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by Gisela Telis June 22, 2007 National Geographic Green Guide http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/120/cob As builders and homeowners cast about for building materials more sustainable than wood, some are looking backward, to practices used in places where wood (or a tool with which to cut it) was hard to come by. That's what led Linda Smiley and Ianto Evans to build with "cob," an adobe-like cement made from clay-rich soil, sand, water and straw. Smiley, at the time a recreational therapist, and Evans, an inventor and teacher, wanted to expand their 100-year-old wooden cabin in Cottage Grove, Oregon, but out of respect for Oregon's heavily logged forests, they wanted to do it using as few trees as possibleÑleaving them with limited options in the rainy northwest. The conditions reminded Evans' of his native Wales, where traditional cob cottages have survived for centuries in the notorious damp. Smiley and Evans built their 120-square-foot addition using cob and, struck by its solidity and ubiquity, began hosting workshops and traveling to builders' conferences to share what they'd learned. Eventually they founded the Cob Cottage Company, where they offer "how-to" classes on working with cob. They also co-authored The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage (Chelsea Green, 2002, $35). Because cob "breathes," absorbing and releasing heat, air and moisture, it offers better indoor air quality than in a conventional home. British Columbia-based residential designer Elke Cole turned to cob in search of new ways to address her clients' chemical sensitivities. She found that Cob has other notable advantages: Insects don't eat it, so you're less likely to need pesticides, and it doesn't burn. It also offers "beautiful" climate control, Cole adds. "Cob isn't great for insulation," she explains, "but it has thermal mass," which essentially means it's good at holding a constant temperature (read: lower heating and cooling bills). It slowly warms during sunny periods and then slowly releases that warmth during cool or overcast periods. Cole and other cob-dwellers also draw comfort from the fact that cob homes won't harm their surroundings. Because they're made entirely from local, natural materials, cob homes produce "zero garbage" during construction, Cole says. Building with cob requires mixing its ingredients into a sticky mass and then piling still-wet lumps or "loaves" of cob on top of each other to form walls. But walls are not all you can build with it. Tucson-based cob builder Joelee Joyce uses cob for all kinds of projects including garden benches and outdoor cob ovens. Sasha Rabin, co-founder of Seven Generations Natural Builders in Arizona, has used cob for bookcases, even sculptures. If you're interested in muddying your hands a bit, visit a cob house or attend a workshop. As this reporter learned, it's hard to imagine what cob looks and feels like, the work that goes into preparing it or the pleasure of sculpting with it until you try it. Find lists of available and upcoming workshops at www.cobworkshops.org and www.naturalbuildingnetwork.org/calendar.htm. Resources To connect with a local cob builder: www.naturalbuildingnetwork.org Cob Cottage Company: www.cobcottage.com Elke Cole: www.elkecole.com Seven Generations Natural Builders: www.sgnb.com The Cob Builders Handbook: You Can Hand-Sculpt Your Own Home, by Becky Bee. (Groundworks, 1998, $23.95) Little House on a Small Planet, by Shay Salomon. (Lyons Press, 2006, $19.95) |
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