Introduction

In the wake of the introduction of cereal crops to Europe in the Neolithic period there came an extraordinary by-product: light, springy, bulky and abundant - straw. Our ancestors adapted this versatile material with great ingenuity and skill to a multitude of everyday uses, from roof covering to mattresses, cushion filling, furniture, animal housing and decorative ornaments. For millennia, straw, together with reed and rush was the material of choice for thatching dwellings and vernacular architecture all over Europe, while plaited hen nests and coiled-straw bee skeps kept domestic animals happy.

Straw is a material with enormous potential for Design for Sustainability. It is light, pliable and can be processed in various ways. Most importantly, we have plenty of it. Britain produces more than 15 million tons of wheat annually and the majority of the resulting straw is simply ploughed into the soil or burnt. A pitiful fate for a masterpiece of nature’s design: the ratio of the height of a stalk of straw to its diameter is up to 1:300 and it can withstand strong wind and rain. At the same time, it is as light as a feather.

See other object made from Straw