Product suggestion and general discussions about the needs pertaining to Europe.
There have been significant improvements for our European users and passive haus/house designers and builders over the past 6 months.
Starting with
The wall tools 
which are more detailed and in keeping with colder climate construction.
Notable changes are:
- Double batten masonary wall types and insulated cavities on masonary walls.
- CLT wall materials in the solid wall type (You can now have battens on both sides)
- Rammed earth materials and I know of several users who created a texture in the solid wall tool to encompase straw/hay bale wall types ( you need to make a material, I attached a quick example feel free to use it. (Note the texture is 2 bales high so in Australia that would be 700mm (350mmx2) high and the thickness will be 400mm)
Here is how to create the core of your wall out of straw bales, yet it cold be CLT, rammed earth or any texture. NOTE The quantities will be read in cubic metres and as a result the "bales per cubic metre will be 900x400x350mm =0.136 cubic metres per bale.
Open the wall tool
- Click Wall type drop down
- Choose solid wall
- Click create/manage where the centre of the wall is coloured red
- Choose File and load the straw bale image above ( you wil have to download it first)
- Type 700mm (or the height of two bales in your area) texture height field
- Name you material a syou want it to be read in the list and BOQ ( Bill of Quantities)
- Acknowledge the texture is copyright free. if it is a good texture feel free to share it
- Click Create material
Go to PlusSpec and click Sync or on PC drag and drop your texture back into the correct location and wait for the texture to show, click submit and draw your hay bale wall.
To do a BOQ or material a take off 
In PlusDesignBuild you can add the number of bales per cubic metres which is 0.126 bales/m3 or if yyou use a cladidng texture instead of the solid core wall it will be 0.405 bales per square metre of wall (in Australia, but double bale check with sizes with the supplier and alter accordingly).
There’s too many upgrades to list here so feel free to ask questions below. Happy Virtual Building. Here is an image/snap shot of a straw bale wall that’s clad on the outside over wall battens.
