Aotearoa’s most pressing issues are climate change and a chronic housing crisis. Strawlines addresses a fundamental question: How can we make affordable, homegrown, zero-carbon homes the new norm?

Rather than starting with an architectural design, the Strawlines journey began by focusing on a carbon sequestering prefabricated strawbale structural insulated panel (SSIP) as the building block for creating compact ‘small and smart’ homes. Drawing from international precedents and combining current local vernacular, such as light timber framing and indigenous traditions like building with raupō and native grasses, the use of these panels in the design reduces on-site construction, labour, and costs while straw and timber sequester enough carbon to result in zero carbon homes.

The intentionally compact homes function as carbon banks, using carbon-sequestering timber and straw to offset materials with higher embodied carbon, such as metal and glass. The project also offers flexibility in cladding systems, making it adaptable to diverse environmental and economic contexts. Strawlines deliberately challenges preconceived ideas of a straw house with a design that is simple and contemporary offering a simple and customizable design adaptable to NZ’s 6 different climate zones.

Most significantly, its purpose is to repair, straw by straw, the physical and spiritual bonds between the people and the land – tangata and whenua.

Strawlines is a collaboration between @finelinearchitecturenz and Project Pātūtū, a research project led by Min Hall at @unitec_school_of_architecture

Location: Te Waipounamu (NZ South Island) 
Stage: Prototypes development, R&D 
Collaborations and Consultants: Min Hall, Resilienz, Hiberna Modular

Winner of the 2023 International INTBAU Architecture Challenge