How to build a straw house, part I

If you've visited the reserve over recent weeks, you'll have seen our new building, The LookOut, emerging from the earth bank next to the Coffee Shop.  When it's finished, we'll use it for all sorts of events and activities, and it'll be open to visitors most days to enjoy the wildlife on the lagoon.  But this is no ordinary building. If you've been following progress on our blog, you'll know that it's mostly build of wood, straw and clay.  Yesterday, we started with the fun (and messy!) bit.  Here's how we got on.

The timberwork has all been created by a team from Greenbuilt, but the roof and floor insulation and the walls are being built by a team of staff and volunteers. None of us has ever built a straw-bale building before, but we know a woman who has built plenty. Barbara Jones (right) of Strawworks has designed The LookOut and is training us to build it. First up was a safety briefing, to ensure we would be safe and that we wouldn't damage the building. We had to be very careful to stand only on the beams - if we put a foot through the birch plywood ceiling, we'd wreck it and risk falling through.

The first task was to break open the straw bales donated to us by The Crown Estate, and grown and baled for us at their farm in Cheshire.  The bales are smaller than the size that most farmers would use today, and we hear the farm manager had to find an old baler that would do the job.  He's done the job perfectly, and we split each bale roughly in half and pushed it into the void between the beams.  This involved a fair amount of pushing and smacking (of the bales, not each other), then packing the gaps with loose straw so that there was as little air as possible.  All this straw will keep the building toasty-warm in winter.  And makes it totally cool!

Meanwhile, other members of the team were mixing sand and milled clay, which is a by-product of brick-making.  This was hoisted up to roof height and we pushed and pressed the clay mix onto the tops of the bales.  This forms a fireproof barrier and protects the straw, while still allowing to breathe.  This bit was very messy and by far the most time-consuming part of the job/

This is what the roof looks like when it's nearly done (the loose straw on top of the clay had blown from elsewhere on the roof).  We completed about half the job yesterday and we hope to finish the work today.  Then Greenbuilt will put wood over the top to seal it all in.  Tomorrow, we'll be trained in building the walls of straw, which is when we'll really start to get an idea of how The LookOut will feel.  We'll update the blog as we go so you can see what we're up to.

Over the weekend, we'll make the final decision about what will go in the time capsule, which will be placed among the straw insulation in the floor.  Thanks to our Twitter followers and Facebook friends for the great suggestions. Check back here next week to see what's going in.

The LookOut is part of our Conwy Connections project, giving RSPB Conwy a makeover - read more about it here.