Natural Building

I have worked with Cob, a natural building material made from subsoil (sand & clay), fiberous material (typically straw), and water first at The Farm New Zealand and most recently at SerVivo space near Lisbon, Portugal. 

Here are some photos from the course we made with Rui and Rodrigo of Live With Earth. The mixture we used for SerVivo’s new kitchen was 12 buckets clay, harvested form the garden where a lake waits to be filled, 8 buckets of sand and 8 buckets of straw. First, we mixed the sand and clay, slowly adding straw and water until the consistency was  like thick mud.

 

We spent multiple days with this mixture between our toes and it was wonderful. My feet and spirit came back to life. Using nails around wooden framework, we applied the cob like bricks. Every two layers, we added a bamboo structure for stability. Over the course of the seven days, the group was able to build the clay walls, install the windows and roof.