Wattle and Daub: Study on Application and Representation

ARCH 169- Final Project

This project was an exploration of the different applications of wattle and daub, more specifically the different densities and the permeability that can be achieved. The first step was testing the possible densities and permeability of just the wattle through both tight and spaced weaving patterns. The different patterns show that there can be different real world applications for wattle outside of just structural walls. These patterns suggest the potential for partition walls, curtain walls, doors, screens, and just regular bases for the application of daub. Next was applying the daub to the screens through two applications. The first is a mud wash on a tightly weaved screen and the second is a mud infill/casting on a screen with spaced weaving.

The applications explored above were later explored at a larger scale with a section model of a corner showing how the spaced and tight weaving meet and how they interact with the daub. The model shows the different layers that make up a wattle and daub wall, also showing the instances where the wattle can just exist without the daub.

-Project by Brianna Rodriguez-Torres

May 11, 2026May 11, 2026

Prototyping Modular Rammed Earth Furniture

Timeline

Spring 2026 – Summer 2026

Project Description

This project consists of a series of experiments aimed at prototyping a design for a rammed-earth coffee table.

Intended to adhere to a series of constituents concerning weight, modularity, and color, this rammed earth prototype was designed such that it could be disassembled into smaller, more manageable components. These constraints led the designers to a prototypical model consisting of cylindrical blocks weighed down by a raw stone tabletop, ensuring that each module remains in compression and does not shift. The blocks themselves are rammed into a formwork, creating handles for carrying, easing transportation. Each module weighs ~35lbs and features a mixture of pigments that create a customizable gradient.

Ratios and Gradients

This project also sought to examine the aesthetic sensibilities of rammed earth as a construction material for furniture. Prototyping rammed-earth furniture necessitated extensive studies concerning the mixture of different soils and pigments to create colorful gradients for each module.

Rough, rocky earthen qualities are achieved through a basic mixture of soil from varying regions, alongside ~15% sand, ~20% gravely clay to provide enrichment. These mixtures were then enriched with increasing quantities of pigment (including charcoal and iron) to allow each rammed layer to take on a more saturated color during the production of each earthen module.

Form-work and “Molds”

The contents of rammed earth require a formwork to take on the desired shape after settling. The foundation of this formwork, chosen for its size, shape, and flexibility, was a concrete form tube, often known by its brand name of Sonotube. These form tubes come in a variety of different sizes, meaning that the techniques we developed to create these rammed earth pieces can be transferred based on the desired scale.

If we had just used the sonotube, the outcome would simply be a cylinder. The next step was incorporating the physical additions that allow for handling and modularity. Utilizing 3d prints as a negative, mixed in with conventional building techniques such as cut and shaped wood, inserts were created that fit into the sonotube to create indents and features in the otherwise normal cylinder. These included handling grips, for ease of movement of the final product, to central cavities, reducing the overall weight, and even attempts at projections on the top surface to fit right into the handling grips, to help with positioning and balance of the pieces once put together.

May 11, 2026May 11, 2026

Project Lithos — (3d Printed Form Work)

Group Member: Chuhan Zhao, Yiluo Li

We started from the Augsburg Environmental Education Center, where rammed earth is used as an interior wall. In that project, we observed that different materials—such as wood or concrete—are typically placed next to or on top of the rammed earth. In other words, the materials remain separate, and their interaction mostly happens at the surface.

Hess / Talhof / Kumierz Website: Umweltbildungszentrum
Augsburg – Transition from Botanical Garden

Hess / Talhof / Kumierz Website: Umweltbildungszentrum
Augsburg Interior

What interested us was what happens if this relationship changes.

So our main question became:

What happens when materials are not adjacent to rammed earth, but embedded within it?

Instead of treating rammed earth as a pure, monolithic material, we began to think of it as a mass that can integrate other systems and become a composite condition.

To test this idea, we first made an initial model of a curved rammed-earth wall with a grid inserted into it. This allowed us to explore the relationship between a heavy, continuous mass and a lighter, secondary system. Rather than assigning a fixed program, we understood this as a spatial condition defined by material interaction.

From there, we moved toward a smaller and more controlled scale and developed the final objects you see below.

This object is not intended as a product or a finished design, but as a material prototype.

It consists of a rammed earth mass with an embedded element, and a central cavity that holds a light source. The inserted ring acts as an interface within the earth mass, and the light passes through this composite condition.

What becomes important here is not the form itself, but how light interacts with the material. The light reveals the thickness, the texture, and the relationship between the earth and the inserted element.

At this scale, we are able to control the variables more precisely and focus on how rammed earth behaves when it is no longer a single material, but part of a system.

So rather than designing a lamp, we are using light as a way to understand how a monolithic material can become composite, and how that affects spatial and material experience.

May 11, 2026

Inlaid Earth Artifact

The project begins with two references: the earthen wall of the Valéria Cirell House and Studio Moffitt’s prototype-based model approach. While the Valéria Cirell House demonstrates how rammed earth can function as both structure and material expression, Studio Moffitt’s work proposes a different way of understanding architectural models, not as literal representations of buildings, but as prototypes that isolate and test specific architectural ideas through fabrication and abstraction.

Valéria Cirell House

Studio Moffitt’s prototype-based model

Inspired by these two approaches, the project does not attempt to reconstruct the original house through detailed representation or structural replication. Instead, it extracts the tectonic and material logic of earthen architecture and reorganizes it into an abstract wall prototype. The project therefore operates simultaneously as a fabrication experiment, a material study, and an architectural interpretation.

The physical prototype is constructed using rammed earth techniques. Clay is mixed with different fibers and aggregates to form the primary body of the wall, while various stones are embedded within the surface. Through layering and compaction, the materials are compressed into a dense monolithic mass. Rather than functioning as decorative additions, the embedded stones become integrated into the wall itself, producing a textured surface that emerges directly from the internal material composition.

Material testing became an important part of the process. Different soils, granular materials, fibers, and stone fragments were explored in order to understand how texture, density, and structural stability could coexist within a single fabricated object. The goal was not to display isolated samples, but to investigate how multiple unstable materials could be transformed into a cohesive architectural system through compression and fabrication.

Beyond material experimentation, the project also explores a process of architectural abstraction. Instead of reproducing the original earth structure in detail, the prototype reinterprets it through a simplified geometric language. The project is interested in how modern architectural abstraction can translate primitive construction systems into reduced formal objects. In this sense, the prototype does not simply represent the original architecture, but reconstructs its essential relationship between mass, material, and structure in a contemporary form.

The wall therefore becomes more than a fragment of architecture. It operates as an artifact that records the interaction between material behavior, fabrication techniques, and formal abstraction. Texture is not applied afterward, but generated through the internal logic of layering, compaction, and embedded matter. The prototype ultimately positions rammed earth not only as a historical construction technique, but as a contemporary architectural language capable of integrating material expression, fabrication, and abstraction into a unified system.

May 9, 2026May 9, 2026

Detail Study & Modeling Of Rammed Earth House

Section Model of Rammed Earth House Designed by Tuckey Design Studio

Project Introduction

Group Member: Wentao Lyu , Tianwu Zheng , Zuohao Qiu

This research explores the construction logic and tectonic characteristics of rammed earth architecture through precedent analysis, detail studies, and physical model experimentation. The project focuses on the relationship between rammed earth walls, timber structures, openings, and material connections.

A 1:10 sectional model and a series of material tests were developed to study fabrication methods, construction details, and the integration of different building systems within rammed earth construction.

Research Framework

01 — Fabrication Process of Rammed Earth Walls

Study of rammed earth wall construction, including soil mixture, layering, moisture control, and compaction methods.

02 — Connection Logic Between Earth and Other Systems

Investigation of how rammed earth walls connect with timber structures, roof assemblies, foundations, and waterproofing details.

03 — Integration of Openings within Load-Bearing Walls

Analysis of window openings and structural transitions within thick rammed earth wall systems.

Modeling & Material Experiments

Sectional Model

Development of a 1:10 sectional model combining rammed earth walls, timber framing, and window details to study tectonic relationships and construction sequencing.

Material Testing

Material experiments focusing on soil ratios, wetness testing, compaction techniques, and layered rammed earth fabrication at model scale.

May 7, 2026May 7, 2026

Chunk Model Study of Nursery School at Roches de Condrieu

Group Member: Zhixuan Zhou (MAAD) & Yushi Gan (MAAD)

We constructed a 1:1 scale model of a rammed earth wall corner for the Nursery School at Roches de Condrieu project. Our objective was to explore the actual construction process involved. The region where this project is situated is characterized by traditional local rural architecture built using rammed earth.

We fabricated the rammed earth molds using a combination of plywood and 3D-printed components. We then proceeded by ramming a layer of earth, followed by pouring Rockite cement; this process was repeated three times to complete the final model.

Although traditional construction methods might not typically incorporate modern techniques such as 3D printing, our fabrication process proved instructive, allowing us to gain valuable insights into the integration of two distinct construction methodologies: rammed earth and poured casting.

Project Archdaily

Architect Website

April 7, 2026

Studio Moffitt: Proto-architectural Regenerative Models

Proto-architectural Regenerative Material Models
Reimagining Architecture Through Earth, Fiber, and Recipe-Based Making

Completed during a Visiting Research Fellowship at University of Edinburgh (2024–2025), Proto-architectural Regenerative Material Models explores a speculative territory between architecture and sculpture. These works resist conventional expectations of scale, program, and durability, instead positioning themselves as material inquiries, asking not what buildings are, but what they could become.

Freed from structural obligation and weathering performance, the objects foreground a central question: what if regenerative materials were recombined in new ways? Each piece operates as a tactile hypothesis, testing the expressive and constructive potential of earth-based systems when paired with other natural materials such as hempcrete, timber, and thatch.

The models are constructed using traditional recipes derived from vernacular earth and fiber building practices. Materials are hand-mixed and compacted into custom wooden formwork, emphasizing labor, tactility, and process over industrial precision. Across the series, assemblies include combinations such as clay-rich mass earth with straw, engineered soil composites, and hybrid systems integrating hempcrete within timber frames.

Built from modest, heterogeneous, and locally sourced materials, the work repositions natural construction systems as both viable and desirable. In doing so, it challenges the dominance of high-carbon, industrialized materials that rely on globalized supply chains, proposing instead a materially circular and sensorially rich alternative.

Archi-fringe Reciprocities Exhibition
George Brown & Sons Engineering, Edinburgh, 2025

Expanding on the research, the Archi-fringe Reciprocities Exhibition frames earth construction through the lens of culinary practice. Here, building becomes analogous to cooking: a process of combining ingredients, adjusting mixtures, and refining techniques.

The exhibition presents four proto-architectural models alongside their corresponding “recipes,” detailing ingredient ratios and preparation methods for mass earth, light earth, and rammed earth systems. Rather than isolating final objects, the exhibition foregrounds process—displaying formwork, templates, tamping tools, and even drop cloths repurposed as tapestries. A continuous “how-to” video further demystifies the act of making.

Installed within a former steelworks along Edinburgh’s canal, the exhibition integrates seamlessly into its industrial context. Notably, when two models were damaged in transit, they were simply reconstituted on site—crushed, rehydrated, and re-tamped—demonstrating the inherently circular lifecycle of earth materials.

Woolly Walls, Forgotten Fleece
A Scottish Touring Exhibition (2025–2027)

The research continues through Woolly Walls, Forgotten Fleece, a traveling exhibition that revisits Scotland’s largely forgotten tradition of fiber-reinforced earth construction. These architectural-sculptural objects are composed of earth, clay, stone dust, hemp shiv, and sheep’s wool—reinterpreting the historic mudwall or cob technique.

In this contemporary adaptation, carded wool fleece functions as a stabilizing agent, introducing tensile strength while producing a distinctive soft, tactile surface. The resulting textures invite touch, challenging the visual dominance of architectural representation and reintroducing haptic engagement as a core spatial quality.

Each piece is fabricated through an intensive manual process: freshly shorn wool is washed, carded, and combined with earth-based mixtures before being tamped into custom formwork. The exhibition presents a range of “recipes,” each generating variations in color, density, and texture, accompanied by collaged material studies.

While not scaled building models in a conventional sense, the works suggest alternative futures for construction—ones grounded in locality, circularity, and material intelligence. As the exhibition travels across Scotland—from Langholm to Dundee, Dumfries to Thurso—it reactivates regional craft knowledge while proposing new directions for regenerative design.

Funding & Research Context

This body of work is supported by the SSHRC Innovative Initiative Grant: Earthworks: Architecture’s Regenerative Material Models. Development of the earth–wool mixtures was conducted during an open residency at Cove Park in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.

Source:

1.Proto-architectural Regenerative Models — **Studio Moffitt**

2.Archifringe — **Studio Moffitt**

3.Woolly Walls — **Studio Moffitt**

December 14, 2024March 17, 2026

Zumthor’s Chapel Reimagined: Rammed Earth and Light

A project by Marcos Vargas, Lourdes Aguayo Francia, Vicente Angel Saavedra

Peter Zumthor's Bruder Klaus Field Chapel Through the Lens of Aldo Amoretti - Image 13 of 13 — Peter Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel

The Bruder Klaus Chapel by Peter Zumthor, known for its use of concrete and its spiritual significance, inspired this project, which reimagines the chapel using rammed earth in hopes of offering a new perspective on the chapel’s form and spiritual significance. Through this material change, we emphasized the tactile and temporal qualities of the earth while maintaining the original architectural intent. Earth’s natural properties and historical significance in architecture highlight both the processes and challenges of working with rammed earth, from material sourcing to final assembly.

Recreation Section Front Elevation Model Photo

To embody the spiritual and material significance of the original chapel, our team chose to recreate the oculus section. Selecting this feature was crucial for exploring how architectural practices and traditions can express a spiritual narrative.

Recreation Section Side Elevation Model Photo

The dirt used in the project was collected from the back of Wurster Hall. Unfortunately, due to rain, the dirt was wet and could not be sifted through conventional means. As a result, the material was sifted by hand to remove larger particles and debris. Once prepared, the dirt was compacted into a mold designed to shape the wall’s mass.

The oculus element was formed using wooden dowels arranged around a clay cone. The dowels were secured inside a 3D-printed mold, which acted as a guide for stacking and compacting the rammed earth in layers. As the construction progressed, the 3D-printed mold was incrementally removed, and the clay cone was dug out to create the final oculus shape.

Initially, it was intended to burn the dowels to leave a charred imprint on the rammed earth, but the wet soil caused the dowels to detach. To address this, the dowels were coated in chalk prior, which created a residue resembling ash and transferred a faint wood grain texture on some areas of the rammed earth.

Resources:

https://www.archdaily.com/798340/peter-zumthors-bruder-klaus-field-chapel-through-the-lens-of-aldo-amoretti

December 4, 2024March 17, 2026

Observatory in the desert…in Wurster Hall

The observatory in the desert was a project brought on by the Contemporary Architects Association that sought to revive tradition of clay and mud construction in the Esfahan Village in Iran with a beautiful communal piece. This work is described thoroughly in the following post. What is there not to love about this project? In this work of art, meticulously arranged mud bricks and rammed earth walls make a seamless experience.

Our group, Eryn King, Lucy Knopf and Camilla Faustinelli were blown away by this project when it was presented by one of the students in the class Earthen Material Practices in Contemporary Art and Architecture . We just had to recreate it.

The final pushed groups to build a model at 1/2” = 1’ scale, focusing on a specific building technique with earth we had studied.

Our group decided to focus on the mud brick.

For such an endeavor, we decided to change the design a bit. Because we weren’t going to focus on rammed earth walls, we made all of the construction using mud bricks even if the interior circle is supposed to be a rammed earth wall in the actual project.

Construction process:

Collecting the mud : Mud for the bricks was collected in the San Pablo coastline area, as well as a backyard in Elmwood, Berkeley.
Making the bricks: Mud was pressed into silicone molds, then left to dry in the sun for several days.
Building: With a concrete base, we stacked the bricks in a 45 degree angle on the outside, and not angled on the inside to act as the rammed earth wall on the actual project. This is where texture and consistency of our collected dry mud came to play, making some pieces more fragile than others.

Building this observatory was a meticulous project, but it’s incredible how making something makes you understand why it’s so special. What a beautiful project. Our group hopes to one day see the project in person.

December 2, 2024March 17, 2026

The Pottery Dome

As architecture students, we (Sascha Fawaz and Pedram Modaresi) built a dome structure/prototype merging pottery vessels with clay construction. Inspired by the Reviving Al Nazlah Center (Oriental Group Architects and Hamdy El-Setouhy) in Egypt, our installation transforms clay pots into architectural elements.

Our project focused on using pots as modular units for construction, integrating them into both the facade and roof. Domes and curved surfaces formed the core of our design, emphasizing spans and spaces that feel timeless yet innovative.

We were fascinated by the dialogue between ancient techniques and modern design sensibilities in the precedent project, reflecting a deep respect for craftsmanship while pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with humble materials like clay and pottery. It not only bridges the gap between past and present but also exemplifies the potential for sustainability, cultural revival, and community empowerment through architecture.

Reference images from the Al Nazlah Center by Hamdy El-Setouhy

We layered clay and pottery in sequential phases. Our initial dome structure received embedded pots, adhesive coating with strong glue, and curing time.

We added a second clay layer to strengthen the form, followed by targeted drilling to reveal the pots from the interior of the dome . We filled joints with a second layer of clay for more stability and sanded the surface for a refined finish.

The completed dome sits on a brick foundation, raising it above ground level. Our project demonstrates the potential of traditional materials in contemporary architecture, combining ancient pottery techniques with modern structural approaches.

Proposal dome model. Scale: 1/4″=1′