Natural Building, Permaculture, and Bioclimatic architecture by Cob Social Cooperative
Cob is a Social Cooperative active in natural building, sustainable agriculture, and responsible tourism.
The Farm in Nessonas offers non-formal educational seminars & low carbon activities focused on earth house building, permaculture, bioclimatic architecture, and self-sufficiency.
The Cob Social Cooperative introduces traditional build techniques and handmade recipes from making eco-friendly toothpaste to your self-built accommodation.
The philosophy behind the Cob Social Cooperative
How can we save natural resources and energy?
‘’We believe that our planet needs people who are aware of the consequences of their habits. This can only be achieved through education and especially of the young people to whom we will leave this planet.’’
Cob Social Cooperative
The permaculture Farm in Nessona
The permaculture Farm in Nessona exists twenty years now, in Nessona, in the Thessaly region.
The natural farming method of Masanobu Fukuoka has been applied on the six acres of land where 500 trees of more than 80 varieties raised by seed, over twenty earth homes have been built, an integrated water management system has been designed, and active solar systems, wind generators, and biogas provide the necessary power to the farm.
A permaculture area surrounds the farm where regenerative agriculture methods are applied.
This holistic and conscious ecosystem management increases soil carbon and fertility and preserves biodiversity.
An ethical mission
The Farm in Nessona hosts natural building & self-sufficiency workshops, and educational events in cooperation with schools and educational institutions like the Fine Arts School of the university of western Macedonia.
The agricultural production of the farm is being processed and stored in natural ways and covers the needs of the team and the volunteers while the surplus is given for charity or sold.
The people behind the idea
Ten young people live and work on the farm. Some of them are trained architects, environmentalists and agronomists.
The natural building and the bioclimatic architecture applied by the Cob Social Cooperative team are practices that contribute to natural resources and energy saving with as a result huge environmental and economical benefits.
Natural Building is a term that describes the use of natural, local and/or recycled material applied with simple tools and building techniques.
By using local building material the transportation and economic costs are close to zero, in line with the Co2 emissions.
The use of renewable materials such as straw, stones or earth with none or minimum processing, contributes to the eco-friendly natural building techniques which are plenty, as explained below:
The Earthbag building method
The Cob building technique,
which is one of the most ancient methods of building with natural materials
The rammed earth technique
The Adobe brick building,
one of the oldest building ways, uses loamy earth
The Waddle and daub building method
The Cordwood building technique,
where mud is used as the bonding material.
The Strawbales building process,
using Straw as a building material
The poured earth building method
“There is complete nutritional and energy self-sufficiency. A living example of how we can live with almost zero environmental footprints and high quality of life.”
Cob Social Cooperative
English 
Greek