We built a mud house. Now we’re building something else.

No.098 — Read old posts on Tinyfarmlab.com
Reading Time 5 minutes

Hello and welcome to our growing family.
We’ve noticed many new faces here.

This little newsletter has quietly grown into a community of over 1,000 people who care about natural building, meaningful design, and slow, rooted living.

That means a lot.

It feels like the right moment to pause, look back, and reintroduce ourselves.

We are Raghav and Ansh.
We both moved to a remote mountain village in the forest near Rishikesh five years ago.

We’ve spent the last 5 years exploring natural building methods, and we have had the privilege of designing and building eco-friendly spaces with cob for ourselves and others.

One of our proudest achievements is building the Tiny Farm Fort, a hand-sculpted cob house constructed with over 100 people from 18 countries.

We built it with soil, sweat, and a deep longing to create something real.
That house was never just a home; it was our teacher.

It taught us many lessons.
How to build with what we have,
how to listen to land,
and how to find beauty in imperfection.

But what we built then is in the past now.
We’re not starting over.
We are building something different.

Right now, we are somewhere in between.

It’s that time of the year.
When the river swells up and the bridge washes away.
Luckily, we removed the bridge this year before it washed away.

However, the swollen river and monsoon do stop operations at the tiny farm fort.

So, we’ve been spending time with family in Delhi and Dehradun, and traveling across Chamba, Agra, Sarnath, Rishikesh, visiting sites, meeting collaborators, brainstorming what comes next.

We’re growing our tiny studio, Tiny Farm Lab.
An ecological architecture and interior design studio.
One that’s more agile, more remote-ready.

What we built back then grounded us.
What we’re building now is shaping us in new ways.

Our projects are growing in complexity.
Each new project demands more from us,
not just creatively,
but logistically and structurally.


Many of the projects we now take on come with unique site and material constraints:

Remote hillsides with difficult access
- Heritage havelis that need restoration, not reinvention
- G+1 structures using cob and hybrid techniques
- Clients who are value-aligned, but still working within real-world budgets and timelines.

We’re constantly navigating between intention and execution.
Between staying true to the soul of natural building, context, craft, and community, and making projects economically viable, structurally sound, and ready for contemporary life.

How do we:
Fast-track a cob house without making it soulless?
Preserve heritage without freezing it in the past?
Create spaces that are beautiful, but also buildable?

We’re not chasing exponential growth or an ever-expanding team.
We’re focused on growing wisely.

Better growth, for us, means:
- Asking deeper questions
- Treating every client’s project as our own home
- Choosing clarity and craft over speed.
- Designing systems helping us grow without burning out

We’re building a studio that can stay rooted in its values, even as its challenges evolve.

Amid all this, we still make time for what we love most.
Material experiments and collaborations that feed our curiosity.

We recently wrapped a two-month residency with Inês Barros,
a biodesigner and architect from Portugal.

Together, we created:
- A backpack from Lantana camara
- A baklava made using Grewia optiva
- Pottery from wild Himalayan clay

This is the side of our work that stays invisible, but it’s what keeps our hands rooted. It reminds us why we started our journey in the first place.

Going forward, we want to continue building spaces that create a sense of belonging.
That grows out of the land they’re rooted in.
And that serves not just the people who live in them, but the craft traditions and community around.

We’re genuinely excited for what lies ahead.
Even when the terrain is tough or the brief feels impossible, each project opens up a new way to learn, adapt, and push our boundaries.

It’s not always easy,
but it’s always worth it.

Thank you for being here. We’ll keep sharing more as we go, stories from the site, lessons from mistakes, and our breakthroughs from our hands in the mud.

Gratitude,
Raghav and Ansh

P.S.: If you still haven’t received our free guide, you can use this link.


What you can watch - How we Moved to the Countryside to Live a Simple Life

What you can listen to - Kickstarting Your Career in Natural Building - Allstar Natural Builders - BS100

What You Can Read - Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business

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