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from
Natural Life Magazine, July/August 2007
NL: The City of Toronto has recognized your community-based activities regarding a cob building project in a downtown park. How did you become interested in cob? Georgie: I spent much of my youth holding the trouble light or extra nails for my carpenter father. Unfortunately, I had a fear of power tools and a difficulty with measuring that put me off building things myself. I chose instead to sew, finding that cloth was more amenable than wood to being stretched and shaped. Many years later, I came across a book on strawbale building and was intrigued. Through strawbale, I found other techniques, each more elemental than the last, until I came across cob. This technique sang to me, holding within it the possibility of shelter building that seemed unattainable to me before. It espoused the values of “small” and was quiet, gentle, inclusive and ecologically sensitive. I realized then that the desire to build was always there, but I had only just found the right medium. For my first project, I convinced my mom in Saskatchewan to let me create a cob fireplace and low courtyard wall in her backyard. When I got back to Toronto, I spent four months hauling materials into my tiny backyard to build an earthen oven, using Kiko Denzer’s book Build Your Own Earth Oven as my guide. I got my clay from a local disposal yard, where they got a bit of a chuckle out of me, wanting to use this stuff that everyone else was throwing out. NL: What do you like about cob as a building material? Georgie: For me, cob is the penultimate do-it-yourself building system. It is simply the mixing and application of sand, straw, clay and water. Tools required include hands and feet, though a tarp, a shovel and some buckets are also helpful. The work is gentle, low impact exercise that conditions and tones legs, arms and back. Connection between participants happens naturally because conversation is not overwhelmed by the sound of power tools. The extreme amount of labor required to build a cob house invites the creator to think small and design a building that will fit like a glove, with no wasted space. That, combined with the use of local, free and often un-valued material, means it can be extremely ecologically sensitive, which really matters to me. NL: So how did you come to be building cob
structures in a park in downtown Toronto? Georgie: In 2005, I spearheaded the creation of a cob courtyard wall in Dufferin Grove Park (which I’ll refer to as “DGP.”) I had heard that the Public Health department was requiring the installation of hand-washing sinks by the wading pool and playground, where park staff runs a summer café. Fresh from my two small experiences, I proposed a sort of enclosure without a roof that would house the sinks, as well as a cooking fireplace and baby-changing station. It would be built of earth, using cast-off material and volunteer labor. The park’s advocate, Jutta Mason, was skeptical at first, but I seemed to know enough about the idea that she was willing to support my proposal. The city’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation (PFR) officials were themselves bemused but supportive. And that summer we turned a hot, dusty corner of the park into a bustling hive of activity, as approximately 500 people dropped into our free, ongoing earthen building workshops. Throughout that process, many people said to me, “The sinks are fine, but what we really need is a toilet.” Since I knew from my own children that the other park washrooms were too far away from the playground for little kids to access them quickly and safely, I began to look into possibilities. PFR said that a flush toilet was out because of plumbing issues and, since I was familiar with the idea of composting toilets, I began to consider that as another option.... To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's digital edition, which includes access to this and other back issues. Wendy Priesnitz is the Editor of Natural Life Magazine and a journalist with over 30 years of experience. She has also authored nine books. Read her blog. |
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Georgie
Donais is a homeschooling parent living in Toronto, Ontario, who is
involved in dance, music, graphic design, cob building and her local
community. She was a recipient of a 2005 Clean and Beautiful City
award and, as a finalist in the 2007 Green Toronto Awards, she
received an Award of Excellence.
