Cob Stomping

Sunday I took part in the Village-Building Convergence in partnership with the Barre VT community gardens and led by former YM intern, Nicholas Salmons. The project brought together the garden members, community members, additional volunteers and a few local natural builders to help build a round tool shed for the garden.


Cob is a natural building method that is a combination of clay, sand, and straw (this particular straw was leftover from the NBI site posted here). The mixture begins by combining the clay and sand until fully incorporated and the clay lumps are smoothed out. All the mixing is done by foot, in addition to a couple turnings of the clay (folding over the tarp). Once the mixture is uniform, then several handfuls of straw are added.

The sand, as Nick described, acts as the structural component to the wall, much like the way stone is structural. The clay acts as a binder and the straw gives the cob multidirectional filaments to hold the clay together. Cob building not only utilizes locally sourced materials, but also is forgiving, artistic, and is pretty intuitive.Here is Jess and Jan doing the cob dance:



The beer garden!