Timber frame + straw bale design help

[Slablord]

Hello,
I've been planning to build a timber frame cabin, around 16x24 feet, and I've recently decided to go with straw bale as a wall material. I've been planning to do a stone foundation, and I've been collecting nice building stones for the past couple weeks. Something I didn't realize is that a lot of straw bale timber frame buildings put the straw on the outside of the structural timber frame as an envelope. This makes a lot of sense from an insulation perspective. The other option would be to fit the bales around the posts somewhere in the centre of the walls, directly under the wall plate beams. The problem with this is a lot of painstaking notching and fitting of bales, and then in the end there will be some thermal bridges.

Ok, so if I go with a timber frame with straw bales on the outside of this structure, then will I need to just build a super wide foundation, place the bales on the outside stone foundation with piers inside of that for my posts? Does anybody know of any resources such as videos or blogs that detail this aspect of the construction? The books I have so far focus mainly on using straw bales as load bearing walls. Thank you!

[swmn]

I have never done it, but have looked at a lot of them.  Living in Alaska skinning the frame with straw outside the posts is the only way I would go.  There will still be cutting in around windows and doors, and having the corners come out even.

Besides the foundation you will also want plenty of roof overhang to cover the top of the bales with roofing, and some more overhang to make eaves.

[Slablord]

I have never done it, but have looked at a lot of them.  Living in Alaska skinning the frame with straw outside the posts is the only way I would go.  There will still be cutting in around windows and doors, and having the corners come out even.

Besides the foundation you will also want plenty of roof overhang to cover the top of the bales with roofing, and some more overhang to make eaves.

Thanks for your input. I guess a major consideration for rafters will be cutting them large enough to reach out over the bales and then generously hanging beyond those. Probably will have to size them up a bit compared to a typical design.

[thecfarm]

Do a search on straw bales on here. There is a member that did a window sill out of cherry.