[Cob] earth - a building material of the future &Cameroon COB

[Charmaine Taylor]

I wanted to recommend a look at both these links- one is a design show
in Europe on raw earth for building, and the other shows cob  cone
shaped buildings.

I use the google "alert" for specific words like lime, papercrete, and
some amazingt sites pop up I would never have foound otherwise.  so
I'd say try it for any word you want info on.  the bottom link is one
that came in for papercrete used in a beautiful way in house design.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/9229/earth-a-building-material-of-the-future.html
[designboom has dedicated a large amount of time to learn more about
clay - one of the earliest natural building  materials in history of
men. our intent is to promote earth also as a building material of the
future.]


http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/9207/musgum-earth-architecture.html
  in this first article of a series, which we will publish in the
upcoming weeks, we'll examine a few ancient building  techniques.  the
musgum, an ethnic group in far north province in cameroon, created
their homes from compressed
sun-dried mud. the tall conical dwellings, in the shape of a shell
(artillery), featured geometric raised patterns.
+++++++++++++++++++++

Another alert  from the  UK-- besides the gorgeous block wall I
laughed to see they did it with using cardboard boxes!!  hundreds of
cardboard boxes to make the shapes.

I have been using cardboard for ages to make precast blocks, but I
admit I did not have the vision to make a 'beauty wall'   like this--
not structural, but as a draft or wind break wall, it is stunning to
see how pretty this is.

 the house looks like wood walls, but the use of the  blocks really
makes the  design.

I am sure cob can be used and has been used like this-
http://bartlettyear1architecture.blogspot.com/2010/02/rural-studio-christine-papercrete-house.html


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