A small and cozy "Hobbit" style earth house. 150-year-old Michael Buck, a former art professor, self-built it for just £ 59 in the garden of his main home in Oxfordshire, a county in south-east England.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
A small and cozy one earth house in "Hobbit" style. If it is self-built, with just 150 £ (180 Euros approximately), the 59enne Michael Buck, a former art professor, in the garden of his main home in Oxfordshire, a county in south-east England.
In recent years he has traveled around the world there Low Impact Woodland Home, the earth house built by Simon and Jasmine Dale, a Welsh couple with just 4000 euros, becoming, in fact, the home of the hobbits par excellence, as well as the dream of all those who would like to escape the city. But Buck went further, succeeding in the undertaking of creating this little house in his garden at a truly ridiculous price.
Buck spent 2 years collecting natural and recycled materials for the construction. It took him another eight months to bring his creation to life, made only with his bare hands and without any tools. How did he do? Simple: he used an ancient building technique, learned from a book, quella of the “cob”. The technique even comes from prehistoric times and uses a building material made by one mixture of sand, straw, clay, water and earth.
Clay is mixed with sand, straw and water. The material, poured onto a stone base, comes pressed using hands and feet. The layers gradually build up as they harden over time. The process is known as "Cobbing”And creates a resistant, durable and weather resistant material.
To complete his land house, Michael Buck went to great lengths. The floorboards are made from reclaimed wood from a neighbor. The window glass comes from the windshield of an old truck. The walls are painted with a mixture of plaster and plant resin. Finally, the roof is a simple wooden frame surmounted by straw collected in the adjacent fields. He hadn't planned to use any money for the construction, but he made a couple of miscalculations which resulted in a £ 150 expense. For example, the amount of straw he needed for the roof was more than expected, so he had to buy more.
La thatched hobbit house it does not have an electrical system, running water and gas. But the residents of the house do not need it: the water comes from a nearby spring, which has been diverted to flow out of the house. There is no central heating, of course, but the earth walls and thatched roof offer excellent insulation. The combustion of the wood stove it can be used for cooking and is strategically placed under the bunk bed. This makes sure that the residents stay warm throughout the night, while there are candles and lanterns to light up.
A well-designed space, a few meters from the front door, serves as a natural refrigerator for foodstuffs. The house has a composting toilet in a separate thatched outbuilding overlooking the Oxfordshire countryside. Buck's ultimate goal was to show that you don't have to pay a life-long mortgage to have a comfortable home.
Roberta Ragni
Photo and source
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