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CobBauge is a composite, unfired-earth wall system that combines a dense structural cob layer with a lightweight hemp-shiv light-earth layer. The usual UK build-up is about 600 mm thick: roughly 300 mm of loadbearing cob and 300 mm of thermal light earth, placed together in temporary mesh formwork. Published calculations put its wall U-value around 0.23–0.28 W/m²K, within the 0.30 W/m²K maximum used in the project’s NBS specification.
The system was developed because one cob mix could not be both strong enough for Building Regulations Part A and insulating enough for Part L at a practical thickness. The Interreg France (Channel) England project has now closed, but its prototypes, guidance, training material and the mortgaged CobBauge House in Fakenham show what has been achieved—and what still prevents routine use.
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The name joins cob, the traditional earth-and-straw material of south-west England, and bauge, its Normandy and Brittany counterpart. CobBauge is not a proprietary brick or a bagged product. It is a wall construction method using clay-rich subsoil and plant fibres, with two zones engineered for different jobs.
The inner structural leaf is dense cob: well-graded subsoil, usually containing about 12–20% clay, mixed with water and long wheat straw. The outer thermal leaf is light earth: a clay slip mixed with hemp shiv. Both are placed in the same formwork during one lift, so they bond into a monolithic solid wall rather than becoming a cavity wall with a separate insulation board. The Guide for Designers describes the method as a development of traditional cob intended to meet modern thermal regulations.
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Layer position depends on how a building is occupied. In a permanently occupied house, the lightweight layer is normally outside and the dense cob is inside, allowing the cob’s thermal mass to moderate indoor temperatures. In an intermittently heated hall, putting insulation on the inside lets the room warm more quickly; that arrangement was used for the University of Plymouth teaching building.
Why did traditional cob struggle with Building Regulations?
Traditional cob is strong in compression, durable when detailed correctly and made from low-processed local materials. Its regulatory problem is thermal conductivity. Steve Goodhew, the University of Plymouth professor who led the project, told Building that a conventional cob wall would need to be “over a metre thick” to meet Part L. Anthony Hudson later put the figure for current requirements at about 1.5 metres if the wall were made only from cob.
Reducing density improves insulation but reduces strength; increasing density does the opposite. Goodhew’s summary was that the team could not find a single cob mix meeting both Part L (conservation of fuel and power) and Part A (structural safety). A wall that thick also consumes more floor area, material and labour, making it unacceptable for most commercial projects. CobBauge separates the functions instead of forcing one mix to do both.
What is in each CobBauge layer?
| Zone | Typical thickness | Ingredients and indicative proportions | Primary job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structural cob | About 300 mm | One bucket of construction-ready subsoil to one bucket of wheat straw; roughly 2.5% fibre by dry soil weight. Straw strands are normally 150–300 mm long. | Loadbearing structure and internal thermal mass |
| Thermal light earth | About 300 mm | One part clay slip to three parts building-grade hemp shiv by volume; about 50% fibre by dry weight. Shiv is specified at 30–80 mm. | Insulation and vapour-open outer zone |
| Whole wall | Typically 600 mm | Both mixes placed in one formwork lift and compacted so the interface bonds. | Solid wall meeting structural and thermal objectives |
These ratios are examples from the designer guidance, not a universal recipe. Soil grading, clay content, moisture and fibre quality vary from site to site, so a project needs trial mixes and laboratory checks. Between sub-lifts, hemp straw is laid perpendicular to the wall at approximately 600 mm centres to act as a binder.
How is a CobBauge wall built?
Unlike freehand traditional cob, the method uses mesh-faced timber or metal formwork. A typical box is about 600–650 mm high. Mesh gives the wet material temporary support while allowing moisture to escape; solid shuttering would slow drying.
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- Survey and grade the soil. Obtain representative subsoil, remove unsuitable organic matter and run field checks such as the cigar, shrinkage-box and breakage tests. The guide also uses a puddle or spread test for clay slip (a pool of about 14 cm is cited) and a one-kilogram ball dropped from one metre as a workability check analogous to a concrete slump test. Confirm the final grading against BS 1377 laboratory methods.
- Prepare the formwork and moisture protection. Set the mesh-faced box on a raised masonry plinth and provide a temporary roof or weather cover. Earth walls need a generous roof overhang and a dry base—the traditional “good hat and good boots”.
- Place the structural mix. Workers put cob into the structural half first, compacting it by treading and with a wooden thwacker. The aim is a cohesive mass without overworking it or leaving voids.
- Remove the temporary inner box and place light earth. The insulating half is filled with clay slip and hemp shiv, then compacted. The two materials meet while wet and form one continuous wall.
- Add the next lift after drying. The lower formwork is generally lifted and reused after about a week and a half, once the lift has stiffened enough to carry the next one. The designer guide gives an order-of-magnitude figure of three days for three workers to build one 650 mm lift on a 30 m² square building; Building reported that an experienced specialist could place a 300 mm-deep layer in one day.
- Protect, render and finish. Use vapour-open finishes such as lime render or clay plaster. The Fakenham house uses lime render, a reclaimed-brick plinth and a small exposed “truth window” that shows the wall layers.
Drying controls the programme. Hudson Architects told Dezeen that outdoor construction in Norfolk generally runs from late February through October; high humidity later in the year can leave a lift too wet and risk collapse under the next one. The Plymouth walls took about seven weeks to build, with roughly a week and a half of drying per lift. On the French prototype, the wall stabilised after about three months, was usable at six months and continued drying for a year.
Can CobBauge meet Part L and Part A?
The published evidence is promising but should be read as project-specific engineering evidence, not blanket approval for every soil or building. The project’s NBS specification sets a maximum wall U-value of 0.30 W/m²K. Reported values differ with the soil and calculation method:
| Source or calculation | Reported U-value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Building, 2021 | 0.26 W/m²K | Composite wall reported as sufficient for Part L. |
| Guide for Designers, 2022 | 0.23 W/m²K | Value for an effective clay-rich subsoil thermal mix. |
| CobBauge project wall calculation | 0.28 W/m²K | 300 mm dense cob at 1,300 kg/m³ plus 300 mm light cob at 340 kg/m³. |
| NBS specification requirement | Maximum 0.30 W/m²K | Thermal-performance limit stated for the walling system. |
Structural testing progressed from 11.3 tonnes on two parallel test walls in the 2021 report to 12.3 tonnes on two full-size walls in Goodhew’s 2025 interview with Dezeen. In the latter test, a floor was installed, the upper space was filled with sandbags and hydraulic jacks applied the load; no crack was reported. Goodhew said that load represented the Part A requirements and a complete second storey. A building-control submission still needs a project engineer to verify the actual soil, geometry, openings, lateral loads, foundations and fire strategy.
Which CobBauge buildings have actually been built?
| Building | Details | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| University of Plymouth CobBauge Building | 32 m² single-storey classroom and laboratory beside the Sustainability Hub; completed 2022. Designed by Fox Ecological Architects and built by Eco-Construction with university estates. | Living laboratory with temperature, humidity, energy and air-quality monitoring; passed planning, building regulations and university procurement. It received the LABC Best Commercial Sustainable Construction award. |
| Normandy / Channel France prototype | Dual-layer wall instrumented with more than 100 sensors. French mixes used reed fibre for insulation and flax shiv for the structural layer; walls were about 50–60 cm thick. | Summer monitoring reported interior temperatures around 25 °C while outside peaked at 36 °C. Results were discussed at the March 2023 wash-up event in Caen. |
| CobBauge House, Fakenham, Norfolk | Hudson Architects with Grocott & Murfit; completed in 2023. The better-supported accounts describe a one-storey home with a reclaimed-brick plinth, lime render, deep eaves, triple glazing, woodfibre roof and floors, no concrete floor slab, and an air-source heat pump. | Described by the architect as the first UK domestic CobBauge property and first Building Regulations-compliant form of cob building. It obtained a mortgage and passed planning and building control in a straightforward process. It won the 2024 Norfolk Constructing Excellence Climate Action award. |
The programme was led by the University of Plymouth with ESITC Caen / BUILDERS École d’ingénieurs, the Parc naturel régional des Marais du Cotentin et du Bessin, Earth Building UK and Ireland, Université de Caen Normandy, LUSAC and Hudson Architects. Its stated budget was €4,127,365.09, including €2,857,181.91 (69%) ERDF co-financing, for a July 2017–June 2023 duration. The University of Plymouth says the team produced more than 30 training videos and seven journal or conference papers by the 2023 wash-up.
Is CobBauge genuinely low carbon?
Unfired earth avoids the high-temperature firing used for bricks and many cement products. Subsoil can often be won close to the site, and the wall can eventually return to soil rather than becoming a difficult demolition waste stream. Goodhew describes cob as material that “comes from the earth, [and] goes to the earth.”
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There is no final generic environmental product declaration for CobBauge in the designer guide. Its embodied-carbon figures are explicitly proxies based on Bath ICE rammed-earth data: the structural mix is listed at 46.748 kgCO₂e/m³ and the thermal mix at 10.788 kgCO₂e/m³, with the assessment marked as not finalised. Separately, Dezeen reports 588 kgCO₂e/m² for the completed Fakenham house—close to half the figure quoted there for a typical UK new-build home. That is a whole-house result, not a generic CobBauge wall EPD, so it should not be transferred to another design without a project LCA.
The project website also lists aims such as halving heating energy, reducing waste by 16 tonnes and cutting embodied carbon by four tonnes of CO₂e per house. Those are programme objectives and cited assumptions, not measured CobBauge results; the published evidence should be kept separate from them.
How does CobBauge compare with other earth systems?
| System | Structure and insulation | Typical decision trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional cob | One dense earth-and-straw mix does both jobs. | Simple and repairable, but a Part L-compliant wall may be over one metre—and potentially 1.5 m—thick. Freehand work is slower and less standardised. |
| CobBauge | Dense cob structural leaf plus hemp-shiv light earth in one monolithic wall. | Documented U-values near 0.23–0.28 W/m²K and a clearer compliance route, at the cost of formwork, specialist labour and seasonal drying. |
| Hempcrete or light-earth infill | Usually a lightweight insulating material inside a timber or other structural frame. | Can be thinner and quicker to dry, but the frame—not the infill—carries the principal loads. CobBauge keeps a loadbearing earth leaf. |
| Rammed earth | Compacted layers of relatively dry earth, often without long fibres. | Higher compaction and plant requirements can give crisp finishes and rapid wall erection, but the material is generally denser and needs separate insulation to reach low U-values. |
| Fired masonry | Factory-fired units with mortar and usually cavity insulation. | Established supply chains, warranties and contractors, but substantially higher process energy and a less compostable end-of-life. |
For a real project, compare the systems on the local regulation route (England’s Parts A and L or France’s RE2020), wall thickness, storey loads, drying season, labour and plant, soil and fibre availability, moisture detailing, mortgage or warranty evidence, and a named whole-life carbon assessment.
What are the practical obstacles to using CobBauge now?
Workforce: the method is not yet a routine trade package. Earth Building UK and Ireland’s Tom Morton told Dezeen that projects still rely on a limited pool of experts rather than mainstream compliance pathways.
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Design detailing: the “hat and boots” rule is not decoration. Deep eaves, a raised plinth, splash protection, breathable renders and carefully designed openings keep liquid water away while allowing vapour movement. Cementitious renders or polymeric paints can trap moisture in old or new earth walls.
Supply and testing: the main inputs are local clay-rich subsoil, fresh dry wheat straw, building-grade hemp shiv, water and lime or clay finishes. Because every soil is different, a builder cannot simply copy a ratio from another site. The project’s designer and builder guides, NBS specification and ECVET learning units are free public resources; the guide lists [email protected] for mix-testing contact.
Finance and insurance: the Fakenham mortgage is an important precedent, not proof that every lender or warranty provider accepts the system. No named national warranty product or 2026 census of occupied CobBauge homes was established in the published material. A buyer should secure lender, insurer, building-control and structural-engineer agreement before committing to a design.
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The funded project is finished; the next phase is industrial and cultural rather than a new basic-science discovery. Goodhew says the major technical and training barriers have been unpicked, while Hudson says the remaining challenge is making the method desirable beyond “hobbit house” associations and reducing labour.
Research directions mentioned in 2025 interviews include prefabricated cob blocks, temporary near-site “flying factories”, automation with Terran Robotics, and a Historic England collaboration exploring the light inner layer as a breathable upgrade for old buildings. Hudson also described a possible commercial system for low-energy homes but said a prefabrication research grant had not yet been secured. In France, follow-on work within Projet National Terre may examine professional rules under the RE2020 framework. These are live research threads, not products that can currently be ordered as a standard CobBauge kit.
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For designers and contractors, the most useful starting point is the project’s official documentation hub, especially the Guide for Designers, Guide for Builders, typical details and NBS specification. They explain the tests, mix development, formwork, junctions and learning outcomes needed before a project reaches building control.
So, what on earth is going on with CobBauge?
CobBauge is a practical answer to a specific contradiction: dense cob provides structure and thermal mass, while lightweight hemp-shiv earth provides the insulation that a single cob mix cannot deliver at normal house-wall thickness. A roughly 600 mm monolithic wall has published U-values below the project’s 0.30 W/m²K limit, and full-size load tests reported 12.3 tonnes without cracking.
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That makes CobBauge more than a heritage curiosity, but not yet a mass-market building product. The Plymouth laboratory, Normandy prototype and mortgaged Fakenham house prove that planning, regulation and construction are possible. Mainstream adoption still depends on trained contractors, repeatable soil testing, reliable warranties, prefabrication or faster site methods, and enough completed buildings for lenders and insurers to treat the system as ordinary rather than exceptional.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I build a CobBauge wall with a standard cob recipe?
No. The published ratios are starting points, not a universal specification. Each site needs soil grading, moisture and fibre trials, field checks and, where required, laboratory verification before a structural engineer can sign off the wall.
Is there a ready-made CobBauge kit or insulation board to order?
There is no boxed consumer kit. Projects source building-grade hemp shiv, wheat straw, clay-rich subsoil and compatible lime or clay finishes, while the project manuals provide the construction method and details.
Does CobBauge have automatic approval under UK Building Regulations?
No automatic approval exists for every design. The Fakenham house passed planning and building control, but a new project still needs site-specific structural, thermal, moisture and fire information accepted by its building-control body.
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A proposed Historic England collaboration is examining the light earth layer as a breathable insulation upgrade for historic fabric. Until that work produces project guidance, retrofit decisions should be made with a conservation professional who understands moisture movement in earth walls.
Why can’t CobBauge construction continue through winter?
Fresh lifts need to lose moisture before another lift is added. Hudson Architects reports a practical outdoor season from roughly late February to October in Norfolk; prolonged humidity can leave the wall too soft and make the next lift unstable.
