There are some great Cob structures around Asheville and the surrounded hollers. There’s a handful in Montford, a few in south asheville, and little huts and homes in many surrounding counties. Rutherford, to Madison, Jackson, and i’m sure far beyond.

Anyone got any pictures of one in their neighborhood?

Anyway, some asheville acquaintances who moved to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage (Missouri) this summer forwarded this to me the other day;

With $3000 for supplies and nine months of full time labor, Ziggy was able to build GOBCOBATRON, a small cob house with interior dimensions of roughly 15′x13′, and a footprint of (again, roughly) 20′x18′. Practically all of the labor was completed by hand (and foot!), including making and applying all of the cob.

from:
http://tinyhouseblog.com/earthcob/recipe-for-building-a-cob-house/

What does the building code dictate in your area?

So, no one else has any input about Cob construction? Or do you people never look below the first entry to any section?

go over to ashevillage and you can check out some samples .... they also have classes on building techniques ....

i also think there are a couple of very cool structures at earthaven

i think using more locally based, natural materials is moving in the right direction .... cob construction requires some skills but more people can participate with minimal instruction ....

ya,

kleiworks has done some neat buildings here and there. the compound down by the baseball park is cool. and that massive earthen house at the haven is epic.

any others? pictures?

I like mud parties cuz cute college girls show up dressed all skimpy and barefoot and wanting to get the mud between their toes…

i didn’t say that ... i prefer the educational value

didnt say what?

here’s a cool local website i just discovered (call me columbus) from beth morello called ‘an urban plot’

http://anurbanplot.blogspot.com/

it has some nice photos of some of the cob installations at the Pearson Gardens in the villa of Montford.

i also think there are a couple of very cool structures at earthaven

Visited the earthhaven a couple of weeks ago they have a tour every SAT for a small fee..well worth it..some very cool strictures and humans that live in them..

pfff - 12 September 2009 08:26 PM

here’s a cool local website i just discovered (call me columbus) from beth morello called ‘an urban plot’
it has some nice photos of some of the cob installations at the Pearson Gardens in the villa of Montford.

I think that’s a pic of a dud riding a bike with his cob sticking out.

wooops. I really cant use flickr anymore. it just gets all ###### up with my computer. i had to log in on another computer to even see that image. sorry.

You need to like, rent a geek or something. Get those computer bugs outta there.

I suppose I am just not Luddite enough. Then again, these houses are clearly not designed for families of more than, say, one?

I mean, if it were just me I suppose I could live in something like that. It would probably take me far longer than nine months to build, though.

Then again, maybe not. I have no problems with what I consider a minimum comfort level living in modern society. I like having about 1200 square feet to play in.

I also wouldn’t want anything much larger than that and I certainly don’t want anything two-story ever again. Dreadful.

Wow. This is the least interesting post I have ever written. I bet no one is even still reading it. I could probably write a poem down here and never get called out on it. No one would even expect it. But maybe they would, so it’d have to be an on-topic poem. Like a haiku to a cob house or something.

small little frame house
the right size for one or two
not hosting christmas

Yea. That works. I like it.

Actually, most of these images arent of homes. They are structures of one kind or another. Like a bathroom, or an oven. But the image from Dancing Rabbit is a home.
You should check out “leela” sometime. It’s big.

http://naturalbuildingschool.com/photos.html

http://naturalbuildingschool.com/index.html

Can I build one of these on a hillside?

yes.

into a hillside would be the best, in my opinion.

On a train, with a fox?