Reading

Hoping to escape the trend of houses built with a forest of wood, we began reading about alternative construction methods. Alternative Housebuilding (Mike McClintock), Dwelling on Earth (David Easton), Build Your Own Stone House (Karl and Sue Schwenke), Passive Solar Energy (Bruce Anderson & Malcolm Wells) and The Adobe Book (John F. O'Connor) all presented, excellent information. More and more we were drawn to strawbale construction. The texture and shape seduced us. And the idea of energy efficiency coupled with the use of renewable resources held an irresistable draw.

Our goal is to build our house without a mortgage, so we formulated a timeline and saved more money until, at last, we were ready to look for an architect. A Google search was ineffective and disheartening. We couldn't find anyone in our area with strawbale experience. On a whim, we e-mailed The Green Building Center in Salt Lake hoping for a reference. They had several. We contacted, met with and interviewed three architects on their list.

We believe Wayne Bingham may have been interviewing us as much as we interviewed him, but we all felt we could work well together. From our perspective we found an architect with experience in strawbale construction who is generous, patient, enthusiastic and creative. We couldn't find a person better to work with.