[Cob] small house plans

[Shody Ryon]

Do you have land yet? The reason I ask is that the design should be dependent on the building site, taking into consideration, I think 
the term is "degree days" if you are concerned with energy 
efficiency and local site consideration such as trees, views, and 
solar widow orientation for thermal solar gain, if needed, or 
preventing thermal solar gain in warmer climates.

That said, my personal opinion is that building smaller, as you 
have described has many advantages, so congratulations in this
choice!

I would read the book "make your house do the housework", and join the yahoo group littlehouse and straw_bale. Laren, owner of the littlehouse group is my favorite designer and has a house like what you describe in the "photos" section of littlehouses. It is the very last entry "Yahoo! Photo album", and when that is open the first entry there is "GullIIsouth2" perhaps the best house design to date!

Looking at it, I see only one picture, so you can do a search for ...
Here:
http://web.axilar.net/LarenCorie/gull-1-2.htm
It is 192 sq ft, so a lot smaller than you asked for, but it is designed to be able to made larger, with a garage, greenhouse, etc.

So we will need a climate of much better a close city and local site conditions that affect light and temperature such as land slope direction, solar window, trees, if it is located in a windy canyon, elevation, etc.

Shody

--- On Wed, 4/1/09, Jennifer Neil <jen at shoreham.net> wrote:

> From: Jennifer Neil <jen at shoreham.net>
> Subject: [Cob] small house plans
> To: coblist at deatech.com
> Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009, 11:14 PM
> Hi!
> 
> My husband and I are in the early stages of designing our
> home. We  
> plan to build a straw bale/cob hybrid rounded
> structure--we're  
> thinking 500-700 "round feet". Would anyone be willing to
> share floor  
> plan ideas with us? Or suggest a good resource for this? We
> are  
> interested to know what spaces you created and what
> suggestions you  
> may have for the types, sizes and placement of the spaces
> based on  
> your experience designing, and then living in your home.
> 
> Thank you in advance,
> 
> Jen
> Addison County, VT
> 
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