Inspirational Village

Come and build a cob workshop with us! This summer we are offering an opportunity for learning about building with cob while constructing a woodworking shop on Pender Island.  Details about registering are at the end of this post.

During the last month, Colin has been working on drawing the plans for his woodworking shop that we are building this summer.  He has been using a small area in his dads workshop for a long time, and the limitations of that space are more and more apparent. Since his business ( www.thujawoodart.com) is what pays for all our land and home building projects, it was obvious to us that the next thing on the list would be a permanent space for him to expand into, with proper space for wood sorting and storage.  Since we are building within the Capital Regional District (CRD), everything we do needs to be permitted and inspected for compliance with the building codes.  Colin’s dream of building a load bearing cob workshop was thus dependent on the engineer that we have been working with throughout the construction of our strawbale house.  For the past three years, Colin has been giving him a heads-up about this plan, and sending along information and history about the processes and strengths of cob.

From Home Work, an inspiring sky lit workshop

The design that Colin has imagined was inspired by a photo in Lloyd Kahn’s book, Home Work, showing a workshop with a huge central skylight.  Colin’s design entails a large skylight, (8×12), supported by a timber frame in the center of the roof, with the posts coming down into the center of the room, and the roof rafters fanning out from the skylight to rest on the cob wall.  In this way, the walls are supporting a slightly less load than if the roof had no posts at all, and our engineer was happy to approve the designs without any other additions besides some re-bar within the stone foundation and a concrete stem wall beneath the stones for reinforcement of the foundation for seismic standards.  We sent him a video that was filmed at UBC showing a cob building built on to a seismic shaker platform, and given the equivalent shake of a 7 earthquake.  (Ask An Expert-Cob Construction).  A city engineer was witness to the demonstration, and after the building showed minimal cracking, it was subjected to a 9, at which point a wall section crumbled but the roof remained entirely intact.  Seismic qualifications are important considerations in this area, and our engineer was quite satisfied to approve our project with the information we were able to pass on to him.   We are pretty excited about this approval- there are not many engineer approved load bearing cob buildings out there yet.

a cob wall on a stone foundation

We hope that the more exposure alternative building has in the world of construction, the more it will be seen as a viable option in certain circumstances with a understandable set of guidelines and standards in place to keep the buildings safe, healthy, and affordable.  I don’t imagine that cob houses will become a “normal” way of building, but we would love to see the doors opening so that those who wish to build with cob can do so without unnecessary expense and obstacles for something that is really so easy and widely applicable.

So now,  we are organizing some cob workshops for building the cob workshop!  Here is what we are offering this summer:

camping will be in the meadow beside the swimming pond

Join Colin and Wendi, with Tracy Calvert of Cobworks, www.cobworks.com to learn and build load-bearing cob walls onto a stone foundation.  Besides covering the basics of cobbing, we will include the finer details of working around door and window frames, constructing arches and niches, using wood lintels and exploring creative bottle and glass placement designs. Discussions will provide opportunities for questions and further site specification points, as well as other aspects of natural building.  Camping sites are available in the meadow beside the swimming pond, with an outdoor shower and composting toilet. Vegetarian meals will be provided, please inform us of any special food needs ahead of time. Two positions are available for intensives covering both workshops and extra time between and/or after, as self-directed opportunities to learn more. Also, cabin facilities are possible for any needs of circumstance. It is our hope that cob and natural building construction can be widely available methods of building for a diverse, creative, and compassionate community.

the site of the future workshop will be where the pile of logs is, against the rock slope

August 10-13 (Friday to Mon. encouraged to arrive thursday night)

August 17-20 (Friday to Mon. encouraged to arrive thursday night)

Intensive including both courses and 3 days in between with extra instruction at $950 (with possibility to volunteer and stay later afterwards.)

Early bird pricing at $380 until July 27/ Aug 3, then full price of $420 after that.

Comment on this post to register, and we will be sure to email our reply.