Cob Building Course (including Oven Workshop)

Ready to get your hands dirty?  Join us for 7 days of theory & design, hands-on natural building and exploratory tours of local structures and homes that were built using different techniques.  This course is designed to immerse you in the methods used to create sustainable, healthy, made-from-local materials, energy efficient, aesthetic, functional and owner-build structures to add beauty and form to your landscape.  This course focuses on cob building and a one day earth oven workshop.

In this workshop, you will learn from and actively build alongside instructors as we create an outdoor kitchen for our intern village.  We will also construct an earthen wood fired oven on the second to last day.

Proper design for energy efficiency (passive solar, air circulation, etc).

Methods that work best in different climates.

Overview of needed tools

How to source and test locally available materials.

Pre-construction design – How to choose a building site.

Building a rubble trench & ensuring proper drainage

Building stem walls (we will be using recycled urbanite or old concrete)

Proper and efficient mixing of cob

Building and shaping cob walls

Sculptural cob – carving niches and making relief work on cob

Creating entrances and doors

How to mix and apply lime & earth plasters and earthen paints

Framing basics

How to work with stone.

Natural Building slideshow (overview of different techniques)