From traditional cob houses to modern ecological homes(part I)
Hello, friends!
Remember last time I told you about my Christmas gift from Romania, a traditional carpet woven on looms? As mentioned previously, these type of carpets were to be found in the Romanian villages, in the cob houses of our beloved artisans.
One of the oldest cob houses, that I was able to see, was a house built in 1730.
Cob was made by mixing the clay-based subsoil with sand, straw and water. Its 280 years durability is explained by having been built on a hill so the soil did not keep humidity and the cob did not get infiltrated by water. Cob appears to be a very versatile building material, possible to form into virtually any shape.The clay, mixed with bigger chopped straw, was raised with forks by two men at the height of the wall, where a third one built it and stamped it with his feet. The walls were placed on a stone foundation or directly on the ground. The successive layers were flattened with a shovel. The final layer of compacted earth was 6- 10 cm thick. In order to obtain homogeneous walls, the execution was to be carried out continuously, without interrupting the process until the completion of the construction. In order to increase the resistance of the wall, vine chords were sometimes used: every 3-4 layers, strings were placed horizontally, along the walls, primarily at the corners. Wood boards were placed on the top of the walls (sometimes the same planks used for form-work), so that the weight of the beams, the roof framing and the roof sheltering were evenly distributed on the walls. The thickness of the walls varied between 50 and 80 cm, and in their thickness furniture elements (niches or cupboards) were sometimes integrated. The door and window openings were cut into the already built walls after these were finished.
The potter who restored this old cob house, restored another house built in 1840.
Both houses preserve the traditional atmosphere with carpets woven on looms, ewers, wooden stoves and a lot more of the wonderful stress-free life of the remote villages. If you get to Romania, visiting these houses or even renting a room in one of them, will give you a better idea why architects, nowadays, are using the cob as an ecological material. About most beautiful and ecological modern cob houses, in the next blog entry.
Remember last time I told you about my Christmas gift from Romania, a traditional carpet woven on looms? As mentioned previously, these type of carpets were to be found in the Romanian villages, in the cob houses of our beloved artisans.
One of the oldest cob houses, that I was able to see, was a house built in 1730.
Cob was made by mixing the clay-based subsoil with sand, straw and water. Its 280 years durability is explained by having been built on a hill so the soil did not keep humidity and the cob did not get infiltrated by water. Cob appears to be a very versatile building material, possible to form into virtually any shape.The clay, mixed with bigger chopped straw, was raised with forks by two men at the height of the wall, where a third one built it and stamped it with his feet. The walls were placed on a stone foundation or directly on the ground. The successive layers were flattened with a shovel. The final layer of compacted earth was 6- 10 cm thick. In order to obtain homogeneous walls, the execution was to be carried out continuously, without interrupting the process until the completion of the construction. In order to increase the resistance of the wall, vine chords were sometimes used: every 3-4 layers, strings were placed horizontally, along the walls, primarily at the corners. Wood boards were placed on the top of the walls (sometimes the same planks used for form-work), so that the weight of the beams, the roof framing and the roof sheltering were evenly distributed on the walls. The thickness of the walls varied between 50 and 80 cm, and in their thickness furniture elements (niches or cupboards) were sometimes integrated. The door and window openings were cut into the already built walls after these were finished.
The potter who restored this old cob house, restored another house built in 1840.
Both houses preserve the traditional atmosphere with carpets woven on looms, ewers, wooden stoves and a lot more of the wonderful stress-free life of the remote villages. If you get to Romania, visiting these houses or even renting a room in one of them, will give you a better idea why architects, nowadays, are using the cob as an ecological material. About most beautiful and ecological modern cob houses, in the next blog entry.
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