How can we build with straw? In a workshop in Villasbuenas de Gata, Spain, Actyva-MIGA built a strawbale building for the local community. Prefabricated straw panels were made and assembled on-site. Walls were plastered with clay and lime renders.

This fourth and last week of Workshop BIØN² #1 Design&Build with Straw Bales was full of intense work, in order to be able to open the “Casita de Paja” to the local community on saturday.

This third week of workshop started with a key step: placing the cork insulated core slabs to build the roof of the “Casita de Paja”. With the help of a crane truck, we first put a 6m long ridge beam on which we installed and screwed one by one the prefabricated elements.

With the great help of the local community to move the prefab elements to the building site (one of the advantages of a rural areas is that “almost everybody” has a tractor!), we could start this week to place the straw panels onsite in order to build the walls of “La Casita de Paja”.

After several weeks of intense preparation work and uncertainty due to the Covid-19 crisis, we are finally pleased to announce that Workshop BIØN² #1 Design&Build with Straw Bales has started! Our 18 participants coming from 5 different countries (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Belgium) just arrived in the small and nice village of Villasbuenas de Gata (Cáceres, Spain), that will host the workshop from 3 to 30 august 2020.

Organized by miga – ACTYVA, from August 3rd until August 30th 2020, the workshop Design and Build with Straw Bales (prefabricated panels) will take place in the north of Extremadura (Spain) in Villasbuenas de Gata, a small village located in a privileged environment of mediterranean forest and rivers.

On July 28th 2017 the BIØN-team leaded by AK0 with the help of the local partner association Sabinarti delivered the outcome of LearnBIØN workshop#2 to the local community of Casaprota, the small town in central Italy that has hosted the workshop.

LearnBIØN workshop#2 is getting in the final face. Since a few days the little training-prototype is being wrapped with a natural insulation layer. We decided for 80mm wood-fibre panels which we protect with a diffusive yet waterproof membrane. The panels are entirely made of wood and easy to cut on site.

Time is running in Casaprota! During the third week new members joined the team and their help was very useful to complete some key goals.

We finally got the insulation panels in wood fiber and the steam barrier; putting them on site was quite fast and after that we could install the last wall layer, a quincha panel covered with earth, sand and straw just on the external surface.

The LearnBIØN course #2 focused on lightweight constructions in earth building. While the first days were dedicated to explore an adjusted version of wattle-and-daub-techniques, in a second step the workshop-participants got the possibility to learn about lightweight, monolithic walls made of straw and raw earth.

The first week of LearnBIØN course#2 Design and Build with Wattle-and-Daub and Light Straw is concluded. An enthusiastic group of participants from different countries and with different professional backgrounds have had the possibility to assess the features of locally available earth samples through empirical tests, to understand the working principle of a wattle-and-daub frames build with the quincha-technique and to accomplish all the necessary working steps for it practically.

For the project that we are planning to build in July, with the participants at LearnBIØN Workshop#2 Build and Design with wattle-and-daub and light straw and the local community of Casaprota, we still need some canes.

On Sunday 14th of May, we would like to invite you everybody to a study and work day in the middle of the Sabina hills. The one day seminar includes hands-on activity and a short theoretic introduction on building with canes.

On Thursday, 13th of April, LearnBIØN Workshop #2 (Build and Design with wattle-and-daub and light straw) has officially been lanced in Casaprota, central Italy. AK0-chairman Arch. Stefan Pollak met Marcello Ratini, mayor of Casaprota and Arch. Renato Vivaldi Tesser, chairman of SabinArti, the local partner organisation, for the project start.