Since 1993, Cob Cottage has taught over one hundred, one to six week workshops, teaching practical skills to people who want to apply Natural Building to their lives.  Each day includes demonstrations and hands-on learning on real buildings with discussions, slides and lectures.  Expect long days of hard work, wholesome food, peaceful scenery, and high satisfaction.  We offer a wide variety of trainings in natural building.  Phone us for help choosing the workshop that suits you best.

Notes:

• The schedule of workshops may continue to list some courses after their completion date to show what courses were taught this year, their price, and location, since this may be of interest to people who are waiting for next year's schedule to be posted.
• The bulk of the schedule for any year is generally posted by early March, though some workshops will be posted before then.
• Expect some changes in the schedule; check this page periodically for new additions, deletions, or date changes.

We are also considering workshops in Ukraine, Russia, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Romania, Carribean, and Italy.

In addition to the Cob Cottage Company workshops listed above, here are some taught by different companies / instructors which may better fit your schedule or meet your needs:

• Cob and cob related workshops by other organizations: www.cobworkshops.org
• Other Natural building workshops
• Burro Natural Building
• Kiko Denzer's Earthen Oven web page

Workshop notes for table above:

WW - The combined woodwork for cob courses (taking both together) price is $540
HA - House Alive courses are not administered by Cob Cottage, click on the link for these courses to visit their web site and get more course details and registration information.
IR - includes camping and lunch each day.  European registration is handled by The Hollies.
RF - $50 discount for Oregon residents.  Includes all meals and indoor accommodations.  Begins Friday at 6 p.m. with dinner and ends after lunch on Sunday.
SD - See course description for contact and registration information, standard Cob Cottage registration, discounts, etc. do not apply.
SL - Special Rate Sustainable Lifestyle Workshop: Fee is equal to the cost of your roundtrip transport to the workshop.  30¢ a mile per car; use the normal fare for public transport.  If you walk, bike or hitch, make a contribution for food.
XX - Not a Cob Cottage course, follow link to web site for more infomation
*** - includes all meals and indoor accommodations
**  - includes all meals and camping
*   - includes main meal and camping (extra meals may be available at additional charge).
# - Combine and Save!  Take one of these courses with the July Basics of Cob workshop for only $180.  Take two for only $390.

For more information or to learn about any new workshops not yet listed on this site, please contact the Cob Cottage Company:

Cob Cottage Company
Box 123
Cottage Grove, OR 97424

Phone (541) 942-2005, FAX (541) 942-3021
Office hours are usually Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10:00 - 5:00 PST

Discounts, Trades, and Scholarships:

For most workshops we offer discounts as follows:

• 20% discount for FULL payment received 90 days in advance
• 10% off for full payment over 30 days (60 days for Mexico workshops) in advance
• 10% off for families and friends coming together (cumulative)
• 25% discount to graduates of previous Cob Cottage Co. week long or longer workshops.
• Maximum total discount is 25%
• Some workshops are not handled by CCC, so our discounts may not apply.  Ask for contact info.

To support deconsumerization, we offer some partial trades and scholarships to people who can demonstrate serious movement towards simplification and away from the cash economy.  Ask us for more information.  We encourage others to help improve the world by doing the same.

Fees and Registration:

• The basic fee for all Cob Cottage workshops includes tuition, materials, three vegetarian meals daily (unless otherwise noted), and usually camping (see "notes" column on workshop schedule for your workshop's specifics).
• Group size is limited, so workshops often fill early.  Phone us to verify that space is available.
• A non-refundable deposit is required to reserve a space, $150 for up to 10-day workshops, $400 for longer ones. 
• The remainder of the fee should be paid 30 days before the workshop begins.
• Withdrawals within 10 days of the workshop may forfeit the fee.  All payments are cash or POSTAL MONEY ORDERS please.  We cannot process checks or bank drafts or cashiers checks.

Expect some changes.  We suggest you contact The Cob Cottage Company before making travel plans.

The bulk of the annual schedule is generally posted to the web site by January of each year (sometimes much earlier).  Contact Cob Cottage to be on the mailing list for workshop information, or keep checking this website.

You can sign up for workshops using the Cob Product Order From.

See below for background information on some of the course instructors

Basics of Building with Cob:

Our most popular workshop teaches professionals and owner-builders the basics of cob construction in 6 to 10 intensive days.  Even complete novices leave the workshop confident in their ability to build the cob parts of a cabin, studio, or greenhouse.  Learn how to locate and test soil, sand, and straw, create the right cob mix for any situation, and build strong, durable, sculptural earthen walls.  Get practical experience with foundations, windows, doors, arches and niches.  Lectures cover siting, passive solar design, drainage, heating, plumbing and electric, natural roofing, and flooring.

Woodwork for Cobbers:Doors, Windows, Roofs (parts one and two)

Now that you read The Hand Sculpted House, the cob part is straightforward.  Panic!  What will I do for a roof? How can I build floors, doors, lofts, counters?  Here's a beginning overview of roof design and basic wood working.

Natural Earthen Plasters

Our ancestors lived long lives in earth-plastered homes.  Health-giving traditional clay straw and sand stuccos and beautiful interior plasters.

Drainage and Foundations

Protection from flood, splash and damp is the key to a healthy house, be it cob, bale, light clay or timber. All you need to know to build your own snug dry foundation in any climate.

Building Stone and Urbanite Walls

A 1000-year house on a 100-year foundation?  I don't think so.  A good foundation is essential.  Alan will cover all the basics of using field or quarried stone, or recycled sidewalks.

Complete Cob

An expanded version of our Basics of Building with Cob course which in addtion to the content of the Basics course, we cover in depth many additional things you can do with cob including arches, details, shelving, furniture and earthen floors.  In this expanded version of our most popular program ever (120 of these workshops since 1993!), we'll take the ground out from under your feet and turn it into a versatile medium to sculpt a whole house with.

Art, Sculpture, and Murals with Earth.

Tools for decorative and design work w/earth.  Learn simple, effective sculptural and design techniques for finishing natural buildings and making earthen art (sculpture, murals, pattern, etc.).  Recognize structural geometry, create and clarify important centers (traffic patterns, usage, etc.), then apply decorative techniques and materials to build beauty and harmony into your built work.  The workshop will focus on designing and finishing a simple pattern mural, as well as technical review.

Drawing painting and fresco

Learn basic art techniques to apply to your earthen project.

Lime Plasters, Mortars and Paints

You will learn the whole process: lime slaking, aging, preparation and application for mortars, limewash, paints, plasters and stuccos, through demonstration and practice. Learn how to prepare cob, strawbale and conventional walls for lime plasters and stuccos. Taught by Linda Evans and Welsh specialists Gail and Julie Haddow.

Green Woodworking

From Wales we've invited Keith Matthews, fine woodworker, master craftsman in furniture, knife and tool making, traditional greenwood and bushcraft. Keith has 14 years' experience with extensive teaching.  He translates traditional European and Native American skills into lay terms, simplifying them for access to anyone.  He stresses observation, empowerment and practical hands-on learning. Traditional woodworkers could carry simple hand tools into the forest and come out with finished bowls or parts for tables, chairs, etc.  You will learn by hands-on expertise the use of hand tools in green woodwork. In the weekend course you will build a pole-lathe and shave-horse, you'll turn chair legs and understand all the basic tools.  From the weeklong course you'll take home a pole-lathe or shave-horse, a goblet or bowl, and a stool or possibly finished chair that you'll cherish all of your life.

Pyromania!

Weekend courses for those in love with fire. Learn how fire burns, what makes combustion efficient, how to build the ultimate in snug, energy-saving campfires, stoves, and fireplaces for cooking and comfort, all hand-made at almost no cost.  We'll burn and evaluate several models, build one or two.  Course variations:

• Rocket Stoves - Rocket Stove to Heat Cob Cottages by Into Evans and Leslie Jackson has made these incredibly clean-burning wood burners big news.  We'll build one (or more), cover basics of combustion, fuels, etc. and light a lot of fires.
• Rocket Floor Heater - We'll build a gravity-feed downdraft rocket floor heater stove.  Ianto Evans will be teaching from his new book on woodburning rocket stoves.  These stoves are easy to build with scavenged materials, offering maximal efficiency at minimal cost.  Many cob builders install rocket bench heaters, piping their stove through a cob bench, making a cozy place to hang out in the winter months.  We'll explore many other aspects of combustion, comfort, and heating our bodies not buildings, and we'll have fun by the fire.
• Earthen Bread Oven - Build an earthen oven suitable for a variety of baking needs including bread making.
• Rocket Stove Bench/Mass Heaters - Build a rocket stove bench heater, this is the stove used to heat many modern cob cottages, which you may have seen elsewhere on this web site.
• Rumford Fireplaces - The Rumford fireplace is the most efficient type of fireplace for open hearth heating, and can cost many thousands of dollars to have built.  Our implementation can be built with cob for almost nothing.

Natural Building Start-to-Finish Intensive and Natural Building Apprenticeship

Eight-week intensive course jumpstarts you to be an all-round natural builder.  For CCC certification, you are are then referred to NB sites to practice under experienced supervision.  We discuss and practice every aspect of creating a natural building, from siting and design through drainage, foundations and floors to ventilation, living roofs and blending with the surroundings.  Because of the wide range of information covered by this course, a detailed description is available on a separate Apprenticeship web page

Cob Start-to-Finish for Owner-Builders

We discuss and practice every aspect of creating a natural building.  Includes all aspects of building cob walls and floors, natural plasters, windows and doors, roof design, materials choice, siting, drainage and foundations, sitework, designing your building, pipes and wires and harvesting natural materials or urban scavenging.  We also cover selection and care of tools, ways to get volunteer help, ecology of buildings, safety, passive solar and sculptural detailing.

Land Restoration and Ecological Living

Our 18th year of this remarkable international permaculture program.  Typical feedback is "It changed my whole life".  Practical solutions, spectacular scenery.  Everything is translated.  The Caballero family's 300-acre experimental forest/farm, miraculously restored from almost complete dereliction, is the location for this unique international program.  See separate comprehensive description.

Natural Building and Traditional Architecture

This region has the widest diversity of vernacular buildings in the Americas, with examples from 1000 BC to the present.  Eat spectacular traditional vegetarian food, hear local experts, enjoy warm days and cool nights in high mountain scenery.  Everything is translated.  See separate comprehensive description

Natural Building and Ecological Living

The region of Tlaxcala, Mexico has the widest diversity of vernacular buildings in the Americas, with examples from 1000 BC to the present. Eat spectacular traditional vegetarian food, hear local experts, enjoy warm days and cool nights in high mountain scenery. Taught in Spanish and English.  See separate comprehensive description

Main Instructors Include:

• Ianto Evans: landscape architect, applied ecologist, inventor, writer, teacher.  Building experience on six continents.  Cob is traditional in Wales, his homeland.  He has consulted all over the world.  He is co-author, with Linda Smiley and Michael Smith, of The Hand-Sculpted House.
• Linda Smiley: master cobber, therapist and environmental educator.  Her workshops include intuitive design, sculpting sacred spaces and finishing touches (earthen floors, plasters and cob sculptural details).
• Michael Smith: teaches, builds, writes and consults on cob, Natural Building and permaculture.
• Betty Seaman: is a cob builder and teacher, artist and illustrator.
• Dennis Kuklok: landscape architect, natural builder, book designer, cartoonist and international consultant.
• Chip Boggs: our neighbor and sponsor, is experienced in homestead construction, permaculture, off-grid living and solar electrics.
• Alejandra Caballero: internationally known Mexican architect, specializes in indigenous building, trains women builders, designs environmental education programs for children.
• Paco Gomez: is a sociology professor, magician and Mexican rural development specialist.
• Jack Stephens: teaches and consults on sustainable business practices, writes, gardens and is CCC's office manager.
• Keith Matthews: from Wales, is a fine woodworker, master craftsman in furniture, knife and tool making, traditional greenwood and bushcraft.

This web page is provided as a public service by: DeaTech Research Inc.

Solar powered hosting (from our cob office building) provided by: DeaTech Research Inc. using Debian Linux based servers.  We highly recommend, use, and provide support services for Debian Linux.

If you should have any problems with this page or website, please send email describing the problem(s) to: [email protected]

Last Modified: June 2, 2005

If you wish to be permanently blocked from ever being able to send email to this domain, send your SPAM messages to: [email protected]