Essential Cob Construction: A Guide to Design, Engineering, and Building

The Complete Guide to Safe, Durable, and Beautiful Cob Buildings
Part of the Sustainable Building Essentials series, Essential Cob Construction delivers the most up-to-date design, engineering, and building guidance for one of the world's most enduring and expressive natural materials: cob. Learn how to build structurally sound, comfortable, low-carbon homes using clay, sand, and straw—with full support for permitting and modern building science.

What You'll Learn

• Strong, Code-informed Cob Walls: Modern engineering and extensive testing ensure resilient structures with reliable fire and seismic performance.
• Healthy, Low-carbon Construction: Cob uses natural, minimally processed materials for a dramatically reduced environmental footprint.
• Thermal Comfort and Moisture Management: Properly designed cob walls regulate humidity, buffer temperature swings, and support healthy indoor air.
• Beautiful Sculptural Design Possibilities: Create curved forms, niches, and expressive details unique to hand-shaped, site-made architecture.
• Hands-on Building Mastery: Mix design, testing, manual/mechanical mixing, wall building, foundations, connections, finishes, and more.
• Permits, Codes and Budgeting: Navigate the new Cob Construction Appendix, plan projects efficiently, and ensure smooth approval processes.

Written by leading experts Anthony Dente, PE, Michael G. Smith, and Massey Burke, this book combines rigorous engineering, building science, and decades of hands-on natural building experience. Whether you're a designer, engineer, contractor, or owner-builder, this guide provides the essential knowledge needed to build safe, durable, and climate-positive cob structures.

Explore the full Sustainable Building Essentials series for practical, illustrated guidance on natural materials, high-performance envelopes, and sustainable building systems.

Anthony Dente, PE, is a licensed engineer and principal at Verdant Structural Engineers, which has designed over 200 natural builds and engages in low-carbon building-material development. As VP of the Cob Research Institute, Dente was lead engineer for the Cob Construction Appendix of the International Residential Code. He lives near Berkeley, CA.

Michael G. Smith co-founded the Cob Cottage Company in 1993. Over 30 years he has taught hundreds of hands-on workshops on cob, straw bale, earthen plasters and floors, and many other natural building techniques. Coauthor of The Hand-Sculpted House and The Art of Natural Building, and author of The Cobber's Companion, he lives in California.

Massey Burke is a natural materials design-build consultant, educator, and co-director of the California Straw Building Association. She has worked with cob since 2005, and focuses on removing barriers to scaling up natural, climate-positive building methods. A contributor to The New Carbon Architecture, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area, CA.