Cob Garden Shed
About
In the summer of 2023, Still Moon Arts worked with community members and artist Clare Kenny to build a Cob Garden Shed in the Colour Me Local (CML) Dye Garden.
This project was the culmination of a long-term dream to involve the community in creating a beautiful, functional space that will support Still Moon’s creative and stewardship work.
Still Moon Arts created the CML Dye Garden in 2019 to grow and learn about plants that can be used for natural dyes and herbal medicines. The garden has become a beloved space for the neighbourhood, and the Cob Shed makes the area even more functional for both regular programming and special events—including those we’d previously thought impossible!
New in 2024: Plastering & Decorating
In 2024 will invite the community to work on the final phase of this project, to plaster the walls using plaster tinted with dye plants, and to decorate the exterior with gargoyles and other ornamentation. We will also set up systems to collect water from the roof for use in the garden.
What is Cob?
Cob is a building substance that has been used for about as long as humans have been building shelter. Made of low-cost materials like mud, straw, and sand, cob is hard-wearing and sustainable—making it the perfect choice for our Colour Me Local Dye Garden shed.
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Why a Cob Shed for CML?
The Cob Shed will enable us to safely store the tools needed for our programs and those of our partners—in other words, more art and less time transporting supplies. Our aim is to increase accessibility for artists and the community by giving them the ability to run and maintain the outdoor Dye Garden cultural space. Creating the building out of cob also allows us to move beyond a functional tool shed to a structure that is an artwork in itself, with wall surfaces that can be sculpted and designed by artists and community members.
In its use of eco-building techniques and local recycled materials, the Cob Shed will challenge wasteful construction practices and become a structure that is in harmony with the local ecology.
Our Collaborators
The Cob Shed build was guided by Clare Kenny of the Mudgirls Collective, a team of women builders who merge sustainability and empowerment through their projects of cob, clay, and other earthen materials.
Still Moon’s Carmen Rosen and Clare Kenny lead a series of community workshops to build the garden shed using cob, a combination of sand, clay and straw. More than 45 community volunteers of all ages worked many days to mix cob and build the shed over the course of 3 1/2 weeks in July and August. Many people came daily to be part of the project.
We’re also grateful to the many local potters and pottery studios who generously donated clay for the cob shed.
Here are some of the comments that community participants from the summer of 2023 wrote in our memento book at the completion celebration party held in September 2023.
It was such an amazing experience building a cob shed with such lovely people. We loved every part and we learned so much and had so much fun. Grateful for the opportunity.
The best things about the project – watching the intergenerational learning. We all cheered when the kids came. And who knew hard work could be so much fun.
Grateful to find this community and be a part of such an amazing project. How special to have all kinds of people of different ages working together. Thank You!
Was so fun putting my fingerprints and bootprints into creating the cob shed. I learned so much, met great people, dance, and got really dirty!
Cob Shed & Dye Garden Location
Renfrew St. and East 24th Ave. (West Side of Renfrew Ravine)
Thank you to the Cob Shed funders
