Straw Bale Wall Raising Course

5-day Straw Bale Wall Raising Course based at Hawkwood Nursery, the home of Organiclea, a workers’
cooperative growing food sustainably on London's edge in the Lea Valley. On this beautiful 12-acre site is
run a market garden, a box scheme, volunteering and training programmes with a diverse range of people
taking part in the site’s work each week. This project is to build the straw bale walls of their indoor
classroom. It’s a good example of how to incorporate strawbales into a conventional building structure,
and it will serve as a trial for building a new outdoor classroom elsewhere on the site next year. We will
cover practical aspects of strawbale building including how to dress and customise bales, notching,
loadbearing and infill techniques, compression of the wall, and much more!
Barbara Jones will be teaching on this course. She is the most experienced strawbale builder in the UK.
She has a world-wide reputation, she works as a trainer, builder, designer, consultant and writer in the
field of natural building. Barbara loves to teach and ensures course participants have a wonderful learning
experience.