Below is an email from Romania I recently received. I love to hear from different parts of the world and see that natural building is growing all over the world. I have hope when I see emails like this that change really can happen and it will happen from the ground up. Thanks for writing Ion!
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HELLO ANDREW!
I am an architect from Timisoara, Romania and I am interested in building with ecological and traditional materials. I considered straw bales first as a building material that is cheep and fast for the rebuilding of the flooded areas near Timisoara in 2005.
In 2006, together with my family and a group of architecture students, I helped build an experimental cob house, a project of a friend, Ileana Mavrodin, also an architect, who lived 12 years in Canada and came back to Romania with this initiative (www.casa-verde.ro). Among the participants there were two architects from Bucharest which are members of a group, Arhiterra, concerned with traditional and ecological building materials and techniques.
As you can see there are people interested in this way of building, theoretically, but there are not many examples, the movement being at its beginnings, other people are skeptical about it and the building codes don’t mention these materials and techniques.
I would like to thank you for your course and hope that I would soon share my experience in straw bale building with you.
Ion Trif
2 Responses
I’m doing some research for ESBA before ESBG2023 regarding major European countries which have straw bale organisations but are not affiliated to ESBA. Is there a Romanian strawbale organisation as such? If so how many members do you have?
Hi Mike, We do not have any current information on straw bale organizations/associations based in Romania. Thanks for contributing to straw bale construction access with your research for ESBA!