Straw houses to sequester carbon

This is an article from the New York Times on an experimental village they made of straw about 120 miles North of NYC:

John S
PDX OR

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/10/nyregion/straw-house-hudson-ny.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.g5iw.aU9pCEYKTGUM&smid=url-share

Thanks for sharing, John!

I am happy the NYT picked up a story on this, but frustrated by their skeptical language about the realities of natural building.
Strawbale construction is already in the building codes! *shakes head*
They need to stop treating it like it's experimental.

Pete Albrecht wrote:Thanks for sharing, John!

I am happy the NYT picked up a story on this, but frustrated by their skeptical language about the realities of natural building.
Strawbale construction is already in the building codes! *shakes head*
They need to stop treating it like it's experimental.

I think this is a problem with journalism in general...or perhaps natural building for being adverse to media.

If we dont reach out with media to normalize things, they will be considered abnormal by regular people (aka journalists) no matter how many tests they pass.  The natural building youtubers who break into the algorithm are doing more good than building codes ever could.

What people consider normal and acceptable comes 90% from films and advertising, 10% from personal experience, and everything else is "weird and untested." Journalists are just normal people who write for a living.

A central problem is that social media fluency is what research calls a "threatened competency" (my paraphrase I cant find the exact term) where its a skill that fits poorly with the culture of the place its needed. Natural building is focused on nature and likes to keep social media fakeness at arms length. As a result we have relatively few people who take the time to show our lifestyle to the rest of the world, and it gets seen as weird and rare.

We want social media people who make permies look awesome in media...but they are culturally a bad fit for a "back to nature" culture. Its not a skill we reward or support internally as much as other cultures do. Sometimes we even celebrate people for "screen detox."

Both good points.  There are so many different kinds of media, including permies.com, that I think we need to share across different media.  Many people are stuck in an amazingly narrow niche, and think of everyone else as crazy.  If we can get a broader perspective of people to understand natural building techniques, we can explain that this is a solution to a few different problems:  the housing crisis, climate change, affordability, and pollution, among others.  Just as we need to cultivate the process of having intelligent and respectful dialogues among ourselves, so too do the government agencies and journalists who are trying to cover them.  Perhaps those in the media are not really understanding the depth of the situation.  Just because they have a respectable job in the government or media doesn't mean they have the life experience or connections to a broad range of the populace to understand these issues.

John S
PDX OR

In my experience, 'alternative building' cannot be commercialised as easily as other techniques.
I have always pushed the use of alternative materials as a practcal and lower cost form of building.
The techniques are simple to learn and use.
BUT its not cool, in a society which runs on consumption, using earth and straw does not sit well with bankers.
I have heard many ways of denigrading the use of alternative materials, dirt homes,  cheap, too small......
I believe people today build or buy homes based on ;
- ego,
- perception of wealth,
- having a home always larger than they need,
- fashion
The concept of building a smaller, energy efficient home is not at the forefront of thought, the concept of having enough land around the house for activity,
growing food etc is not considered necessary.
I am concerned the idea of sequestering carbon will just encourage carpetbag salesmen and snake oil sales women and not help build better homes for anybody.

Pete Albrecht wrote:Strawbale construction is already in the building codes! *shakes head*
They need to stop treating it like it's experimental.

This house wasn't made of straw bale (although that is mentioned in the text) it is constructed using compressed straw as a structural component and as the finished interior (the exterior being thatched in a unique style):

inside experimental straw building

(from the article)

they decided to experiment with prefabricated, compressed strawboard, which had been used for interior partitions and ceiling panels since the 1940s, but was not widely considered to be a load-bearing material.
The plan was to cut the boards — which are three times as dense as typical straw bales — into pieces and stack them.

They tried making their own, but could not get the consistent density they wanted.

There are tradespeople who know how to build exactly one way.  There are owners of building companies who only want to see things built that they can make money on. There are government regulators who are only familiar with a narrow range of building styles.  There are many journalists who have very limited life experience, so they just repeat what some lobbyist is saying.  We have influencers and lobbyists who have very particular motivations to encourage their companies profits.  We have a lot of old, cranky HOA regulators who don't like anything they've never seen in their neighborhood before.  NIMBY!   You put them all together, and you get a lot of arguing, denials and ultimatums.  What you need is people carefully opening each others' perspectives on how things work and how they might work for the benefit of all.

John S
PDX OR

John Suavecito wrote:  What you need is people carefully opening each others' perspectives on how things work and how they might work for the benefit of all.

I've seen so many natural disasters completely flatten entire neighborhoods of "modern architecture". I've seen pressure on people to use the same building standards and practices and appearances across all of North America, regardless of the local risks.

Humans can do better, but the pressure to "conform" is huge. John Suavecito is right about how everyone is being taught those "standard practices" and it is only the people who dream of a better way forward who are challenging the status quo.