Vladislav Titovic has come up with a technique to compress straw into voids in walls between timber studs that uses loose straw. The advantages are surprisingly comprehensive and logical:
- any source of good quality straw can be used. A lot of farmers today produce straw rolls instead of bales, which makes no difference to this technique, which makes finding a source close to the build a lot easier
- the thickness and shape of the walls can be varied according to design or structural/ insulation requirements, curves and bulges, benches and niches can be formed by shaping the shuttering
- using the shuttering to give shape to the compressed straw walls, it is also possible to integrate the clay or lime plaster base coat on the surfaces
- the random oriented straw in the wall forms a flawless bond with the plaster base coat, whereas when plastering on straw-bale it is necessary to massage the base coat in to the surface to eliminate air gaps (points with no contact, ie no bond).
- unlike with shuttering for concrete, the shuttering can be reused multiple times
- the shuttering can be removed when the ramming has progressed more than ca. 50cm, also if plaster has been applied straight away. It makes this technique extremely quick and clean.
- ramming loose straw into the voids between the studs eliminates the need for
time-consuming (and often undervalued) stuffing at a later stage
- ramming loose straw into the voids also eliminates the need for also time-consuming stuffing between the bales
