The Van Cleves and their straw bale building crew. David Van Cleve is at right in the front row; architect Terry Phelan is fourth from left (in straw hat) in the center row; and Margie Van Cleve is ...

Yvon Chouinard and the architect who designed his Ventura, California, home explain why the waste material is the next step in the fight against climate change. Photo by Tim Davis and landscaping by ...

Near the end of a dirt road that weaves in and out of the woods outside Farmington, Ga., sits a tasteful Southern farmhouse owned by Elise Lang and Michael Pierce. Its wide hip roof and the deep eaves ...

There was one niggling downside to growing up in a large Cleveland Heights home with a supersize yard big enough to accommodate large play areas and a built-in swimming pool. "It was a lot of yard to ...

The slideshow that corresponds with this post is refusing to appear here. I'm trying to fix the problem. In the meantime, you can see the rest of the photos here. On Sunday, I shared photos of Jim ...

Sharon Van Hassel still remembers the laughter, the meals and the dirt flying through the air roughly 25 years ago as she, her late husband and neighbors built a home, straw bale by straw bale. That’s ...

PORT ANGELES — Michael and Spring Thomas want to demonstrate how strong a house built of straw can be. Straw bales, that is. Compressed and covered in plaster, straw bales stay dry, resist fire and ...

WEBSTER TOWNSHIP, MI -- A huff and a puff won’t blow this straw bale house down. A workshop teaching 43 participants how to build a straw bale home took place on Boyden Drive in Webster Township, ...

After 11 years in a straw-bale home, Erik Lindbergh has only good things to say. “It’s not like the three little pigs, with the big bad wolf who’s going to blow it away,” Lindbergh said. His house in ...