Rain, Willow, and Mud applies traditional methods of making and organic materials into the contemporary practice of architecture. We investigate wattle and daub, a historic form of construction that combines a lattice of plant-based strips with sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw. It is a centuries old practice in the vernacular architecture of Asia and Europe. Its beauty is created by the contrast between the raw earth and delicately woven wattle structure.

While wattle and daub has significant advantages as a sustainable construction technique, it has fallen out of favour due to its inability to be scaled up. We conducted extensive research on three key aspects; firstly, learning from traditional basket weaving techniques to improve the structural integrity of the willow frame; secondly, investigating both the sourcing and composition of soil used for daubing to produce an optimal recipe; and thirdly, combining these two elements of the research into a design output of prefabricated material components with the help of digital tools.