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The Strawbale Workshop
A team of service users and staff designed and built a strawbale eco-building to use as our new garden workshop at the Beehive. The building work started at the beginning of 2006 and was completed in July 2007. The new building was signed of by Building Control in September 2009.
The eco-building workshop freed up the former garden workshop to be developed into a community café - the new Garden Cafe. The café provides additional opportunities for people to learn and practice cooking, serving, and shop management skills.
The building of the new Garden Workshop was a way to give our service users a hands on experience in simple building techniques. It promoted our links within the community by getting volunteers to come and work with us. We hope this will decrease the stigma associated with mental health problems, providing a rewarding and satisfying experience for all involved.
In line with our ethos in the garden of using environmentally products and minimising chemical use, the building was built from ecologically friendly and low impact materials including walls of straw-bales and locally sourced hazel, reclaimed timber from local sites, and foundations of reclaimed tyres. This saves these materials, otherwise considered waste, from ending up in landfill. Traditional lime putty plaster was used inside and out and natural paint products to finish. Water collection facilities from the roof are used to irrigate our plant growing activities.
Situated at the Beehive site on Manzil Way, off Cowley Road, the building is secluded from the street by the hedge surrounding it; it provides a quiet and beautiful place for our gardeners to work and rehabilitate.
It was all labour intensive and a wee bit messy but was a fabulous opportunity for people with mental health problems and staff to be part of this exciting eco-project. At the Beehive we propagate plants from seed and cuttings every year and sell them to the local community. The new workshop allows us to continue this work during the winter months.