Cob House Interiors: Six beautiful and unique homes around the world.

Around one third of the world's population live in earthen homes of one sort or another. In England there are many cob homes built over 500 years ago that are still lived in to this day, and could easily be lived in for the next 500 years too. Properly maintained there is no end to the life span of a cob building. Cob is a mixture of clay, sand and straw. It is a very sculptural material that allows you to create beautiful shapes, like the cob bench (above) fitting perfectly in to the bay window. The tiny cob cottage is by Michael "Meka" Bunch of the Artisan Builders Collective. You can see more of the cottage in the video above.

Much like Simon Dale, Gary Zuker built this 900sq.ft (84m2) cob home in Austin, TX, USA without any previous building experience. Back In 1990 few cob homes were being built so Gary researched 15th century cob homes at his local university. Three years later his home was complete. Garry is a great proponent of Alexander's A Pattern Language. He has incorporated 118 of the patterns in his home many of which came into being naturally because of the building technique and natural materials he was using. You can find his home on the Natural Homes Map.

This is the cob cottage at Cae Mabon in Wales. The cottage was built in 2004 by 25 people, on and off, over two weeks mixing cob early in the morning and then building with it later in the day.

The building project was lead by Ianto and Linda of Cob Cottage. It's a very magical place with a tree spirit and a storytelling roundhouse.

This is Ianto and Linda's living room in their beautiful cob home in Oregon, USA. They run the Cob Cottage Company. 

Their window is a nice example of a low sill window place [Pattern No.180] one of the varieties of window identified by Alexander's Pattern Language. The correct height for such a window place, where you can draw up a chair to enjoy the view, is 12-14 inches, about 30-35cm. The sense of enclosure is not derived from the window but rather the chair which ideally will have a high back and arm rests.

This is a living room at Korobov farm, Ukraine built by designer Yuri Ryntovt. The rooms are built using the Ukrainian version of cob where a wooden framework is coated first with a mixture of clay and straw and then with clay mixed with sawdust. It's a similar technique to the English mud and stud homes.

This is one of the tiny cob cabins in Coquille, OR, USA. These little homes cost very little to build. Ianto and Linda talk about their work in this video (right) where you will find out just how inexpensive these cob homes can be.