Now the straw walls of our eco-classroom at Castle Hill School have had their first coat of lime render, it’s time for the cladding. We’re using Scottish-grown larch boards – a durable hardwood which will naturally mature over time to an attractive silvery grey. Other parts of the building have been simply rendered using traditional […]

One lovely feature of our straw bale eco classroom is the creation of two cosy reading nooks. They’re made from cob, a mixture of clay, straw and aggregate (more on cob here) and are specially designed so that children can curl up inside with a good book. They’re not yet finished, but these photos show […]

The walls are up, and it’s time to add the green roof to our straw bale classroom at Castle Hill School. First the beams go on Then we need to edge the roof It will be a green roof – a living ‘lawn’ of sedum on top of the classroom, so a strong ‘fence’ around the […]

Take a look at our straw bale classroom in progress! Our wonderful work experience student Autumn has put together this fab video showing the build so far at Castle Hill School. It shows the foundations being dug and built, the straw bale walls going up, and finally the timber roof going on: Of course, there’s […]

The walls are up at Castle Hill School, and we’re preparing to add the roof. Missed the wall-raising? You can read about that here. Meanwhile work has been continuing at a pace. We’ve had a mixed bag with the weather – plenty of swelteringly hot July days, but some rainy ones too, forcing us to […]

The new straw bale classroom at Castle Hill School is progressing well! Since the pupils broke up for the summer holidays, building on-site has been continuing at a fantastic pace, with most of the straw bale walls now in place. We’ve had two different site managers looking after the build. Craig Taylor has managed the site […]