2013

we did 3 solar thermal systems on 3 straw bail houses that were part of this slo food farm near boulder. alice and her husband had property up in the mountains till a fire came through and then they moved to the front range and bought a farm. i think the plan was to build these straw houses and then smash the farm house down. the straw house were really stylish and unique, utilizing lots of debris from their old property and unconventional building techniques.


using burned trees from her old property really added to the 'you could never buy this' quality


it was a slo building farm also. steep difficult spots all over


it was wild seeing all these different materials working together


the burned wood adds alot pop


ohh the turkeys were a trip there. they would hop in my tools boxes looking for food


this dude liked to show off


the doors alone were cool


build up the walls and embed shelves, fixtures and outlets. this is into a bedroom without the interior walls yet


walls slowly climbing


this was the heat dump for our solar thermal. after the 120gal water tank reaches 170F for the DHW, the heat is then dumped into a floor via these radient pipes. sand and stones will cover these in the bathroom


legitimate enough to pass rigorous boulder county inspections


a loft with that lovely ply wrap


the bricks came from her last house. the bench as well as other furniture was made of hay and plaster also


pretty cool job site


alice was doing stuff like building rock spiral stairwells and embedding wood steps in them as she goes


the sinks were thrown pottery from a friend


she had a great sense of style and it was very organic. these benches were like nothing ive ever seen


layin out details


they were building up the outside details in layers, making things really natural


a beautiful mess


the plywood edging below the roof is amazing


a great combination of green building


alice designed these and did alot of the work including the mud


making great use of whats usually trashed