Back     Latest news from Green Building Press    Subscribe to our newsletter

Straw bale builders in line for award

Posted: 25/10/2007

Pioneering straw bale builders, amazonails, have been named as one of the top social enterprises for ‘Innovation in Enterprise’ in Yorkshire. The organisation had already been declared top innovator in West Yorkshire. Innovation in Enterprise is one of five categories in the Social Enterprise Yorkshire and Humber Awards, which are sponsored and supported by Yorkshire Forward and the four sub-regional Business Links.

Based in an old Todmorden mill, which is currently being renovated, amazonails is a leader in strawbale building in the UK. The organisation recently finished the construction part of the largest strawbale building in the UK and has built a major centre for the National Trust in the Lake District, as well as numerous houses, studios and other buildings.

Apart from many innovations in building techniques which have been developed by the Todmorden enterprise, particularly in terms of sustainability and environmental friendliness, amazonails has also pioneered the use of strawbale construction days for team-building in a variety of different kinds of organisation. This calls on the community spirit and fun we are familiar with in films showing raising the walls and roof of a house by pioneers on the American prairies.

Barbara Jones, Executive Director of amazonails says: “We have been very successful in adapting the strawbale building techniques developed in the USA to the different climatic and other conditions in the British Isles. Such buildings not only offer the possibility of exciting, eco-friendly homes; working commercial buildings can also benefit from the advantages of this kind of building while helping to lessen the consequences of climate change. The thermal efficiency of straw bale walls means that long term running costs can be much lower than other types of building and the dependence on fossil fuels can be reduced”.

The name ‘amazonails’ comes from a West Yorkshire rendition of ‘hammers and nails’, the company being set up by Barbara Jones 20 years ago in Todmorden as an all-female, otherwise conventional, roofing and building organisation. Following a visit by Barbara to the USA in 1994, where she saw straw bale buildings for the first time, the organisation began to pioneer straw bale building in Britain. She was joined in the enterprise by Bee Rowan in 2000. Now a not-for-profit social enterprise, the organisation involves trainees in real builds, enabling them to subsequently build for themselves. It also offers consultation and design services.

Jones helped to build the first modern straw bale house in the UK, in Wales, in 1996. Since then amazonails has been involved in (the construction of) over 100 houses, studios, offices, meeting rooms and agricultural buildings.

There are estimated to be well over 2,000 social enterprises in the county of Yorkshire, employing 90,000 people and contributing over £1.5 billion to the regional economy. Probably over half of these are in West Yorkshire.

Green Building Press  
 

Back     Latest news from Green Building Press    Subscribe to our newsletter

2185