Prefabricated straw panels and Passive Home strategies were applied to Aska’s Animal Haus, a home in Victor, Idaho, developed by Love Schack Architecture from its Driggs, Idaho workplace. The company operates offices in both Driggs and Bozeman, Montana. Finished in 2025, the 3,292-square-foot home sits simply across the border from Teton County, Wyoming– where land prices and structure expenses match those in neighboring Jackson– but it was created with a various set of concerns.
Aska’s Animal Haus rests on the family’s home in Victor, Idaho, where the owners run a nonprofit animal rescue. (Paul Lavold)The owners run Aska’s Animals, a nonprofit animal rescue with a turning cast of pet dogs, pigs, and goats. They are long-lasting citizens of the Victor community with a young child and a growing boarding business– the type of clients Schack refers to as “legacy customers,” constructing not to flip however to remain. They needed a home that could support their household and their rescue operation under the exact same roofing. Designer Lindsay Schack’s service was to work with the website’s sloping topography: the family lives upstairs, while a walkout basement listed below provides resilient, sanitary area for the animals, with direct access to the backyard. When the rescue eventually relocates to a different structure, the lower level converts to household area. 
The open living area and kitchen area of Aska’s Animal Haus features deep window sills resulting from the density of the straw panel walls. (Paul Lavold)
The product that made the project possible is still relatively new: upraised straw panels manufactured by New Frameworks, a Vermont-based company that is broadening its local operations. The panels look and behave like traditional structural insulated panels– wood-framed assemblies that arrive on a truck ready to be lifted into place. The difference is what’s within. Rather of foam, the bays are filled with sliced, compressed straw– not entire bales, however an agricultural waste item processed into thick insulation that does not draw in pests and withstands fire similar to heavy timber. The completed panels can be covered with basic drywall or utilized as a substrate for plaster, making them suitable with natural interior finishes. Electrical and pipes run through a service chase wall framed on the interior side of the panels– an information that looks completely traditional to the tradespeople who appear to wire and plumb your home.