The Yellow House

Our first building on the land of cob.gr, constructed in the early 90s during the beginning of the worldwide natural building renaissance. Our main challenge was showing that two people can construct a beautiful, functional and affordable home in a reasonable amount of time. The choice of materials was based on their durability, stability, the use of simple tools, and design flexibility.

It is built entirely out of cob (clay and sand mortar), with a wooden roof on top insulated with sheep’s wool, an earthen floor, and is covered with lime plaster on both the inside and outside faces of the walls. We are still charmed by the ease of use of cob, which allowed us to shape our home as if it were a sculpture, so much so that our organization is named after this earth-based building technique. Some of the materials were gathered from the nearby land, and some of them were either salvaged, bought second-hand or given to us for free. It took five months to construct, with the work being executed during evenings or weekends, thus proving the viability of this construction technique for ordinary people in the 21st century.