Earth/Cob - Part 3

Cae Mabon

The Cae Mabon Retreat Centre in North Wales has been building small, natural dwellings for their residents and visitors since 1989. This intentional community is located in the best of what nature can offer: in the woods, by a river, near a lake, at the foot of the mountains and within sight of the sea.

Cae Mabon’s principal creator is Eric Maddern, who was inspired to create the community after spending time with the Aboriginal people in Alice Springs, Australia. He wanted to create a place that was not the ostentatious beauty of the wealthy but the humble beauty of the simple and natural. The buildings he created are mostly made from timber, stone, reed, straw, grass, lime and clay and they blend in with their surroundings.

Cob Building – Off the Treadmill

by Kent Griswold

This movie is entitled “Off The Treadmill” and is about getting out of mortgage debt by using the very ground we stand on to build our own homes. “It’s dirt cheap”, says Ianto Evans, master cob builder and architect at Cob Cottage in Southern Oregon. This film was created by … Read more

A Tiny Cob Home, Modern Hobbit House

by Kent Griswold

It’s estimated that half of the world’s population lives in earth buildings, but for many countries this type of architecture was until recently fairly rare. Now materials like rammed earth, cob, compressed earth and mud brick are experiencing a comeback. A modern cob home- Cobtun House- in England won the … Read more

That Roundhouse

by Christina Nellemann

This roundhouse, built of cordwood, cob, straw and recycled windows, is located in southwest Wales and owned by Tony Wrench. It’s not only a low impact, natural dwelling built with what was on hand, but it’s become a symbol for the rights of natural builders within the United Kingdom.

The house was built in 1997 by Tony and featured solar power, a wind turbine, composting toilet and reed beds for gray water. Tony based this house on American Indian designs he had seen in history books. In the past, he had had experience building “wacky structures” and wanted to live as close to the land as possible. Even though he built it inside Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, with agreement from the owners of the land, he never got permission for the structure from the local planning board. After several court appearances, he and his partner, Jane, decided to demolish it in 2004, but changed their minds after public demonstrations persuaded them not to. The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority attempted to get a court injunction to force Tony to demolish it, but were persuaded to allow it to stay up until July 2006, when they could re-apply under the new Low Impact Policy. In 2008, the committee voted to give Tony a conditional for three years. So – the roundhouse still stands.

Beautiful Cob

by Christina Nellemann

For next summer, I’ve been looking at taking a cob building workshop to update my building skills, learn some natural building techniques, and get closer to the natural world. The process of building a tiny house out of earth and found materials is very appealing. While doing my research, I came across a few tiny cob houses that I thought epitomized how warm, human-scaled and friendly they can be. Some of these were so beautiful, I just had to share.

Pedalpalooza: Tour of Southeast Portland Tiny Homes

by Kent Griswold

Following is a guest post by my friend Tammy Strobel who publishes the Rowdy Kittens Blog.

Shift is an organization in Portland that brings people together for bike based fun. Every year Shift facilitates an amazing event called Pedalpalooza, that spans a 2 week period.

With 291 events, most organized by individuals, bikers of all persuasions are likely to find many events of interest. Nearly all events are free.

A few weeks ago Eli Spevak, from Orange Splot, LLC, organized a Pedalpalooza ride featuring tiny homes. A group of 150 cyclists gathered for the tiny home tour, in Southeast Portland.

We stopped at six tiny homes and saw a number of different housing styles, including: a 14 x 8 gypsy wagon, a little house made of cob, a nanny’s house on wheels, a straw-bail tiny house that is being used as a detached bedroom, an urban village, and a cute little home that was converted from a garage to a little cottage.

Rina Swentzell’s Adobe House

by Kent Griswold

Judy introduced me to Rina Swentzell’s house and I am really impressed. This house does not fit in the tiny house size but fits more in the small size but I find the simplicity and the beauty of the home well worth sharing for inspiration and ideas.

The house is based in Northern New Mexico and was designed for the grandmother of Bill Steen’s children and Athena’s mother. The grandchildren were involved in the construction and were able to show and develop there construction talents.

Benito worked on the building from start to finish, being there from the foundations through the walls andfinish plasters. Anything that was done with wood, from the roof to the finish carpentry and furniture.

Cob Workshop and Class

by Kent Griswold

The Natural Building Network is offering a Cob Workshop this summer at the Mariposa Ecovillage in Amarillo, Texas. This is a practical hands-on cob workshop designed to give you building skills through first hand experience and practice. Be prepared to get dirty! We will be spending most of each day … Read more

Underground Micro Homes Part 2

by Kent Griswold

Guest post by Walt Barrett

We have already established in a previous article for the tiny house blog that by building a home underground there are huge advantages when it comes to heating, and cooling. Starting from an average underground base temperature of 55° F it’s an easy jump to hold a small underground home to a temperature range of 65° to 75° Fahrenheit.

Now an underground home can be as simple as a pure survival model such as burying an old van, school bus, truck body or shipping container in the side of a hill or a hole in the ground with a combination stair well – light well, or it can be a well designed, and insulated modern home complete with all the necessary systems as a totally modern above ground home. One of the main differences is that the underground home design will certainly use far less energy, and it will be far less expensive to build if designed properly. If you miss the view of an above ground home, assuming there is a view to begin with, I suggest a TV wired to a web cam with a 360 degree sweep. Plus, you can always step outside to enjoy the view and contemplate the thousands of dollars that you are saving.

Underground Micro Home

by Kent Griswold

Guest Post by Walt Barrett part 1. Here in New England it gets pretty cold in the winter, and the temperature hovers around the freezing mark. We have already built a 128 square foot micro home to use as a test bed for our energy saving products, and now we … Read more

The Mexican Casita

by Christina Nellemann

Using a word dating back from the 1860’s, the casita might just be the original tiny house. The Spanish diminutive of casa or house is used to describe a small Latino style home, usually sharing space with other homes its size. My husband and I spent a portion of the holidays in Baja, Mexico, and stayed in a casita near the marine sanctuary of Cabo Pulmo. Each of these tiny houses are part of a small village that is completely off the grid. The villagers’ power comes from solar panels, generators and propane.

These types of Baja casitas are typically made out of cement blocks and are coated with a few layers of cement, which is rounded over the corners of the blocks. Other casitas in Mexico are made of adobe brick and coated with layers of mud and straw. The cement blocks help to keep out the desert heat and block El Norte, or the heavy winter winds that come from the north.

Ziggy visits Cob Cottage Company

by Kent Griswold

Ziggy, who built his own cob house sent me a note telling me about his visit to the the Cob Cottage Company in Oregon.

He just put up a post with a slide show of pictures of his visit. He went to visit Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley in their home in Coquille, Oregon.

Ianto and Linda are two very influential cob building pioneers in North America, and authors of The Hand-Sculpted House, the number one go-to book for cob construction.

Be sure and watch his slide show and read his post as he covers a lot of good information on cob building and what he learned from his visit. Here is what Ziggy came away with from his visit: