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This is a website about building houses and other structures from earth, using a technique called 'cob'. Also called monolithic adobe, cob is made from a combination of sand, clay, water, and straw, and is mixed by foot, and molded by hand. There are thousands of cob houses across England and Wales that were built hundreds of years ago and are still standing to this day. After much book research, and even more field research (building actual houses from earth), I have come to the conclusion that cob housing is the best human housing on the planet. There are many advantages to cob houses, but chiefly among them are: 1) you can build one by yourself, without having to hire "building professionals" to do it for you; 2) the materials are cheap or free, so you don't have to take out a mortgage and be a slave to the bank and a job that you hate; 3) the earthen walls absorb the energy of the sun and any internal heat sources, so the home remains cool in the summer and warm in the winter, at next to no cost; 4) it's healthy for the earth -- making the materials causes no environmental damage; 5) it's healthy for humans -- the materials don't off-gas toxic chemicals; 6) and best of all, you can sculpt the house into beautiful, funky shapes! In the summer of 2004, I learned cob building by apprenticing with the grandmasters of cob at the North American School of Natural Building, who rediscovered and reinvented cob building a decade ago, after it had been ignored for over a century. I spent two months with the Cob Cottage Company in Oregon with Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley, and then another two weeks at Emerald Earth, California, the home of Michael Smith. Ianto, Linda, & Michael's book, The Hand-Sculpted House, is one of the best books that I have ever read, and has inspired me, and many others, to live differently. That summer I also travelled up and down the West Coast of North America, all across the bioregion called Cascadia, documenting the many beautiful cob houses and cob structures that I found. From British Columbia in the North to Northern California in the South, the peoples that I met share a common culture that is uniquely Cascadian: a commitment to create community and to live ecologically. This is a photo record of that journey, for all of the people on the East Coast, and beyond, who can't possibly imagine how beautiful an earthen house is, until they see some. Please direct specific questions about cob to the Cob Mailing List, where many knowledgeable people with be happy to help you. Visit http://www.deatech.com/mailman/listinfo/coblist.
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