sarah wigglesworth
straw

28.04.21. internet

One of the joys of Material Matters is that it allows Grant to roam across disciplines. So one week he can discuss carbon fibre and Formula 1 racing with John Barnard, while in the next he could be talking taxidermy with fine artist Polly Morgan.

His guest in this episode is the excellent Sarah Wigglesworth. It’s fair to say that Sarah has been a pioneer of sustainable architecture through her eponymous practice. Over the years, projects have included cultural centres such as Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, housing schemes like Umpire View in Harrow and Trent Basin in Nottingham, and a fistful of thoughtful, sensitively-designed schools, including Roseacres Primary School in Essex and Mellor Primary School in the Peak District.

She made her name though with her own home-cum-office, the revolutionary Stock Orchard Street, designed with partner Jeremy Till. The building, which was 20 years old in 2021, used a plethora of low tech materials such as rubble, sandbags and, most famously, straw bales to change the way people thought about environmentally-conscious architecture. The Straw Bale House as it was quickly nicknamed also appeared on the first-ever series of Grand Designs with Kevin McCloud.

We chat about: how fours years of thinking went into Stock Orchard Street; its extraordinary palette of materials; attitudes towards sustainable architecture two decades ago; why she built with straw; the feminist agenda behind the building and making her way in a male-dominated profession; how a visit to Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp changed her life; being on the original series of Grand Designs; and designing for old age.

Find out more about Sarah Wigglesworth

A detail of the straw used at Stock Orchard Street