Earth Equity News

In Britain, Mud and Straw Houses Experience a Renaissance. By Graham Norwood, London Independent, September 17, 2008. "Winnie [Brimacombe-Nelissen's]… six-bedroom farmhouse near Crediton in Devon is built from cob, a mud [and straw] mix first used for construction in north Africa in the 11th century. Some 300 years later it had become the standard building material in the UK and remained so until industrialisation made… bricks cheap… Today's builders use cement mixers, but otherwise apply the material in much the same way... 'There's nothing more sustainable... It's natural, it hasn't been processed and it's produced on-site,' says Adam Weissman… [of] Cob in Cornwall, a Helston-based building firm… Britain's first brand-new cob home for three quarters of a century was built in Devon in 1997 by Kevin McCabe. In 2005, another cob [house]… won the Royal Institute of British Architects' sustainable building of the year award. At least six more… are being built… across the UK… [and] a synthetic substitute… called Tradical Hemcrete… a 'light' concrete made from hemp plants [is being tested]. It is only [half] the cost of cob, takes a fraction of the time to make and is claimed to be even more thermally efficient."