10 Questions With… Rain Wu

London-based creative Rain Wu has been quietly carving out a practice that resists the neat labels of architect, artist, or designer. Driven by a love for storytelling, her work drifts fluidly between public art installations, restaurant interiors, edible sculptures, and much more, with each one shaped by a desire to craft multi-sensorial environments and experiences.

In her home city, she’s been developing interiors for several eateries, from her immersive settings for the digital-only stores of The Salad Project to the more warmth-infused staging of Arôme Bakery. Both draw on narratives embedded in cultural memory and tap into its symbolism in subtle yet intentional gestures, attuned to a site’s physical and emotional cues. These perspectives are shaped as much by the more logical elements of her architectural training as they are by her fascination with atmosphere. A similar sensitivity threads through her public art installations, most recently in Abu Dhabi, where she created a delicate threshold between aquatic and terrestrial realms that stretches across a mangrove park like a glimmering night sky.

Wu’s attentiveness to the ephemeral and the inner logics of natural systems has led to some of her most experimental works. In her earlier edible sculptures and her performative dinners, food itself becomes both subject and medium as a sensory conduit through which cultural contexts are read, shared, and renewed.

Binding all of these explorations together is a tactile curiosity and a nimbleness across vastly different scales, as she continues to drift between materials and mediums—whether working with wood, steel, light, or a clove of garlic. The approach to each element is guided by an openness to cultural context, collaboration, and form, and leads into her next big dream—to choreograph a symphony of dancing construction cranes.

Interior Design caught up with Rain Wu to discuss the porous edges between disciplines, how she uses space and materials as tools for storytelling and collective experience, and how designing with food has opened up entirely new layers of engagement with art, communities, and landscapes.

Rain Wu Utilizes Space To Create Intrinsic Design Stories

Interior Design: Your architectural background is very much evident in your installations. How has your training influenced your approach to art and design?

Rain Wu: I studied and worked in architecture, but in the back of my mind, I always wanted to be an artist. The architects I was drawn to were building pavilions and installations, and I found those kinds of spaces more interesting than, say, a house. I think part of it came from being young and wanting to create things with forms, and creating public and social interactions, without being so bogged down by the technicalities of regulations.

I later branched out and started working as an artist, but I’ve always continued to support myself by designing restaurants. And yes, I think my architecture background does come through in the work. It’s informed by art, but also by construction, things that are larger than people. And in turn, the art benefits from that knowledge of building and materials.

ID: As you mentioned, you enjoy the liberation from regulations in your art, but do you find that logic-driven method still defines how you work across disciplines? And with your practice sitting at the intersection of art, architecture, and design, do you identify as one more than the other, or is it more fluid?

RW: Yes, I think the research method and the way I approach a site or a project still comes from my architectural training. It’s quite logical, and I often consider a lot of different layers at once. I imagine that maybe a more traditional art approach would focus on a smaller subject matter. So my background keeps the work public and social—that’s the kind of space and experience I’m interested in creating.

As for labels, I’ve always found them a bit limiting. I feel like I’m somewhere in between. The funny thing is, when I’m working as an architect, I want to talk about art. When I’m making art, I bring in architectural scale. And when I’m designing, I start questioning what’s functional and what isn’t. So, maybe these labels are actually useful in that they give me something to push against.

ID: Storytelling also seems central to how you think about space. How does narrative shape your design process, particularly in your interior work?

RW: I’ve always liked storytelling through space. I think that comes from a love of theater, dance, novels and film—all these different ways we experience narrative. That’s something I try to bring into my work.

With restaurants, it’s no longer just about the food. People are also going in order to spend time in a particular kind of environment. The setting and the hanging out becomes just as important. So, when I design, I try to be quite clear about the conceptual narrative I’m trying to convey. I like to make it very focused, so that as soon as you walk in, you’re transported into a different world.

ID: Your collaboration with The Salad Project in London is an interesting example of this process with how the space is so immersive and cohesive. What ideas shaped that space and its visual language?

RW: That approach works really well with The Salad Project. The founders came to me when they were looking to develop a new digital-only store, and, for me, the idea was to make a space that is interesting to visit without feeling dystopian. That led me to develop a tight visual language using a single color, one wall paneling module, and making sure everything aligns in a unified environment.

The green paneling on the store’s walls, for example, is actually measured to the size of one of their salad boxes. Then, I introduced contrasts, like pairing stainless steel with wood, for balance. It brings in a sharpness that fits the brand, but also warmth and conviviality for people eating together. As for the geometric elements that draw from the Bauhaus, they started with the company’s logo, which almost looks like a tossed salad in a bowl. I deconstructed the logo’s primary shapes and used them as a visual language throughout the interior.

ID: There’s a similar language in your work for Arôme Bakery, which also works with a restrained palette and quiet symbolism but with a bit more warmth. How did cultural references play into the design there?

RW: This project draws stylistically from both French Art Deco and Japanese joinery. The pastry chef at Arôme is French, so the Art Deco influence, especially its rhythm and patterning, came through in the wooden wall paneling along the windows. But with the materiality and craftsmanship, I was thinking of those open, warm, natural wooden interiors that are common in East Asian architecture.

ID: From what you’ve said so far, I can see how your sensitivity to cultural references and love for space making carries over into your public installations too. What is your starting point with an art commission?

RW: That public element has always been there in my work; maybe not consciously at first, but it’s something I’ve always been drawn to. My installations and restaurant interiors are all spaces people move through and share.

My approach to beginning with a public art installation comes from my architectural training of surveying the site: listening to the environment and understanding its narrative. For my work at Manar Abu Dhabi, One With the Soil, One With the Cloud, I was assigned the Mangrove Park as a site and was given complete freedom in terms of what to create. Mangroves are also a kind of fascinating threshold, an intermediary between the aquatic body and the terrestrial body.

Being at this edge between the human and non-human triggers a sense of wonder, a moment to pause and consider the larger questions our busy lives often detach us from. If we return to the Latin root of the word considerare—con (with) and sidera (stars)—to consider is, essentially, to think with the stars.

And so, this installation prepares ground to do just this. To ponder. To celebrate the beauty and ephemerality of existence. I created it as a space like a starry sky with pin-sized lights that slowly flicker, almost like they are alive and breathing. The installation was intentionally dark and visible only at night, and it had this soft rhythm that affected people emotionally as they walked through. I wanted to create a quiet place where people could be taken out of their daily lives.

ID: Food and design intersect frequently in your work. You’ve also created some interesting edible sculptures during your Van Eyck residency. What fascinates you about this relationship? 

RW: I kind of fell into food, and it quickly revealed itself as a compelling medium. Compared to more traditional materials like paint or marble, which I also love, food allows for a completely different level of engagement—with art, people, and even landscapes. There are narratives embedded in the material culture of what we grow. It operates on many different levels at once and pushes on many scales, which makes it such a rich subject to explore. I’m still finding my footing within it, but there are infinite possibilities.

ID: Can you share more about your first experience working with food as a medium?

RW: It was a commission by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture to represent Taipei as the cultural capital during a festival in London. Rather than adding more objects to an already saturated exhibition format, my collaborator Shikai Tseng and I wanted to bring people closer to Taiwanese culture through something more immediate: food.

With Eataipei we collaborated with a chef to design a multi-course experience, with each dish telling a story about Taipei: its history, landscapes, people, everyday life, and democratic futures. Each course combined sensory elements such as taste, smell, and visuals, with narrative tools, from the geography of the mountains to the influence of the sea.

The project also moved quite fluidly between design, performance, and exhibition, and we had carefully choreographed everything from the timing of dish delivery to scent releases with blowtorches. It became an exploration of storytelling through this medium and opened up a new space where we used design to engage the senses and reshape cultural experiences.

ID: Collaborations seem integral to several of your processes. How do partnerships with different disciplines and cultures, and other artists and designers, inform and evolve your creations?

RW: I really enjoy working with other people. Whenever I start with an idea, it always grows and expands through conversations and exchanges. Collaborations bring in new stimuli and inspiration, and they push me to think more creatively. There’s also the added benefit of technical skills and new perspectives that I can work with. I find this kind of collaborative approach very nourishing.

ID: Are there any scales or mediums you haven’t yet worked with but are excited to explore?

RW: It’s a bit of a wild collaboration, but a dream of mine is to work with construction cranes. Both to experiment installations at an infrastructural scale and to reveal the poetics in construction.

This fascination began while I was studying at the Bartlett School of Architecture, around the time King’s Cross was being redeveloped. The area was raw and surreal. Full of lorries, half-built structures, and unexpected art interventions. And I was drawn to those in-between moments where meaning really feels suspended.

Watching those sites, I started imagining choreographing cranes like giant dancers against the sky, thinking about how their lines and loads would move precisely across the city. Through this surreal gesture, the spaces we often move through unquestioned are challenged, opening up possibilities for new ways of seeing.