Wattle

Wattle has been used as a type of construction dating back almost 6000 years in parts of Asia, Europe, and South America. This type of construction is still widely used and is popular in low-income sustainable building solutions. Wattle construction is uses a series of vertical beams with horizontal thinner strips are woven like a lattice throughout. These thinner strips are usually damp or still green enabling them to be easily woven. Wattle is usually used in collaboration with daub, a mixture of soil, clay, sand, animal dung, and straw. Daub is used like plaster to create a solid surface hiding the wooden frame underneath. I chose to not hide the wooden structure and to celebrate the pattern that is formed by weaving these wooden elements together.
 
Wattle is very similar to types of basket weaving but constructed using thinker pieces and in flat panels. The woven pieces need to be sufficiently wet in order to weave through the framework without splitting. Typically the vertical pieces are set 7 to 16 inches apart, my chairs slats were only spaced 1.5 inches apart. The tight spacing of the chair frame proved to be a bit of a problem when weaving the thin pieces of wood even after soaking these pieces for a week. This can be easily remedied by have the slats spread further apart. As a means of natural building, wattle, is an easy and effective solution for construction.