In 1997 Karl Bishoff and Lauren Shane came to Daniel Matthew Silvernail Architect with the then-almost-unique idea of insulating their 1890-vintage uninsulated farmhouse by the use of straw. At the time, the modern strawbale movement was still in its infancy.

But as coincidence would have it, when Karl and Lauren approached our firm, Daniel—at that time serving as presentation’s chair to the local architect’s association—had just hosted a presentation on the subject to the local design community. That presentation led to two things, firstly an abiding fascination with strawbuilding as responsible sustainable practice, and secondly to our referral to Lauren and Karl.

Conversion of the house was not without challenges, but even some of the challenges presented opportunities. The wall system, which did not meet seismic standards, had to be brought up to current standards. This in turn allowed the wall system to provide the substrate for the “skinning” of it with the bales, coursed like giant bricks, implemented into the design. The ancient underpinning system holding up the building, consisting of buried timbers, was hardly worthy of being called a foundation system at all. But its replacement with a modern concrete foundation, oversized, provided the opportunity to seat the bales on the over-wide shelf of the spread footing.

When submitted for building permits with the Santa Cruz County Planning the design met some initial skepticism. But the obvious merits of the technology together with our design approach won over their support, particularly that of John DeCourcy, Building Official.