[Cob] Small houses

[Amanda Peck]

Yes, Octagons often look very nice.  I'm a house plans book addict, and I've 
spent many happy hours wandering, in my mind's eye, through octagon houses.  
And a hand operated elevator, which if parked at the bottom (or above the 
upper ventilation windows?) can cool in the summer sounds pretty fun.  Not 
sure I want to BUILD it mind you.  Mike Swink has been talking about wind 
scoops lately, (see also Nader Khalili's Ceramic Houses), those would work 
too.

The other week when I was in a bookstore I picked up one of those "wherever 
style" books. Provence, Tuscany, Bali, Indonesia, Mexican, French Country ad 
infinitum, expensive because they are glossy paper and nearly all color 
pictures--we may or may not need  a cob book, there IS a pretty nice one on 
400+ year old half-timbered British houses.  This one is Casa Yucatan.  If 
you run into it, take a look at the walls.  I'm half-way between envy and 
"how the #%^@** did they do it?"

Huge walls with patterns in small rock embedded in them (I'd know how to do 
it if they were small areas, but how you get the shale or whatever in there 
before the lime and earthen plaster (that's what was used) dries, how to 
keep the lines more or less regular, etc.....).  You could probably use 
shale for the patterns.  Spirals, 10 x 15 foot walls that are completely 
studded with little stones, and patterns that look remarkably like hand 
quilting in the walls, with little bits of rock nearly buried for each 
stitch.

And there are also nice pictures of vaults and squinch domes and strange 
looking arches.

Here's Amazon's URL for it.  Unfortunately the book's not old enough that 
they are going to post a few pages.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1586850334/103-6977152-4198211?v=glance

..................

   (snipped) Cat here, I have been looking at layouts for 8 sided houses and 
they
    are very spacious, the largest being about 70' accross.  The beauty of
    some of them is that a central stair acts as an air shaft to keep the
    house fresh and the sq ft roof and foundation are less than in a
    conventional.  This saves time, materials.  Also look at the Japanese
    traditional homes built before the turn of the century , simplicity,
    calm and outstanding organization for storage.

    Took a ride the other day in a 100 year old hand operated
    elevator!!!!  one hops on and pulls a rope, they are no more
    complicated than a dumb waiter only the wheels and gears are larger.
    The builder was realy thinking!! the walls of the shaft were all
    shelves!  The occupents used the space to store there pantry goods.
    All very accessable with the pull of a rope, sooooo sweet.  (there was
    not much in the way of saftey mesures, but I'm sure a little inovation
    could correct that.  Another plus is that it takes less room than a
    stair case.  The counter weights made it easy to move and if my
    perceptions were working it took the same amount of time to rise from
    one floor to the next as going up stairs.  My favorite though is the
    simpicity of moving stuff. Big stuff like dressers and such!

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