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Thursday, Nov. 22, 2001. We stacked more rocks on the nothern foundation, and started mortaring them. We also did some cobbing. However, today's major accomplishment was our planning and design adjustment. We took all the measurements of the area again and looked at our design, and realized that our house turned out slighly smaller than what we planned. With a building this small, the difference of a foot here and half a foot there makes a huge difference. So we walked around the site discussing how we're going to adjust our layout, and in the end we have a new solution.
Although this probably makes professionals very nervous, we again realized the "figure it out as you go" nature of this project. Ianto Evans, who was one of the people who taught us how to cob, talked about how he designs his cob buildings on the backs of envelopes, and then by the time he's done it looks nothing like the original design. And he is an architect in his former life - he knows how buildings are done usually. So, our design is still evolving and it may still change drastically - we'll know what it looks like when it's done!
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Notice that our southern wall is definitely getting higher. We also put in a couple of black pipes to leave some space open for gas and water pipes. We decided their locations by looking at our walls and said "this seems like the perfect place for water pipes." Well, it's not quite that spur-of-the-moment, as we did plan before and knew where things are going to go. But in terms of its precise location, it's best not to decide that until we get to the point of putting it in. |