Join our sustainability forum on June 30 for our next sustainability mastermind session. This month we are delighted to welcome Barbara Jones, who will introduce straw bale construction via some of the research that has been undertaken as part of the European Up-Straw project. Barbara's presentation will be followed by an opportunity to ask questions and discuss her work.
About Barbara Jones
Through Barbara's work as a builder, teacher, mentor, designer, entrepreneur, and author of her book Building with Straw Bales, she is able to deliver on her long lasting passion for providing affordable, high quality, and healthy homes for ordinary people.
Barbara has run her own business since 1989 which was initially a women’s roofing and building company (Amazon Nails). In 1994 she came across straw bale building and through a Winston Churchill Fellowship was able to learn more and introduce it to the UK and Europe. Amazon Nails became Straw Works (Architects) and the School of Natural Building (education and training). Barbara has been involved in hundreds of affordable and healthy buildings made only with natural and low embodied energy materials.
Since 1994, Barbara has been designing foundations without cement. Currently, she is working with four other EU countries on an Interreg funded project to increase the number of public buildings made of straw (Up Straw). She is also writing a Technical Guide to Building Regs for straw buildings and working with EcoCocon straw panels as a way of bringing affordable healthy housing to a wider audience.
