WELCOME TO CRUZINCOBGLOBAL!
Our 2025 workshops are starting to come online earlier this year as we are holding “northern winter” workshops in the warm latitudes of Puerto Rico/Borikén in January, Kenya in February & Costa Rica in March! We are also super excited to teach an amazing Fall workshop in Chattanooga, Tennessee at Talking Water Nature Retreat! Our Spring, Summer and Fall schedules are filling up as well with more to come soon in Portugal, Azores, & Hungary! Join our email list to be alerted, by filling out Contact Form to the right at bottom or simply emailing claudine@cruzincobglobal.org.
SEE Y’ALL in the MUUUUD!!!
Our latest Beauty built by 7 students in one month at the Quinta do Bom Despacho!
Azores SUPER POWER BUILD in July, 2023!
We give you a taste of the SABOR of our global workshops…here with our Caribbean-style flow…
Check out the photo album of our latest workshop in Utuado, Puerto Rico building a cottage for Alexa & Naldo!
Puerto Rico February 2024: students sculpted the guest room with Taina symbols as requested by our Hosts Arnaldo and Alexa! All done on the last day and now for a rest on the green sod roof…golf anyone?
The pinnacle of our workshops: the Reciprocal Roof opening! Always the signal that the end is near and that the new Cob Family will soon be dispersing but always bonded by the LOVE of COB! (Pulaski, Tennessee, September/October 2023)
Taking one of our Advanced Cobber Full Build Workshops you will find everything you need to learn to build a Cob Building from foundation to roof, including electricity (housing & outlet/switch boxes not wiring), plumbing prep, plaster, floor and artistic elements…in only 5 weeks of your life!
And if you want to become a professional Cob Builder and/or Assistant/Instructor of workshops….we support our students in every way we can, to take this rewarding profession to the world…as we have!
Join our email list to stay posted as more workshops come online. We work to bring you the highest quality hosts, instructors and locations in which to spend 5 glorious weeks of your life with great people, amazing food, fulfilling and transformational days, fu weekends and the best time Check this website and our FB page and Instagram regularly. We offer Early Bird discounts by paying in full by a certain date, as well as 4 or more work trade discount spots in all workshops. Enjoy the site, pictures and videos to get an experience of what the workshops are like with CruzinCobGlobal! And look forward to having you with us in 2024 and joining the world-wide CruzinCobGlobal family of Cobbers!
Newest Spectacular Cob Beauty with enough time for wood.stove, sink and counter to go in thanks to Instructors Josh Burg and Sara Crippen and a hungry group of motivated students! (Pulaski, TN, Sep/Oct 2023)
This Beauty was born in North Carolina of local red clay and granite stones from the site! Molly and Daniel’s home! (NC, May 2023)
The Builders Celebrating their first Cob Cottage!(NC, May 2023)
Open House happens on the last Sunday of each workshop to introduce Cob to the local commmunity and allow students to show off and explain their work along with doing cob-making demonstrations! (NC, May 2023)
HOT OFF THE PRESS!!!! A brand new educational COB series created from our 2023 North Carolina workshop filmed and edited by Cooper Green and available for free on his “Natural Buildings” YouTube page! If you can’t come to a workshop, this is the next best thing! Follow “Natural Buildings” on Instagram and YouTube!
ALSO HOT OFF THE PRESS IS THE NEWEST COMPREHENSIVE BOOK ON COB including alot of engineering and design information in support of the 2021 International Residential Cob Construction Appendix (cob code).
See photos of ALL of our CCG workshop photos since 2015 on our Gallery page….
PLEASE SIGN UP ON OUR EMAIL LIST USING THE FORM TO THE RIGHT OR EMAIL claudine@cruzincobglobal.org TO STAY CONNECTED AND BE ALERTED WHEN MORE WORKSHOPS COME ONLINE!
SIGN UP EARLY TO GET WORK TRADE & EARLY BIRD DISCOUNTS!
CRUZINCOBGLOBAL awarded Best Building Construction Company in Santa Cruz County for 2020! Thank You Santa Cruz! I love you! It’s where it all began…..in 2001!
Each year, in and around the Santa Cruz area, the Santa Cruz Best Of Award Program chooses only the best local businesses. We focus on companies that have demonstrated their ability to use various marketing methods to grow their business in spite of difficult economic times. The companies chosen exemplify the best of small business; often leading through customer service and community involvement.
For most companies, this recognition is a result of dedication and efforts as well as the work of others in the organization that have helped build the business. Our team is now a part of an exclusive group of small businesses that have achieved this selection. AND…..
Check out this video made by Jamie Nichols of our complete 3-week cob sauna workshop to get a feel for the CruzinCobGlobal workshop environment.
Our Vision
We train and empower individuals of all ages to design and build beautiful, hand-crafted, personalized, healthful, inexpensive, durable, safe, and ecologically harmonious Cob Structures for personal use and/or professional purposes, and thus contribute to their economic independence, freedom and well-being and a better world.
Our Mission
We provide the awareness, knowledge and skills of Natural Building using Cob through workshops, trainings, consultations, demonstrations and tours, in as many languages and countries as possible, and as an added benefit offer students an intercultural and transformational community experience creating a new family of changemakers every time.
Here is what Cobbing is about, as expressed through the words and visuals of a long-term Cobber, Viva Hansen:
Cob Workshops
CruzinCobGlobal’s principal activity is teaching International Cob Workshops on all continents to train students in an intercultural setting to be amateur & professional cob builders and instructors ready to work with CCG or independently or for their own personal enrichment.
Beautiful Cob Bathhouse with Tadelakt-finished shower, toilet, sinks, bench finished in 6 weeks in Chile in February/March 2019!
Students enjoy the Whirling Energy of their Beautiful Reciprocal Frame Roof in Nevada City, California Advanced Workshop in August 2019
Our 28-day cob building workshops will teach you how to build walls, insert windows, shelves, bottle windows, and sculpt furniture, niches, arches, bas-relief artistic sculptures, insert roof connections, pour an earthen floor and apply earthen plaster, as well as build either a foundation or a roof. For a shorter version we offer a 21-day workshop which focuses only on the walls between foundation and roof. The 35-day workshop offers the Complete Cob experience from foundation to roof and often has an additional bonus like an oven or a masonry heater. Check out the photos of our 35-day Advanced Workshop in the Azores Islands of Portugal.
We will take you from the ground up which includes analyzing soil samples and making test bricks to figure out the best mix for your construction purposes. The work is intense and fulfilling and when you are done you will feel confident and energized to go out and build for yourself and others. Students continue their training towards amateur or professional status by completing projects after the workshop on their journey to becoming full-fledged Cob Builders and Instructors.
The Cob We Love to Build With!
Our workshops are not only a physical experience…students experience a deep personal transformation from the learning experience combined with the community bonding, living close to the Earth, eating excellent clean tasty mostly vegetarian meals, and, most importantly, being away from their routine life and the stressors of technology, fast-paced living and disconnection from others. Most students who come have already begun or want to begin changing their lives to one that is peaceful, calm, pure and simple, connected to what is real and nurturing, like living in community, growing your own food, building your shelter, and having alot of quality time alone and with others connecting to your Creative Source. Come join us and come out cleansed, rejuvenated, energized and clear.
Join our email/newsletter list to the right of this page to stay posted and start planning for attending one of our 2024 international workshops.
If you are an interested Host with land to build on and receive 10-15 students for 21, 28 or 35 days, let’s talk! We are always looking for new countries to hold workshops and train locals so that little by little the World will be covered with this new landscape of Soulful and Healthful Sculpted Homes that make the Heart sing and smile every time you see or step inside them!
“Advanced Cobber” Graduates in front of their Cob Studio built during the Complete Cob Building Workshop in Austin, Texas in October 2017
Below are some videos of our Cob Building Workshops in California, Texas and France to give you an idea of the fun and active environment you will learn in with people from all over the world. You can see more photos and videos from all of our workshops in the Gallery section of our website as well as by visiting our Facebook Page and the CCG YouTube Video Playlist
Here is a fun short interview video from the October 2017 Taylor, Texas 28-Day Complete Cob Building Workshop:
CruzinCobGlobal is on a planetary mission to teach cob building, as it is practiced in California and Europe. We lead workshops for local and international students who learn and build together, not only a beautiful ecological structure, but intercultural communication and understanding. It is a multi-faceted opportunity to learn cob building, a language, a culture and community living.
Cob Construction Projects
We can also be hired for Cob building projects as Cob Contractors with our trained students as interns and/or builders, depending on their level of post-workshop experience. Alternately we are happy to lead your project using local building professionals like masons, carpenters, and any other experienced builders who will be quickly trained on the job. This works especially well in places where labor is inexpensive, new skills are welcome to boost local builders’ abilities and you cannot or don’t want to host a workshop. These are great and economical options for getting your new Cob building built well and quickly while expanding Cob knowledge to new places.
Watch Viva Hansen, fire & cob expert, burnish this rocket oven used for faster high temp baking.
Cob World Tour
The Cob Journey!
After 10 years of teaching in the US (2004-2014), in December 2019 we wrapped up a 5-year Global Cob Trotter Bike Tour teaching cob workshops in 15 countries. We are proud to have launched the international model, CruzinCobGlobal, in March 2015, completing 50 workshops in Spain, the Canaries, Senegal, Cabo Verde, France, Portugal, the Azores, Morocco, Colombia, Brazil, California, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Chile, North Carolina, Tennessee and Puerto Rico!
The Teacher’s Hands
All of our 35-Day Advanced Cobber workshops with Certification are online with more to come!
Sign up on our email list (form to right of page) and join our CruzinCobGlobal FB page and follow us on Instagram to stay posted.
Our website has all the information you need to join a workshop, host a workshop or hire CCG for your cob build project on your land. We are building a team of global cob builders to support the peaceful, healthful beauty of durable and economical earthen buildings everywhere. Whether you want to learn in order to teach workshops with CCG or on your own, or want to start the journey towards being a professional cob builder, we’re eager to help and support our students.
Check out this time lapse video from southern France in August 2016 to see how we build a small 150 ft2/15m2 building in 2 weeks!
Visit our FACEBOOK PAGE to see the extensive gallery of workshop photo albums from around the world and enjoy reading the COBlog! When you sign up for our newsletter and/or our email list, you will be updated when new courses and blogs come online.
Look forward to seeing you in the mud soon!
The Global C.O.B.
(C.O.B.=Community of Biobuilders)
