A house of cob

This post is very, very long in my head and so I will divide it into headings. Only read the ones you don't know already and also are interested in.

Table of Contents

1. What is Cob?
2. Cob is important to me
a. I want to bring alternative architecture to many people
b. I am maybe building a little house
3. Cob is important to you
4. How my parents feel about it
5. What I have done already
a. in cob
b. to prepare for this cob house

1. What is Cob?
Cob is a way of building structures (walls, benches, stairs) using earth. It is a little like adobe but instead of making the mud into bricks you make it into gobs that you stick together and smooth. Cob is a popular way of building in less developed areas, and it is not terribly complex. The finished structures are smooth and thick. They can be made to be rectangular, using forms like boards as moulds, but they are usually more organic in form, more flowing than we are used to. It is a very freeform and inexpensive buildin method. It is also terribly illegal, for a house in our area, but not, according to The Hand-Sculpted House if the structure is smaller than 120 square feet.

2. Cob is important to me
a. I want to bring alternative architecture to many people
Some people, like the very poor and the refugees, have no where nice to live. (It is important not to confuse these people with the people who have someplace very nice to live, that I personally would not like) Since my 6th grade research project about sustainable building I have wanted to bring these people information and assistance so they can have houses that are much, much nicer than the houses most people in developed countries have got. One innovation that I am interested in is rammed earth, another is cob.
b. I am maybe building a little house
Once we take out the pigeon coop I will have a good spot to make a little house out of clay and sand and straw, and live there, and I am sure our new friends will want to see what it is about and help me this summer. It has to be very, very small, so that it will not need a permit, and it will not need running water or a kitchen as I will still do laundry and eat inside the big house with all of the people. I would like my little house to have two rooms, sitting and bed, and loads of windows. Also it should curve into a courtyard of cob with a sitting space and plants. The other details are not as important to me. Other people can choose them.

3. Cob is important to you
Because if my little house is approved by my parents (and the city and mariposa grove, if that comes up) maybe you would like to come over sometime this summer and cob. It will be fun. More fun than comign to help us retile and paint and floor and roof and demold and the other things we are going to be doing, things that led one of my friends to write in my yearbook "well call me some time when you finally move in".

4. How my parents feel about it
a. Dad
Dad is not used to working as hard as he has been lately and so he will not want to take a leadership role in this house, but the idea of a cob house is very very interesting to him. He is so happy that all of his helping people plans, the ones that earned him a gryffindor scarf, are showing signs of coming to fruition.

b. Mom
Mom is not very comfortable with all of this, although she sort of likes it and would liek it even more if she had a haven from it besides her office. So far she is agreeable to the cob house, but it is possible that the actuality of 20 muddy people building a hut on her land will not appeal to her at all. More than possible.

5. What I have done already
a. in cob
I made a weird little cob rammed earth stucco bench that then got hit with a pole and covedred in mulch and neglected and now is not much of a bench. You can see it at my old school, BASE, on Todd street on alameda point. More recently I helped make the start of an amphitheter in the Alameda Point Collaborative Community Garden. It was lots of fun, I sifted earth and cob danced and packed mud balls and smoothed out the surface.

b. to prepare for this cob house
So far I have collected things to embed in the walls- cob is very good for embedding things, windows by leaving a gap and pressing the (thick or tempered or framed) pane in and then covering the top and the sides with more cob to cement it in place, and non transparent things by just pressing them into the cob.