If you came to this website via my recent interview with Boing Boing (how to build a Hobbit House): welcome! You may be curious to learn more details about the construction of my cob house at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Check out these links to some of my previous posts for more information about building with cob.
Avi Solomon recently interviewed me for a bit on Boing Boing, titled Brian “Ziggy” Liloia on How To Build Your Own Hobbit House.
In the interview, I talk about my decision to build with cob, the great rewards and challenges in building your own home, the community building experience at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, and more.
If you’re new to this blog (or even if you’re not), please check it out!
p.s. Want to learn even more about how to build your own cob house? Check out The Year of Mud: Build a Cob House book!
At last, I finished producing my cob building book, The Year of Mud: Building a Cob House. It is available for purchase through Blurb.com. This book is a story of how I constructed my own home, and what it is like to build with cob. The book features dozens of color images, how-to information and building recipes, and inspiration for those wanting to learn more about cob and earthen building.
Here’s a synopsis and some details about the cob house manual:
I recently had the fortunate opportunity to check out Mud, Hands, A House (or El Barro, Las Manos, La Casa, its original Spanish title), a great natural building documentary provided to me by the kind Max of Firespeaking.com.
It’s an educational, how-to focused natural building documentary with a wealth of instructional segments, led by Jorge Belanko, an engaging master natural builder based in Patagonia, Argentina.
You can read the article about my cob house that was published in Yes! Magazine online. Check it out.
Michael Janzen of Tiny House Design is building a tiny, 80 square foot house… for free. And word is getting out about his project, which is one of many in the new tiny house wave. From Michael:
The core values of the tiny house movement are that living simply in small spaces empowers us. Committing to a tiny house removes many of the burdens we accepted when we bought into the idea of a “normal” American lifestyle. Instead of focusing on how much we can afford, the tiny space forces us to consider how little we really need.
Check out more about his nifty free tiny house project at Yes! Magazine and visit his website for more news and musings on the tiny house movement! Cool stuff.
Michael Janzen of Tiny House Design is building a tiny, 80 square foot house… for free. And word is getting out about his project, which is one of many in the new tiny house wave. From Michael:
The core values of the tiny house movement are that living simply in small spaces empowers us. Committing to a tiny house removes many of the burdens we accepted when we bought into the idea of a “normal” American lifestyle. Instead of focusing on how much we can afford, the tiny space forces us to consider how little we really need.
Check out more about his nifty free tiny house project at Yes! Magazine and visit his website for more news and musings on the tiny house movement! Cool stuff.
I’ve mentioned before that GOBCOBATRON will be featured on the cover of the latest Yes! Magazine, issue #55. Well, in addition to that, the staff has created a slideshow of the building of my cob house for their website, and a piece of my writing accompanies it.
You can check out the Building a Handmade Cob House slideshow at the Yes! website. If you like it, maybe you’ll consider stumbling it and sharing with friends?
Thanks!
GOBCOBATRON in Yes! Magazine
Whoa! Yes! Magazine recently contacted me about a feature they were creating for their newest issue about resilient communities — they specifically had interest in covering Dancing Rabbit, but it turns out most of the article ended up being about my cob home. They even selected our photo for the cover shot! (Thanks to Stephen for the photo help.)
This morning we had a mini photo shoot for a possible magazine cover image. Thankfully the weather was just lovely. It was nice to see the house slowly lit up by the beautiful morning sun… If we’re lucky, this photo will actually make the cut. Thanks to Stephen for the photo!
More to come later…
About The Year of Mud
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This website is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. In 2012, we started offering Natural Building Workshops, so you can learn essential hands-on skills to build your own natural home.
