EASTHAMPTON — Walking into the Rare Forms workshop, you’ll find items typical of any design build company, such as tools, wooden planks and other construction materials. But the first thing that will catch your eye are dozens of bales of straw, stacked almost as high as the ceiling.

Rare Forms recently moved its offices from Northampton to the October Co. building in Easthampton to open this straw-filled workshop. With it, they’re shifting their focus from custom residential design and construction to constructing so-called Seed Panels — prefabricated building panels that eschew traditional foam insulation for a more eco-friendly option: straw.

“We’re at the intersection between high-performance building and natural building,” said Greg Bossie, owner of Rare Forms. “Our biggest challenge right now is the preconceived ideas about what straw is used for.”

Many people think of straw as they’ve seen it in farm settings: messy and allergy-inducing. But in Rare Forms’ Seed Panels, it’s anything but. The straw bales insulating the panels are tightly packed, which Bossie said keeps them pest-resistant, and they are shaved down and sealed securely within the walls of the structure, allowing those with and without hay fever to live in comfort.

The straw panels are also fire-resistant, designed to char on the outside and protect internal structures from the flames, whereas foam insulation is flammable. Additionally, Bossie said that straw panels protect structures from water damage and from rot naturally because they are “vapor open,” meaning that any water entering the structure is able to exit again quickly, leading to minimal damage.

Bossie emphasized that straw insulation is not only resilient, but also renewable and “carbon positive,” as straw pulls carbon out of the atmosphere and sequesters it as part of its natural growing process. Rare Forms uses straw locally grown at Plainville Farm in Hadley, and Bossie said they also use local lumber as often as possible.

Rare Forms is currently a company of about nine people, and was started by Bossie in 2020 with the intention of being a “high performance residential design build company.” But their move to Easthampton last month represented the beginning of a transition to focusing on the manufacturing of these Seed Panels.

The Seed Panel system was designed by the company New Frameworks in Essex Junction, Vermont. Now, New Frameworks and Rare Forms are two of three founding member companies in the Seed Collaborative, which hopes to create a broad network of companies using local materials to build these carbon-positive systems.

Bossie said that the Seed Collaborative’s methodology is “intentionally low-tech” and without patents to allow this kind of building to expand.

“What we want is to keep this accessible and scale it,” said Bossie. “What we need is climate impact — positive impact, not just less negative.”

The company’s work includes creating pre-designed, panelized accessory dwelling units and small homes, creating custom panelization, the weatherization of structures and custom contracting work. But Bossie said he plans to move Rare Forms away from custom contracting to focus more of their efforts on custom panelization and pre-designed units.

“We want to get away from building fancy things for rich people, and build more things for normal people,” said Bossie.

Lauren Faulkner-Duncan is having one of Rare Forms’ accessory dwelling units constructed behind her Easthampton home. She’d been planning to build a unit there, and when she heard about Rare Forms and their Seed Panels, she knew she wanted them. 

“I knew I wanted to use this,” she said, gesturing to the straw insulated panels around her. “For me, this was non-negotiable.” 

Faulkner-Duncan had heard about straw insulation when it began gaining popularity, and its sustainability and durability piqued her interest. So when she set out to add the accessory dwelling unit to her property, she knew that was the route she would follow.

But Bossie said he hoped to expand Rare Forms beyond the properties of people who already have their hearts set on straw insulated structures, making Seed Panels more accessible and widespread. 

Not only does Rare Forms seek to make its methods accessible, they also hope to keep their work at an accessible price point. Structurally insulated panels from Rare Forms currently go for about $28 to $32 per square foot. Bossie said that the target price for pre-designed accessory dwelling units and small homes if $350 per square foot of the structure, not including site development costs.

For property owners, Rare Forms provides design work, cost planning, project management and construction for these pre-designed units. For builders, they provide custom panelization, through which they break a structure’s design down into panelized pieces that they can pre-fabricate and ship, allowing for accelerated project timelines. They also provide delivery and installation for these projects.

Because of the carbon-sequestering properties that straw exhibits as it grows, Rare Forms estimates that there are 5 kilograms of carbon dioxide stored in every square foot of their panels.

Since moving to Easthampton to open up their new workshop for creating these panels, Bossie said that Rare Forms has experienced a “major culture shift,” but that it’s all been for the better. Bossie and his colleagues have been “reconfiguring the core” of the company around their Seed Panels, with a long-term goal of having a dedicated “shop team” making the panels year-round.

Bossie said his current construction goal is 10 to 15 homes per year, but that his five-year goal is over 30 homes per year created using these panels. He and his team have high hopes for the future of Rare Forms, and the environmentally-friendly future of home construction offered through the Seed Panels.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.