Here are photos and minimal explanations of what happened last summer in Puerto Rico. This was round two of an on-going cob building exploration project. When I began this project 2 summers ago with 9 other friends, our goal was to build a house out of cob that we could all enjoy in the years to come.
As was expected, none of us knew what we were doing, and we were only able to dangle our feet into the mucky earthiness of cob construction. If you want to see what that summer (2006) was all about, you can watch a small trailer put together by my friend Jes. Go to www.wiseguiseproductions.com and click on "house of mud" to check it out.
This blog is dedicated to the process of finally getting our feet and hands totally mucked up in cob. We decided to build a small structure to see what cob was like. We were successful. Scroll down to see the process and the results. I spent a month in Puerto Rico on the land of my grandparents, Jerusalen and Jaime Morales, better known as Lela and Lelo. My workers came at the beginning of the month. They included, my sister Selina, her husband Aaron, my brother Ariel, and my friends Micah, Ari, Joanna, and Rachel.


Don't forget to click on "old post" at the bottom of the screen to see the finished bench.

The river is a beautiful place to work. It is cool from the evaporating water and shade trees. There were few bugs because of the drought, and a light breeze rustled the bamboo. We workshopped all afternoon. Ariel collected some bananas before we left.

We used sifted sand from the river, rich clay from the ground, and we bought straw from a feed store. Our first small batch was mixed at the river so we could design the bench.

We had a lot of different ideas for the design of the bench. We had seen some designs on the web and were very excited to work with our first cob mixture. Once we actually aw how much work went into creating a large structure we decided to simplify our design. However, all of these designs are possible with enough time and materials. I was inspired by the work of Ariel, Micah, and Aaron. They were super creative. Aaron worked on the frog bench, Micah's is the one with bucket seats, Ariel's is the geometric one, and mine are the funny lumps that look like a third grade made them.

More designs.

Different ways of Mixing cob. Dancing (Ari and Micah), Jumping (Me), Stomping (Rachel), Squishing by hand (Selina)

Micah, Rachel, Me, Joanna. When building a cob structure it is necessary to have a foundation to keep the cob off of the ground, and from eroding. We dug a few centimeters off of the top soil and then lay our foundation. We cemented the blocks together with cob.

The foundation was built out of cement blocks. We were concerned that the cob might slide off of the base, so we thought of some ways to prevent that. We put broken rocks into the holes, filled some holes with cob, and criss crossed it with barb wire. I'm not sure it was all necesary but we were experimenting.

Micah and Aaron. The water went out for a week. We could see a strong shower coming across the hills. Everyone jumped into their bathing suits to see if they could catch a bath. I didn't go because I had bathed in the river earlier in the day. I heard the rain was cold. I was surprised to see Lelo running out there as well. He washed at the back of the house.

These two photos are a big jump in construction. But, this is the final step before we worked to fill in all of those holes and smooth out the bench. This took a long time (I only worked 2 hours a day). But, the slow methodical placement of the cob allowed me to enjoy the final weeks in Puerto Rico. The holes were placed with the long screw leaning against the bench. This allowed the straw to be sewn in between the layers, which added structural support to the structure. Sometimes Lelo sat near the bench and read the paper, or just looked at it.

On the final day Lelo and Lela helped me clean up around the bench. Lelo decided to put in a small brick patio to keep mud off your feet. He also began to put in posts to create a roof for the bench. For now it is covered by a tarp.

This is the finished bench without a weather resistant plaster. Wisa is in the background hunting lizards.