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RESOURCES - Learn about
Straw Bale Construction and Green Building SHOWCASE - View galleries of houses and walls during all phases of construction |
Current Projects
Currently, we are working on different projects that each contain their own excitement and challenges:
We are closing in on completing New Mexico’s
first permitted ‘loadbearing’ structure (in loadbearing, we stack up
the bales and then put the roof’s weight directly onto those bales) and have
been rewarded with some out-of-the ordinary obstacles as well as wonderful
compensations. On the positive side, we’ve once again become wildly
enthusiastic about just how easy it is to build loadbearing; we’ve also
enjoyed the looks of astonishment on our visitor’s faces changing to grins
of comprehension as they ‘get’ the full environmental benefits of not
needing nearly as much wood. On the challenging side, we wrestle with
convincing our friends in the Construction Industries Offices that this
really is a legit and long-lasting method; and we continue developing new
methods of attaching interior walls to floating trusses or window openings
to the straw. Do visit the
project
gallery and follow the progress with us! We have also created a smaller
showcase gallery that you can visit
on this site.
In this current economic downturn, a number of people are wanting to
build but are justifiably worried about how much it’ll cost. We met a delightful young family who
were dying to move out of
their energy-inefficient condo and into a straw bale structure, yet
were unsure how to accomplish that with their limited budget. So ...
we worked hard to make their dream a reality. The first step, of course, was
to design their new home, and we drank gallons of tea while doodling over
different concepts while consulting Anoop Parikh’s groundbreaking book
called
Making the Most of Small Spaces - and while the children played with legos in the living room and build their own structures. Then we
looked at how
much of the work this family could do vs. how much Paja Construction would
accomplish. We're all very pleased with the results as you can see from this
showcase gallery of the project.
We are currently transforming a 70-year-old home in Albuquerque . Before
we started, it was just another old, inefficient, one-story stucco house. When we're
done, it will be a beautiful, two-story, straw bale success story. Take a
look at the
showcase gallery of how we're doing so
far and check back for pictures of the finished project.
Concrete block walls are very common throughout Albuquerque: they are
relatively cheap and certainly fast methods of attaining privacy. However,
they clearly have little of the flowing beauty of a straw wall.
So when a client approached us with the thought of
retrofitting her block wall with straw bales in order to both reinforce the
old wall as well as add aesthetics to her back yard, we jumped at the
idea—and so far have been delighted with the result. We’ll let you
know what it looks like when we’re finished, but be sure to check out some
shots of the wall so far!
In addition, we have:
- Constructed houses whose square footage ranges anywhere from a few up to about 9,000 sq ft in size,
- Retrofitted old, energy-inefficient structures into places you could practically heat with a candle,
- Wrapped trailers and mobile homes to give them a brand new look and an even better protection from heat or cold.