News Article

House of Cob: Women Build Retreat of Earth, Energy, Art

By Denise Malan

The Morning News/NWAonline.net Monday, July 23, 2001

Seemingly oblivious of wasps buzzing near their heads, Joy Fox and Susana Brinnon worked busily recently on a time-consuming project that has become their passion.

The friends' concern for the environment and love of creative expression led them to an alternative building material that Fox said is revolutionary. They are building a lodge at Fox's Wattle Hallow retreat center out of cob -- a mixture of native clay, sand and straw.

On a steamy day two weeks ago, Fox and Brinnon worked on the lodge, taking frequent breaks to drink water and discuss creative ideas that sprang into their minds in the midst of building. They seem to more have ideas than they could complete for other side projects within the building.

"I believe I used more than my share of lumber building Wattle Hallow," Fox said of the center, which she constructed in a tucked-away location near West Fork. "Anything else that happens here will be alternative and exemplary."

Fox attended her first cobbing workshop two years ago in Newton County, and she was hooked. After picking a site for a lodge on a slope underneath an existing cabin at Wattle Hallow, she enlisted friends to help and began construction in spring 2000.

Using rented equipment, Fox excavated clay -- which would be saved and later used to make cob -- built a foundation of native stone and erected several posts to serve as a frame and guide for their construction.

In September, Fox hosted a cobbing workshop at Wattle Hallow, which also serves as a meditation and yoga retreat. Becky Bee, an experienced cobber, attended the seven-day session to teach the art. Bee wrote "The Cob Builder's Handbook: You Can Hand-Sculpt Your Own Home," which Fox and Brinnon use as a guide. Bee, a native of Central America, has researched the building method and conducted workshops around the world since 1993.

"Building with cob is a powerful political action, greatly reducing the need for mortgage systems, lumber and construction industries and petrochemical companies," Bee writes in the introduction to her book. "Cob builders spend less of their lives working to pay for all of the above and more time living. Making homes with natural materials gathered gently from the earth improves the likelihood of the survival of life itself."

Bee offers sample floor plans and information about everything from choosing a site for a home to building the foundation to installing plumbing and electricity.

"Cobbing is a process best described as mud daubing," she writes. "Earth, sand and straw are mixed together and massaged onto the foundation, creating thick, load-bearing walls. It's like hand-sculpting a giant pot to live in."

Cobbing was common in Africa, the Middle East, India, Afghanistan, Asia, Europe and South and Central America. The building method began in Europe about 800 years ago, and about one-third of the world's current population lives in homes of unbaked earth, according to Bee's book. But since about 1980, "cob is in the early stages of being rediscovered in the modern world. Ideas and innovations are popping up all the time," she writes.

"Cobbing connects you to the long forgotten memories of building with nature that have been stored in your cells and passed down from your ancestors," Bee continued. "It will help you remember that you are a child of Mother Earth. You'll get to know the inventor in yourself, the artist, the inspired creator, the designer, the organizer, the homemaker."

Another advantage of cobbing is its tendency to bring large groups of friends together.

"Cobbing lends itself to sharing, co-creation and group decision making," Bee wrote. "It reminds us that we can still function as a clan. Cobbing together inspires deep sharing and friendship."

Fox and Brinnon whole-heartedly agreed with Bee's assessment. About 30 people have helped with the Wattle Hallow structure at different times, and all left their energy behind to help make the lodge feel like a home, Brinnon said.

To build a cob structure, one needs a few basic, inexpensive or free tools, including -- of course -- sand, clay and straw. Fox's lodge is constructed of native clay from the excavation site. The consistency of clay found in Northwest Arkansas makes it a prime candidate for building, Fox said. And she also bought sand and straw bales from local vendors.

Clay, sand and straw come together to form cob when mixed by stomping it on a tarp; Bee recommended a tarp at least 7-by-9-feet.

"The magic of cob is in the stomping," Fox explained as she and Brinnon marched in tight circles in a batch of cob. "The idea is to coat every grain of sand."

While Fox and Brinnon used three buckets of sand to one bucket of clay in their cob mixture, variables such as humidity and the consistency of the clay can cause adjustments to the recipe, Fox said.

"It's just like making bread," she said. "It's never the same."

One also will need sticks or stones that fit comfortably in his hand so he can pound new batches of cob onto the structure, plenty of water, a wheelbarrow to transport materials and buckets.

Any additional materials used to add flair to a building are up to individual builders. Fox ordered several pieces of 3/4-inch thick colored glass and cut each into a different shape for conversation-piece windows that also allow plenty of light to filter inside. She also used broken tile pieces -- another inexpensive material -- to create mosaics as the mood struck her.

But none of this was part of a plan from the beginning.

"The slower you go, the more fun you have," Fox said about the way ideas come to her. She pointed out many examples of last-minute plans, such as trinket niches carved in the corners of each of the lodge's two bedrooms.

Fox and Brinnon also find spur-of-the-moment materials in the woods that engulf Wattle Hallow. Any piece of interesting wood or stone is carried back to the building site for possible incorporation into the structure.

After the cob dries -- a weeks-long process -- it is smoothed with a cover of plaster, the recipe for which is still in the experimentation stages, Fox said. She uses all-natural materials -- oatmeal, oatbran, golden flax seeds, sand, clay slip and psyllium, the seed of a fleawort plant. Fox uses different colors of plaster to create patterns along the walls and implants fragmented tiles into the walls to form mosaics.

Fox said the almost infinite flow of creative ideas can make the process seem endless. But the friends' enthusiasm hasn't waned -- perhaps it has even grown -- since the project began months ago.

"I don't have any carpentry skills," Brinnon said as she pounded a stick on a new batch of cob on a back wall. "If I were going to build a house, I would have to rely on someone else. What a wonderful feeling to do it yourself."

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