Natural building materials: straw, sticks, clay or a mix You may find cob cottages particularly cute, but taste isn't reason enough to choose one natural building material over another. Like more manufactured products, different earth materials all have different uses: straw bale is a great insulator, cob is a nice thermal sink as well as one of the easiest materials to sculpt if you're looking for lots of curves in your structure. "There's a dozen ways you can build a wall using pretty much the same materials: clay soils, straw, sand, sticks", explains natural building expert Michael G. Smith, "and each of those has its own particular sets of attributes as far as wall thickness, thermal properties, sculptural properties, speed, materials that they require, etcetera, etcetera so you might make different decisions based on your site, based on who you are, what you need as to which materials to use, but even within the same building different parts of the building need to do different tasks."
A beautiful cob home in England Which means, "Where are you going? It's getting dark, so come in and take a drink". If you're interested in English accents you can listen to the Somerset accent on the BBC The home is the work of Lisa and Rich who built the house with clay from the stream that runs just out of view in this picture. If you want to build with cob then you must test the quality of your clay. Make compact balls of the mixes about 6cm diameter.
untitled Cob St-Ambroise | Constructions Écologiques musgum earth architecture feb 18, 2010 musgum earth architecture designboom has dedicated a large amount of time to learn more about clay - one of the earliest natural building materials in history of men. our intent is to promote earth also as a building material of the future. it represents an excellent alternative to cement whose manufacture releases considerable quantities of CO2. individual housing units and small apartment buildings can easily be built from earth in every part of the world. however, concrete remains an essential material for high-rise construction. the research effort should be therefore two-pronged: tailoring earth to the needs of modern construction and making concrete ‘greener’. in this first article of a series, which we will publish in the upcoming weeks, we’ll examine a few ancient building techniques. musgum clay houses in cameroon what strikes at first sight is their almost organic simplicity, a second reading reveals the functions behind the forms. detail drawing of a musgum dwelling
untitled How to make a backyard mud oven. Cheap, fun, and makes a professional qualtity pizza! Making a backyard mud or clay oven is a great family project, and once completed, you will be able to make fantastic hearth breads, and professional quality pizza. A mud oven is a wood burning oven, which used the residual heat from the firing to cook with. A basic backyard oven can be made for next to nothing, and will be a very satisfying project for the whole family. There will be lots of mud and squishing and stuff; and kids will definitely enjoy the process. A cob or clay oven is vastly superior to your conventional oven for pizzas and bread. The steps as follows are a pretty basic guide, and if you get inspired, you can visit the links at the bottom the page for more information. Basically all you need is sand, clay, and straw. You are going to make the oven using to different mixtures of "mud". To start, make a fire proof platform for your oven. The mixing of this is both the fun part, and also the hard part. Now for the hearth floor. Presto chango…you've made an oven! Enjoy!
Dig these 6 awesome underground homes Okay. So the $1.7M Cold War era underground home in Las Vegas is ghastly and depressing. But you will be amazed at how striking a buried abode can be if designed skillfully. Behold, six subterranean homes that you don’t need to be a paranoid hermit to appreciate. Berber homes, Tunisia Pictured above is Hotel Sidi Driss, a traditional sunken Berber building in the village of Matmata, Tunisia. Tunnel villa, Switzerland Designed by SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects, this tunnel-shaped home was built 72 feet (22 meters) into a slope on Switzerland’s Valsertal Valley. Cave house, Missouri This two-storey, three-bedroom home in Festus, Missouri was built inside of a 15,000-square foot sandstone cave. Malator, Wales The Malator, or Teletubby House as it’s known locally, blends into the hills that overlook St. Earth House Estate, Switzerland Earth House Estate Lättenstrasse in Dietikon, Switzerland is as close to a real-life Shire as you’ll find. Aloni, Greece
untitled Building with Cob The RIC Good Wood Guide Sculpt your own House by Ianto Evans - reprinted from Permaculture International Journal, March '95 Contents at a Glance.. Introduction Standing Strong in the Rain Earthquakes? Elegant Climate Control How Fast can You Build? Materials A Cob Cottage for $500 Why Bother? Introduction Cob is one of many methods for building with raw earth. Working with cob is a sensory and aesthetic experience similar to sculpting with clay. With the soaring price of timber and increasing interest in natural and environmentally-safe building practices, cob is enjoying a renaissance. Once the basics are understood, cob building is amazingly simple. Cob workshops should include other information that you will need: site-selection, foundations, windows and doors, attachment of wood and other materials, detail work and finishing. Standing Strong in the Rain Cob is highly resistant to weathering. Earthquakes? Elegant Climate Control How Fast can You Build? Materials A Cob Cottage for $500 Why Bother?
The Brick Bake Oven Page Click here to order. by Daniel Wing and Alan Scott Definitive work on authentic hearth breads. Includes instructions for building a backyard bake oven. "Wing and Scott do more than get the details right: they get the right details. Woodfiredpizza.org Good site with instructions for an Alan Scott style oven. August Vanderdonckt's detailed photo record of building an Alan Scott oven. Frankie G's Pizza Oven Project - good photo record and pizza info. Step by step Alan Scott style oven at backyardbrickoven.com Build Your Own Earth Oven (3rd Edition) Click here to order A simple, fully-illustrated handbook for making an oven from earthen materials (similar to adobe and cob). Provides clear, step-by-step instructions for building and firing the oven. Check out Kiko's great blog and archive on oven building on ovens and earth art Backyard adobe - We built this simple oven at our neighbour's 20 years ago. Click on image for assembly photos. Frank's Pizza Oven Instructions for building a loam oven.