The Hand-Sculpted House
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Product Description
Are you ready for the Cob Cottage? This is a building method so old and so simple that it has been all but forgotten in the rush to synthetics. A cob cottage,cobb, however, might be the ultimate expression of ecological design, a structure so attuned to its surroundings that its creators refer to it as "an ecstatic house." The authors build a house the way others create a natural garden. They use the oldest, most available materials imaginable - earth, clay, sand, straw, and water - and blend them to redefine the future (and past) of building. Cob (the word comes from an Old English root, meaning "lump") is a mixture of non-toxic, recyclable, and often free materials. Building with cob requires no forms, no cement, and no machinery of any kind. Builders actually sculpt their structures by hand. Building with earth is nothing new to America; the oldest structures on the continent were built with adobe bricks. Adobe, however, has been geographically limited to the Southwest. The limits of cob are defined only by the builder's imagination. Cob offers answers regarding our role in Nature, family and society, about why we feel the ways that we do, about what's missing in our lives. Cob comes as a revelation, a key to a saner world.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A truly excellent book, a tad other worldly in places but in terms of inspiring a person to build a house from eco friendly materials, paying attention to the design process and generally making you want to stop whatever you are doing and begin building immediately, there is no competition.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Well written, great diagrams and drawings to assist you visually, beautiful photos to inspire you and a real in depth approach to cob building! I particularly like the fact that it gives a good idea of the history, social, emotional and economic implications of cob building, and the importance of the relation between your house and the environment it in which it is in. Definitely a must for anyone interested in building their own cob house, or a wall or an oven, or simply for those who have an interest in sustainability and natural buildings! Thanks Linda and Ianto!
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I had wanted to read this book for ages, and so it was a momentous moment when I found it in my local library. And it was every bit as good, ground-breaking and life-changing as I had hoped. I've long been interested in natural building, and plan...one day...to build my own cob/straw bale home. But this book is more than a series of techniques or house plans - it makes you think about what a home should be, how you'll live in it, and to understand the concept of minimal environmental disruption.
I think that having read this book I will end up building a smaller, more organically-shaped and also more personal building, and one which will be a far more positive place to live. I look around me at the vast, boxy, homogenous houses which fill (and blight) the Irish countryside, and I wish more people would read this book! It's so good that even though I read it as a library book I will be buying my own copy now...one read is not enough!
I think that having read this book I will end up building a smaller, more organically-shaped and also more personal building, and one which will be a far more positive place to live. I look around me at the vast, boxy, homogenous houses which fill (and blight) the Irish countryside, and I wish more people would read this book! It's so good that even though I read it as a library book I will be buying my own copy now...one read is not enough!
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