Attention: Please read Endeavour Centre's response to [COVID-19](https://staging.endeavourcentre.org/covid-19-updates/)

BLOG

STUDENTS • STORIES • PRODUCTS • REVIEWS

New system for straw bale walls

by Jen Feigin | Sep 9, 2014 | Construction Blogs, Straw bale building, Teachers' Union offices

Over 20 years of building with straw bales, I have constantly experimented with new ways to integrate bale walls into buildings that are simple, cost-effective and energy/resource efficient. From load bearing to prefab panels to a variety of framing systems, I thought...

Craning a Finished Roof

by Jen Feigin | Sep 9, 2014 | Construction Blogs, Sustainable Building & Design program, Teachers' Union offices

Building a roof can be intimidating, and statistically the most dangerous element of making a building. The heights involved add risk, time and a lot of effort. Whenever we have the opportunity, we build our roof structures – including all sheathing and as much...

Framing systems for teachers’ union office

by Jen Feigin | Aug 17, 2014 | Construction Blogs, Natural building materials and techniques, Straw bale building, Teachers' Union offices

Wood framing is a conventional building practice that we use quite frequently at Endeavour. For the teachers’ union project, we are using wood framing for both the floor system and the exterior walls. The walls and floors may not look very different from...

Earthbag foundation for floor system

by Jen Feigin | Aug 17, 2014 | Construction Blogs, Natural building materials and techniques, Teachers' Union offices

In addition to the Durisol stem wall foundation, our project for the teachers’ union office includes two long sections of earthbag foundation to support the floor joist spans inside the building. The inherent insulation value of the Durisol blocks made them our...

Helical pier foundation

by Jen Feigin | Aug 17, 2014 | Building Product Reviews, Construction Blogs, Natural building materials and techniques, Teachers' Union offices

The timber frame portion of our project for the teachers’ union rests outside the walls of the building, requiring individual foundation piers for each of the 14 posts. Typically, these would be poured concrete piers each with its own wide footing, resulting in...

A Durisol stem wall foundation

by Jen Feigin | Aug 17, 2014 | Building Product Reviews, Construction Blogs, Natural building materials and techniques, Teachers' Union offices

Over the past few years, we have turned to Durisol (now Nexcem) insulated concrete forms (ICFs) several times. They offer an attractive blend of sustainable features with the convenience of conventional methodology. For the teachers’ union office project, we...