Aime Desponds created an amazing casa de barro, or mud house, at his rancho Mogorcito. The process is well documented at his website cobinbaja.blogspot.com.
View the entire building process here »

Aime Desponds was born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1940. After graduating from mechanical engineering in the 1960s, he traveled to mexico where he worked at his uncle’s restaurant. Since 1985, Aime worked as a chef at a restaurant in Santa Ana, California until his retirement in 2005.

Aime was seeking a new twist in his life, and in 1992 he found out that while enjoying the culinary art, he also wanted to be involved in drawing and painting. He then enrolled in art classes in some community colleges in Orange County. It was in looking for information on how to build a clay oven, that he discovered natural construction. In 2003 he took a cob workshop with Linda and Ianto Evans in the Santa Barbara mountains. The contact with mud as a building material and a sculptable matter was an amazing discovery that would affect his life forever.

As he plunged his bare hands and feet into the mud, he felt instantly connected with nature. He knew that this fantastic discovery would fit perfectly with his way of thinking and his artful soul. Thus, he decided to build himself a cob house.

David Sheen has toured the globe documenting sustainable architecture and collecting a wealth of interviews with natural builders, activists and teachers. His work will culminate in a film called First Earth. Meanwhile, he is sharing some of the video clips on his YouTube channel. Check out the playlists to view videos by topic.

May 22-31, 2007 — The Village Building Convergence
June 17-24, 2007 — Build Here Now
July 31-August 4, 2007 — Building With Spirit
October 19-28, 2007— Texas Bioregional Natural Building Gathering
June 20-29, 2008 — Asheville Building Convergence (ABC)
October 2008 — International Natural Building Colloquium

Upcoming natural building events for 2007 - 2008.
Information courtesy of the Natural Building Network »

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While visiting Cob Projects, I found a link to Stephen Hren’s article in Home Power Magazine ( A Hand Built Home - From the Ground Up - download PDF article ).

Stephen Hren and his wife Rebekah built their cob home in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, about 30 miles north of Duram. What amazes me about this project is that it’s completely up to code and it’s cost is so little. The construction cost for the house was $10,950. Affordable? Yes. Later additions of a solar PV system, driveway, septic and well adds another $9,200. $20,150 is very affordable even for the most modest-of-means among us.

Labor, around 2000 hours of it, was not included in the ( monetary) cost. Stephen, Rebekah and their friends traded sweat equity instead of money. Which at $20 an hour, a basic skilled laborer wage, totals $40,000.

Their inspector allowed them to use Pima County, Arizona, building codes that detail “monolithic adobe”. Mark down another code-accredited cob home for the records!

I find it very exciting that cob is finding it’s way into the mainstream of modern housing. Much appreciation goes out to those trailblazers that are working twords building ecologically friendly, inexpensive, monolithic adobe homes.

“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.