Although straw bale construction has been used for thousands of years, currently does not attract considerable attention from professional architects and students. The reason behind this is assumed to be the prejudices and lack of knowledge about straw bale buildings.
The scope of this research is aimed at understanding a candidate architects’ point of view on the preference criteria that are effective about the choice of straw bale construction. For this purpose, among 214 students of the private university (in Turkey) in the 2015-2016 academic year, 100 students were selected through simple random sampling and the survey was conducted.
The results show that according to the candidate architects, the properties such as its being compatible with nature, harmless to human health, recyclable and being low-cost are the main positive qualities of straw bale construction, whereas lifetime, structural properties and fire resistance are still called into question. This study demonstrates that straw bale construction techniques, which have the potential to solve environmental problems, need to be given more attention in architecture education.
Authors: Erbil, Yasemin; Yücel, Çigdem; Kizilkusak, R.Tugba; 2018
Link: https://ecsdev.org/ojs/index.php/ejsd/article/view/601/598
