Straw & Clay, Solar & Radiant Home
Sustainability and Beauty in a Round House
Granville, Vermont, $369,000
The two straw-clay yurts at Old Stage Road in Granville, Vermont, were guided in their construction by three simple unifying principles: Seamlessly integrate local native building materials into the design. Build by hand without the use of fossil fuels and heavy equipment whenever possible. Make the home natural, beautiful and sustainable.
Our design was inspired by green builder Ianto Evans, whose Oregon cob cottages are lovingly described in the book The Hand Sculpted House. Cob, says Evans, is "a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as 'an ecstatic house.'" |
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Our idea in Granville was to build the way one would create a natural organic garden, to "use the oldest, most available materials imaginable – earth, clay, sand, straw, and water – and blend them to redefine the future of building."
We chose the unusual round yurt-like design based on other sound ancient building practices: A round house maximizes usable square footage, while minimizing the amount of construction materials needed and the home's footprint. A round house also minimizes the amount of exterior walls, which significantly improves energy efficiency and allows for maximum passive solar warming. Finally, a round design makes for a beautiful structure, a space that imitates and blends in with the natural setting. |
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We carefully chose the land on which the home was to be built. The 25 acre wooded lot we found in Granville was perfect. Its trees hadn't been harvested in many years, and it was cloaked in oak (unusual for this part of Vermont), sugar maple, spruce and other trees that we could use in construction, trees that would also provide firewood for many years to come, without diminishing the natural diversity or ecological integrity of the land. |
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We decided to build two yurts. The first would be just 200 square feet on the inside, and would help us to learn and test all of our building techniques. This yurt was to serve as a writer's cabin and yoga studio, a place of solitude separate from the main house. The second yurt was to be 700 square feet, including a great room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, all on the first floor, with a large sleeping loft on the second floor.
The ceiling became a focus for both yurts. The spruce rafters (harvested from the land) are like spokes in an immense wheel that meet at an oak ring skylight that lets in the light of sun, moon, and stars. |
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Over a two year period, the home grew up out of the earth. A hand-mixed and hand-poured cement foundation incorporated local fieldstone as a crowning decorative touch. Traditional wood framing, along with a wattle weave (using supple saplings from the land), served as a form for the foot-thick straw-clay walls.
| The straw-clay (a mixture looking like Chinese lo mein) was all mixed by hand, with many volunteers joining in the fun process of sculpting the house. The straw-clay walls were sealed with interior and exterior plaster, a stucco mix that has helped preserve similar homes in England and Germany, making them last for more than 500 years. |  |
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This rustic home, built on well-tried principles thousands of years old, includes modern innovations and conveniences: A solar array provides plenty of electricity, enough to power lights, a well pump, a state of the art SunFrost refrigerator and high speed satellite internet dish. A Woodstock Vermont soapstone stove and radiant floor heat keep the home cozy all winter long, while the foot-thick walls and forest location keep it cool in summer. Finally, a large organic garden with raised beds provides vegetables and a changing display of flowers all summer long.