Hand-sculpted house (Chelsea Green Publishing Co)

Building with earth is nothing new to America; the oldest structures on the continent were built with adobe bricks. Adobe, however, has been geographically limited to the Southwest. The limits of cob are defined only by the builder's imagination.Cob has been a traditional building process for millennia in Europe, even in rainy and windy climates like the British Isles, where many cob buildings still serve as family homes after hundreds of years.

The technique is newly arrived to the Americas.Cob houses (or cottages, since they are almost always efficiently small aby American construction standards) are not only compatible with their surroundings, they are their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth.

They are full of light, energy-efficient, and cozy, with curved walls and built-in, whimsical touches.