the pair saw no conflict. Straw bales are a key ingredient to mindfully built homes, Phillips explained, but why stop there?

“Our culture has a habit of becoming addicted to buzzwords,” Phillips said. “But to make people really aware of what we’re talking about, we have to keep redefining. ‘Straw Bale’ is just the buzzword that gets attention. The issue at hand is the natural-building movement.”

With the title decided, the organizing committee moved on to the theme for the conference. Carol Elston, one of several organizing committee members, came to the rescue. She penned “Natural Building: Making Choices with Integrity.”

“I like the double meaning of it,” Elston said. “The choices can be ones of integrity, or the one who is making the choices has integrity.”

Words and organization aside, Mathews and Phillips are genuinely excited about the lineup of guests who will be speaking at the conference. The spectrum of presenters will speak on topics from sustainable lifestyle choices to building choices to how these decisions can affect the world at large.

“I’m particularly excited about Toby Hemenway (Gaia’s Garden) who will be speaking about incorporating permaculture into sustainable building practices,” Mathews said. “We’ve got Kelly Lerner talking about the aspects of how what we do here in America affects the people in China. And Flemming Abrahamsson, all the way from Denmark, is just this brilliant guy who is able to produce with his hands what’s in his head.”

Even though the main topic is somewhat of a niche, Phillips added, the keynoters will address the larger social and ecological issues at hand. “I hope that people who aren’t professional builders don’t exclude themselves because they think it’s going to be too technical,” he said. “Sure, there will be some technical things, but there will also be a lot of hands-on learning workshops, like building straw bale walls, retying bales ... all the basics.”

In addition to learning from some of the most cutting-edge pioneers in the straw bale and natural building movement, participants will have a selection of topics and speakers to listen to in a classroom setting. Durango’s own Steve Kawell, of Durango Fine Homes, is one of several presenters for the break-out sessions. With 25 years of experience in passive solar home design and construction, Kawell said he hopes to clarify some of the terms associated with solar homes.

“There are lots of aspects to the concept of ‘solar’” Kawell said. “You’ve got ‘passive solar,’ ‘photo-voltaics,’ and so on. There is a high degree of terminology in the solar world. I’d like to help clarify the language so clients and builders can have a meaningful conversation with each other.” •