Is this cob or some other type of natural building?

I found these pictures online of this little adorable house and I couldn't figure out what exactly it is made out of. Does anyone know?


Here is the outside:





cute little fence:



close-up of the roof:



and then some pictures of the inside:









Any idea what this is made out of?

Wattle and daub?

In my mind, I place wattle and daub as more primitive than adobe or cob construction, mainly because you are less picky about the mud that makes up the construction material. Adobe is the precursor to actual fired bricks and requires that you be picky about using soil with a high clay content. Cob is the precursor to cement and concrete construction and requires that you use some fiber in the mix, be it grass or straw to give it some tensile strength. You can also add some lime to cob mixes, with the idea that the calcium will help it to set when it hardens. The daub that you put on your wattles and let harden can be any sort of mud that hardens up when it dries, and that can cover a whole lot of different soil types. By having the wattles there for tensile strength, you don't need to be nearly as picky as you have to when you are mixing up a batch of cob.

Where were those pictures taken? Does the site have historical significance? What do you know about the site?

To me, the tools and countenance of the building remind me of Colonial Era buildings, and the walls may have had a similar white-washed look as some English cob cottages do. Since it is a smaller house, I think it could have been lived in by a single family that were Jack-of-All-Trades.

Jamestown building:


Williamsburg building:


English Cob Cottage:


On close inspection of the seventh picture (the one with the pitch fork), behind this pitchfork and barrel, it looks like bricks could be behind the plaster or cob that may have been used to coat the building.

John Elliott wrote:Wattle and daub?

John, I think you could be right in this assumption. Especially because of the way they did the fence. Shows they were using the wattle technique there.

Dave Burton wrote: Where were those pictures taken? Does the site have historical significance? What do you know about the site?

I have no idea Dave. I just found the pictures, I know nothing about the site or history.

Hello Cassie, et al,

I think we all would love a link to the source of these photos, which may lend some further understanding. What I can share is the evolution of many of the modalities of both earth and lime architecture infill and mass wall designs cross many cultures. Wattle and daub is a relatively "generic" descriptor for an extremely broad range of systems from 小舞壁 Komakikabe to Tabya and Dhajji Dewari. Cobb methods actually appear to have come first in the evolution of using earth for forming walls. As for cobb being "superior" in some way...it would perhaps be more accurate to think of it as an early mass wall "systems" or any earth base forms without armature. The "earth matrix" for both have different thermal properties and actually it is usually more "detailed" to mix a "daubing" than it is to mix a cobb, historically...yet both demand a lot of labor and attention to detail in the matrix. As for an overall complexity..."daubing" systems are very complex, in both matrix, and order of application, where many cobbing systems are much more simplistic.

The form in the photo strikes me as one of theBousillage modalites. This system is often lime based, and not earth at all. There are several other esoteric forms similar to this like Tabby work, which tends to be "mass wall" but with a shell lime base.

I can try to answer more specific questions should you have any, or go into detail on the other forms.

Regards,

j

As for cobb being "superior" in some way...it would perhaps be more accurate to think of it as an early mass wall "systems" or any earth base forms without armature.

http://imgur.com/a/nl0fs#0

That is all I have. A friend sent this link to me. Sorry I do not know more.

Cassie, if I had to guess just from the picture and the background forest and biome...this is the Southern Gulf area of the U.S. (Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas) or possibly the Carolina region...hard to tell. This would fit my above description as this fits many aspects of classic Creole architecture. Wish I could tell you more...I can tell you how to build it though...if interested.

Regards,

j

Yeah I mean honestly I was just curious what everyone thought. I didn't really expect anyone to know 100%.. So I appreciate everyone's guesses and assumptions!

One of the pictures in the interior shows a wall with the wattle exposed. That makes it pretty hard for me to see it as anything other than wattle and daub, since, well, there is the wattle exposed on one side, with the daub still covering the exterior.

Hmmm...well yes, there is "wattle work," and there of course is "daubing" (in this case I believe it could be lime based)...yet my point was that naming the architecture (or identifying it) by saying it is "wattle and daub" is almost as generic a vernacular term, as saying..."its a natural house." "Wattle and daub" is a very generic English vernacular that has virtually countless forms in so many different cultures that if I just started to list the ones I have seen, or been part of...would have me rambling on for pages and pages....a very scary thought....

I have to vote with wattle and daub. When someone mentioned coastal I thought of tabby, but the walls are too smooth.

A little internet sleuthing revealed the building is part of the Wormsloe Historic Site in Savannah, GA.

http://gastateparks.org/Wormsloe/gallery

Pictures 14-16


http://gastateparks.org/Wormsloe

Kevin, nice work! Your sleuthing has paid off! I also love the word sleuthing by the way. I need to use that one more often.