BUILDING WITH RASTRA IN KANSAS

This is a small Rastra project North of Lawrence, Kansas.
We are designing it and building it for the O'Brien's, a couple that want to have a quiet cottage in the country and grow their own food, collect rainwater, and live life as sustainable as possible.
The white building is an existing timber frame/straw bale, and clay slip house with no electricity or plumbing they built a few years ago, while deciding what to do with the property. We worked with them placing the other building near the original building while keeping to itself.

Here are the walls going up with the 12 x 30 x 120 inch Rastra blocks. They weigh about 400 pounds apiece, so we lift them with a boom truck, glue them together, plumb them and fill them with concrete and rebar.

You can cut the windows and doors out with a chainsaw.

We are putting a radiant floor slab in, so we insulated the slab with thermal blankets and poured the slab against the Rastra stem wall for a thermal break to the outside.

The boom truck replaces at least 3-4 strong guys, and it doesn't stop for lunch.

Setting a panel in vertically sometimes comes in handy when you come to a large window or door. The cores line up either way.


We are now ready to pour the first lift with concrete. The sloped walls will have a suspended slab poured on them for a living roof over the utility area and the cistern on the left.

I'll keep you posted!