Introducing The School of Natural Building’s renowned seminar series! Topics covered include: building with straw bales, natural plasters, cement free foundations, technical details and more.
More theory seminars to come…
We will be hosting more theory seminars in 2025 at various locations across the UK so worry not if you can’t make the Glasgow dates. Sign up for our mailing list to be the first to know about new dates
The School of Natural Building is thrilled to present our ever-popular seminar series about straw bale building and natural plasters, created by the UK’s leading straw bale expert, Barbara Jones.
These courses are for anyone considering building with straw bales, building their own home or designing with bales. They are suitable for beginners or those more experienced with natural building or sustainable architecture.
We have four, complementary seminars, each lasting one day, from 10am till 4pm. See below for seminar topics, prices and details.
This popular workshop focuses on the project management of your building project, teaching the techniques you need to bring in your project on quality, on budget, on time. We’ll also be covering hot topics such as Green Mortgages and Community Land Trusts.
We will be covering the following essentials:
- How to find land, what legal approvals are needed for Planning and Building
- How to manage all stages of the build, the money and the resources.
- Introduction to one of our own straw bale build case studies
- How to obtain Green Mortgages & Insurance
- Tools & Equipment
- Further development of the straw bale case study
- Introduction to natural materials
- The increasing importance of Community Land Trusts and Co-housing
The essential preparation for strawbale design whether you’re a self-builder, an architect, a designer or someone interested in natural building. This popular workshop will save you precious time & money when designing your strawbale building.
On this course you will:
- Be introduced to a brief history of Straw Bale Building
- Understand how to identify good building bales
- Learn how to design with the bale in mind
- Hear about strawbale panels for prefabricated and modular buildings
- Learn how to customise and ‘dress’ bales on site
- Understand where to locate posts for framework buildings
This course will be taught by Barbara Jones. “If you want to build a straw house in the UK, go to Barbara Jones.” (Touker Suleyman from BBC Dragons’ Den)
All you ever wanted to ask about strawbale building
This ever popular one day workshop covers all the bits you haven’t understood or didn’t even know about! Once booked on the course, you can send your questions to Barbara Jones and she will answer them during the day. The workshop will cover:
- Natural foundations that can save you £££s
- Plinth walls and foundations – what’s the difference?
- Airtight doors & windows without expensive tapes
- Weather protection and the importance of drip edges
- How do I attach wall cupboards and sockets to straw walls?
- Compression for load-bearing & infill
- How do I build the roof first on my load-bearing building?
- Prefabrication developments
“An awesome and inspiring workshop and I’ll definitely be booking on the next course” – Pip.
Please bring a pen and notebook.
Worried about the climate emergency and ecological breakdown? Want to play your part in decarbonising the housing stock by using natural materials, and improve your indoor air quality at the same time?
Then this course is for you. It will give you an understanding of topics such as:
- Realistic costs
- Healthy indoor air quality
- Humidity regulation -say goodbye to mould and condensation
- Historical precedents – plasters that last
- The natural cycle of lime
- How and why lime works better than cement
- Making clay plasters from earth
Pricing
Each 1-day seminar is priced at £100 with discounts available when you attend two consecutive days or all 4 seminars:
| Preparing to Build with Bales £100 | Week 1 Bundle £180 | All theory seminars £360 |
| Design your Straw Bale Building £100 | ||
| Straw Bale Technical Details £100 | Week 2 Bundle £180 | |
| An Introduction to Natural Plasters £100 |