Why you should read The Hand Sculpted House.

I came across this book at my local library and it immediately captured my attention with its intriguing title The Hand-Sculpted House

Hand Sculpted House...? 

How do you sculpt a house?  


Isn't a house something made of hard, angular material that needs to be cut, beaten, screwed and otherwise forced into a position that will work to protect us and our possessions.  This book contends that no a house does not have to be made of wood, sheetrock and concrete and must conform to perfect squares and rectangles.  Instead it provides an inside look into the lives of successful earthen home builders that have constructed beautiful, resilient and comfortable homes using the humble materials of rock, sand, clay and straw. 

This book was my first serious introduction into cob building or cobbing.  Cobbing is a style of building that goes back centuries but has largely been relegated to being primitive and not as effective as other more modern methods.  But in the past two decades there has been a resurgence in interest in cob buildings and what they can do to improve the quality of life and the environment.

For practical advice on building using cob look no farther that this book.  It provides diagrams, pictures mixture ratios for different types of cob and words of wisdom on how to avoid the common pitfalls of cob building.  It also provides a more "spiritual" or earthy perspective of how building in this matter is good for you in physical, emotional and spiritual sense. 

All I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to add it to my library at the first opportunity.