I’ve been drawing buildings for some time now. It’s really taken over my drawing time… instead of drawing pictures of landscapes or pretty little flowers I spend my time creating what I would call organic architecture. I hope to post more drawings, plans, and ideas as time goes on.
“Mud, like music, is a shared language: all ages and cultures can join in. ”
- Robert Alcock
Based in a small coastal village in northern Spain, Lesspress Ecological Studies Centre researchs, demonstrates and promotes ecological understanding and sustainable ways of life.
Their current project includes a small cottage and study center, made of cob, called Snail Cabin. It’s plan includes passive solar heating, high-efficiency wood stoves, solar hot water, composting toilets, and greywater recycling.
This is a great site full of resources. Visit the LessPress Eco-builder Journal to follow the groups progress.
Rob Pollacek wrote a great article in the Winter 2006 Issue #22 of The CobWeb. He shared his experiences building a completely code compliant cob house in California. The permit of his house was possible through Nevada County’s “Title 25″ owner-builder process.
This is a great example of large scale cob construction ( 3000 sq feet of floor area ). The house has 215 linear feet of cob-wall. The foundation started out 22-26″ thick and taper to 19″ at the top of the wall. Rob used a tractor to mix the cob and trailers for distribution around the building site. Rob was kind enough to send a few photos of his project for the gallery. Thanks Rob!
You can see more of his projects at www.californiacob.com.
A while back, I posted about my experiences constructing a Rocket Stove.
Since then I’ve added the finishing touches to the Moonunit Rocket stove.
It was a project within a project. It’s guts, made of firebrick, a 55 and 30 gallon drum, vermiculite and clay and stove tubing, went together pretty quickly, but it took me a while to finish the mass part. Several tons of earthbags, urbanite, rock, sand and cob went into building up the mass. The finish floor swallowed much of the body of the stove, about 1 1/2 feet worth. What was left, above the floor, turned into a organically shaped bench and bed.
Continue…
I am in pursuit of employment within the natural building design and construction network. Specifically in joining a design / build team that works with natural building materials, energy efficiency and renewable power.