Hira Project

Plan of the House

Section of the house

Location: Bayramic , Turkey

We met hira, ufuk , derya and emel when we were doing the natural building workshop in yenikoy. They have a farm close by and invited us to design a small cottage tucked into the woods. Its in the middle of nowhere i mean nowhere , no if you think you can find them on the map no way,not even if you go through the rabbits hole in alice’s wonderland hahahah.

We analyzed the land and the vegetation around, extremely sandy. Nearly 85 % of sand content in the soil, it was excellent for plastering . But the medium we decided to use for construction was slip-straw and straw-bale.

The climatic conditions being extremely cold and windy in winter it was necessary to design a thermally insulated house. Wheat straw bales collected from the local farm was used for construction. We used a mixture of slip-straw and straw bale to come in balance with nature.The design of the house was inspired by from the village, small rooms with sloping roof. The land has a gentle slope and hence the house has 3 small levels holding 3 different functions ( to save material and cost of construction).

The structural system was built first of pine wood and the roof tiles also got laid so that the walls could be constructed and dried in shade.The house is aligned in east west direction to trap southern sun during winter and to direct the wind into the house in the summer. There are small openings at the plinth level to the northeast to create venturi effect .The summer breeze is pressurized to pass through these small openings and escape through a larger opening on the roof of southwest side, this helps in drawing out the hot wind and keeping the house cool in summer. The insulated walls don’t allow the cold to enter the house and traps the heat generated inside.The room in the east is the storage room and will house edible goods hence the room has to be cool throughout the year. It is placed in east cause it the mildest sun and the southern wall which receives the warm sun is protected by thick straw bale walls.

As the sun sets the wall starts to glow as if a UFO is hidden within it, but its a very beautiful rainbow spiral glass bottle sculpture made by merve and derya.

we cooked together ate together and built together what to do,these are the side effects of natural building 🙂

thanks and love to everyone ❤