This Stunning Small Strawbale Home Looks Like It Was Carved From Stone

what makes architecture good isn't decided on paper it's not all about technical complexity or the materials used it's about how a place makes you feel when you walk through the front door and this next incredible tiny house that we're about to visit is a place that i would be more than happy to call home [Music] good day evan how's it going mate nice to meet you boss it is great to meet you and all i can say is wow this is something incredibly special that you've created here isn't it well thanks very much and welcome to pumice so you call that pumice i'm guessing because it looks like a giant stone yeah well not only that pumice is a weird thing it's a rock and yet it's soft rock and it floats and so this is kind of a house but it's not so you know what on earth is this made from how did you do this well it's built on a trailer a big truck trailer and then we extended the floor built it out a straw plastered it and then suspended the roof over the top wow it's actually amazing to me that this is built on a trailer can you tell me how this all came about well we've been lucky enough to build strawberry houses for the last 30 odd years my business partner and i on this project kevin we know a fair bit about building being builders but we didn't know anything at all about tiny houses so that sort of got our interest and then we overlapped that with my youngest son louie and his best mate braden they came and joined us and we did a couple of sketches and we kind of got underway in a pretty informal capacity really yeah so normally when i think of straw bale building i'm still thinking cottage style quite straight walls and that is exactly the opposite of what this is how did you actually do this with straw the building of straw comes in two sort of processes one is in full so you have a structure and then you infill the straw bales so this building is just load bearing so we shaped all the straw compressed it made it a structural capacity and then plastered it and then it's lime plaster which is used for waterproofing lime is our favorite medium because it's super natural lime breathes really well it's water resilient and it's got some really nice healing attributes so it doesn't crack very much the shape and design of this home is just so unusual can you talk to me about the inspiration behind creating this we wanted somewhere that we could sit inside at the dining room table and see the mountain that was kind of the design goal having built strawberry houses for a long time it's a fantastic medium to do pretty much any shape you want so we're not confined by the rigidity of linear materials so it's kind of a disadvantage because you can literally make it whatever you want when we take something as elemental straw which is a waste by-product annually available and we fashion it right from those raw materials right through to this sort of result it's way harder and it's way more involved but by the same token it's probably equally as refreshing to be involved with and there really is just something about the unusual shape that you've created here that just looks so natural it sort of almost has that very cave-like feel doesn't it yeah i think a lot of people describe it as an oversized pizza oven you know you've done such a great job with this house and the landscaping as well and really sort of setting the scene here within the environment can you talk to me about all of this incredible landscaping we like the idea of having it more encapsulated until you feel more cozy so we started off with a little bit of a challenge because of the curved roof and we didn't want to have a gutter so how do we catch the water so we started off with that silver processor we'll have an open drain and the open drain got a bit bigger to our pond and then we wanted to get the water to reflect the light into the roof of the ceiling inside the building and it just escalated from there and of course volcanic rocks fantastic can't beat it so we spent a lot of time with a little digger placing rocks and you know and we're spoiled with some dramatic scenery and to feel that you're part of that is tremendous yeah absolutely i especially love what you've done down there with the fireplace yeah bryce it's great what you can do with a one and a half tonne rock it sure is and there's something about crossing a threshold of water into your home which kind of creates this added level of kind of separation from the outside eh it's like having a little moat precisely yeah we have had had people comment about um the dangers associated with late night returns from the pub you know it all seemed to work okay it's all worth it for this look isn't it yeah it's really cool yeah and what size is the house the overall dimensions are just over 10 metres long and just over five and a half meters wide and of course the bales are 500 millimeters thick so we lose a fair amount in the walls but because of the undulating nature of the plastered finish it's really hard for your eye to gauge the exact distance so by default it feels uniquely bigger than what it passes well what you've created here really is just so unique and i cannot wait to see what you've done inside can we take a look thank you very much this place is absolutely incredible it feels like walking into a modern cave or something thank you yeah it's coming pretty good yeah i especially just love the way that the ripples from the water outside just creates this amazing effect on the ceiling yeah it was definitely our idea of trying to get that warped from outside to give us a definition of movement on the undulating plaster yeah just the shapes in here are incredible there's there's something about just everything being rounded it just makes the whole space feel unusual but actually really calming at the same time it's part of the fact your eye doesn't have anything to focus on or against it's just a soft nature that you're inside and i love the way that you've complemented the natural shapes in here with the natural materials using the timber the corten steel the lime it all just really feels incredibly natural we actually crafted all those bits and pieces so we have more ownership and it just feels really good to everyone that was involved for sure and there really is a bit of an illusion of space going on because looking from the outside i would have never expected it to feel so spacious in here i guess inside it is about four and a half meters wide and about nine meters long and i think the extra volume just helps to give us that sense of space absolutely this is an incredible couch that you've created as well yeah we wanted to better sit next to your loved one and watch tv see the mountain still see the fish in the pond and not for it to be too high in the space so i think it's it's pretty good it certainly is and of course sitting here on the couch again you just capitalize on the incredible view and i really like the way that you've sort of kept all of this part of the house feeling very cave-like and enclosed but then from this aspect it's just completely opened up onto the mountain views well we are so fortunate to have such a great aspect from our little baby section it's quite interesting how you've got the opening windows really low to the water can you talk to me about why you've done that if you open the windows at the bottom close to the water air is always cooler and so if we open our skylight or we have our fan going it convects cool air in so the house naturally aspirates very clever and the construction of this home really is just so unique so i love that you've included a truth window in here as well well it's part of straw bale tradition really because people rock up to your house and go hey what's your house made of and when you say it's made of straw though guy seriously and henceforth you can see and then behind us here we've got the kitchen and i just really like the way that you've done this sort of having the lime render run straight off the wall and into this kitchen counter it's definitely a bonus of plastering if you just pay a bit of attention you can get it to do some pretty cool stuff yeah you've even sort of included the sink in there it's just really cool yeah that was a bit of an experiment we haven't done a sink before but like for some new chemicals making the surface really really hard it seems to be handling it pretty well so far yeah and then running on from the bench here we've got your beautiful breakfast bar yeah it was kind of cool because we wanted to suspend this in a waterfall fashion with this one as well and one of my sons nix is a really good welder so he enabled us to sort of suspend stuff out a bit more than we would normally get with wood and whatnot and then again just the way that you've done all of the cabinetry and everything here is so unique well when we were in the construction phase we craned our trailer in and then we built a giant big tent out of timber and plastic so we could work all winter we built that out of some locally milled lawson cyprus that is our favorite timber and that wood has been used throughout the finishing phases so all of this was just part of our tent structure so it's box grade that we happen to put over a custom made cabinetry that again we just did it all ourselves yeah looks brilliant and one of the things that i really love that you've done in here is just make everything artistic like all of the really cool drawer handles and the light fittings everything in here just carries out with it it does and that was just part of the fun of it and that was one of our goals was just to have fun in the process and that's a result and then over here we have the bathroom and that door just becomes such a feature doesn't it it works really well we want it to be a door and a piece of art and it seems to fit the space it was a bit of a challenge we wanted the ceiling to run right through into the bathroom and so we have this wonky top to the door but even when it's closed it seems to yeah it works good it sure does and can we have a peek in the bathroom yeah come on cool thanks wow i am a little bit speechless coming into this space actually this is just really beautiful speechless that's pretty unusual it sure is it looks more like it was carved out of rock than built i think it's that luxury of not having defined edges we can just curve things and you just have to have this ability to appreciate what it's going to look like at the end because backwards from here there's a lot of work to get those curves to have the flow that appeals to your eye and so there's an art to that there's no doubt about it and again just the way that everything is sort of crafted out of this lime plaster it makes everything incredibly harmonious it's just less crowded maybe it's simpler on our mind i don't know but less is more i guess yeah and owakuni is of course a ski town and i am noticing the heated floors right now yeah i've got a minute that's definitely one of my favorites so every time i walk in here it's like oh yeah that's right that was a good decision it was a very good decision yeah we've run the heat up the back of the seat as well so when you sit in the seat in the shower the seat's warm which is a bit of a treat absolutely and then again the way that this is created it feels very cave-like but then you've got this lovely amount of light which is coming in through the skylight late in the day the sun actually does come into the room so sun in any space is a complete luxury let alone summer in the south side of a wet area bathroom that's golden yeah and you've got the flushing toilet in here as well we're hooked up to the services it's simple as that you know we're just um a little urban environment in an urban town and oh kenny's got great services and then around the corner we've got the bedroom don't we yes cool can we take a look at that yeah for sure awesome i love the way that you've added the flax here as well and it's really nice that you've got the curtain rail that can give you a little bit of extra privacy in here if you want it as well yeah it makes it really private and we also borrowed the flax out of the landscaping out of the front hedge and then the bedroom this really is just such a cozy nook of the house it is it's really cozy thicker with no direct windows it's really nice yes the whole house has that cave aesthetic but you really especially feel it in this part i think it comes back to the fact that there is no definition between the wall and the roof you know it's all just encompassing in that curvy nature so that sense of safety and security is definitely all-encompassing and if the fire's going and we pull the curtain it's uh yeah it is pretty luxurious for sure so this is a fire here i was wondering what that was yeah it's a bioethanol fire so we wanted something that we didn't have to have a chimney so to speak so we just have open flames again against the plaster and it gives a beautiful natural glow it's lovely so it doesn't need a chimney what about fumes or anything like that um the fumes are so minimal that it's completely safe inside this volume of building that is really cool again i just love all of the art in here the way that you've incorporated these big wooden features is really cool and then once again use the plaster to kind of tie this into the rest of the home we live on the coast and driftwood is a huge part of walking up and down the beach which we do a lot of so all those sort of elements just combined to the fact that it's nice for us to make it out of something that we can relate to and it's been a big part of our lives definitely definitely and then what's this here we just wanted a strong element inside the space sort of a bit of a break from the plaster and corten steel is one of our favorites because it blends so well with our plaster and it's the face of the wardrobe very cool now earlier you mentioned having a television but i actually can't see one in the house so we've positioned it on the back of the headboard no way there's a tv behind it so we just wheel that guy out so it can come out in front of the sofa it can come into a location in front of the bed you know so it's pretty movable that is such a clever idea and i would have never guessed that it was hiding behind there yeah thank you and how long has the home been finished now we finished it in 2021 yeah great and what's it like to live in that's delightful it's really really good it's a great place to come and stay for any amount of time even just to express overnight visit or you can stay for a bit longer it's really really enjoyable we get really used to building regular sized buildings and when we get the opportunity to build small compact and more intimate it gives you a different level of responsibility to make it even more intimate and more creative and almost more sublime and the subtleties that we can create because they're probably going to be noticed a bit more in any small space we've got more things going on in the close proximity so we want to make sure that they all blend and talk together really well and being a straw home this just must be so well insulated the straw gives us about five times that required by the code but also we've got really good insulation in the floor the joinery is firmly broken so the whole envelope is pretty spectacular official can you talk to me about how long it actually took to build this it took over five thousand hours of combined hours so that's plumber electrician wow yeah and that being said can we talk about the cost that was involved in building this home we've broke the cost up into two areas one is pre-construction so to buy the section get the appropriate consents and permissions build the retaining wall and that came in just under 90 000 and then we spent around about 128 000 on materials given that we did have a fair bit of stuff in our yard you know the curved rafters and whatnot they just came out of the stack at the back of the yard being involved with anybody's project is a luxury but to be involved with your own project right from the very get-go right all the way through and finally get to the end man that's golden it is when we visit pumas hey it's plaster it's a house but because of our connection of the whole process of the little things that my son louis was involved with or my daughter phoebe or having the luxury of bringing my family to the mountain the essence of all of those things and my friends and my family that have arrived and come and go it makes it something [Music] so valued that it's hard to describe the depth and the essence of what promise portrays for me so now this project is complete you must have another exciting project on the horizon uh yep we've got four or five houses on the go at the moment for clients and we've got some other aspirations for this property as well for sure yeah well evan what you've created here really is incredibly special i love this modern edge combined with these really natural materials and the whole space just comes together to feel really good thank you so much for sharing it with me thanks bryce appreciate that my pleasure you can unquestionably tell when a house is built with love and this is absolutely one of those homes you can tell that evan is an incredible builder very very talented very creative and artistic but when you're inside this home you can also tell that it's so much more than that you can sense the family memories of holidays skiing on the mountain you can sense a whole home which has been built around a desire to sit at a table with a partner and have a view all of that is encapsulated into this house that just makes it so much more than just a house [Music] you

Channel: Living Big In A Tiny House

Views: 666,496

Keywords: living big in a tiny house, tiny house, small house, structural straw, tiny house tour, earth building, natural home, small house tour

Id: CzBPT5cPG_I

Length: 17min 16sec (1036 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 09 2022