[Cob] The Geography of Building with Cob

[catinmoon]

Greetings, 

I am a planner/geographer who teaches Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) and a natural building
aficianado. I'd like to volunteer to do some mapping
and make it available to folks on the list.

Over the years on this list there have been many
mentions of locations that are "good" for building
with cob, because of the lack of codes, or owner-built
codes that are more flexible, etc.

I haven't ever collected this spatial information in a
systematic manner, but I know that such a collection
could be useful on many levels.

In the US, it seems appropriate to go to the county
level.

Across the world, such reports as the ones we just got
from Thailand might be most appropriate, although more
detailed information on local acceptance of natural
building would also be useful.

So, I'll try to do some of the research myself, but I
would greatly appreciate anyone with information on
places one could currently build with cob at a county
level sending me an email and I can add the info to a
GIS database.  Or let me know if there are options in
the works.

The output will be both interactive maps (GIS layers
that one could use in a GIS--there are free GIS
softwares available over the internet) and static maps
(e.g. graphic files such as a .jpg) that would be
coded to show which counties/states/nations may be
cob-friendly.

For the US, send me the county, state and what you
know about the codes (e.g. the specific name of a code
allowing owner-built construction).  Even if you don't
have specifics, I will try to do some Internet
research to see what I can also find.

I recall there are counties in CA, CO, and TN that
have been discussed, but there must be more.  My
contact info is below, and I'll update the list when
we get a preliminary product.

Best,
Stephanie Weigel
catinmoon at yahoo.com




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