30. Sarah Wigglesworth House & Office
Sarah Wigglesworth's self build project
Caledonian Road, London
This was a self build project embarked by architects Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till. The project is located at the end of a cul-de-sac adjacent to the railway line. The project includes spaces of living, dining and meeting and also Sarah’s working architectural practice in a separate office area.
The building used sustainable technologies to have a low environmental impact much of which were pioneering experiments. We recall Sarah explaining the thick external wall of sandbags that faces onto the railway line. The sandbag wall was filled with 35 tonnes of sand, cement and lime which was all manufactured on site. The sandbags are polypropylene bags filled with a funnel and tied with electrical tape. They were dampened with a watering can which bonded the bags together. The bags were then eroded by UV light over the years.
Guest Text
‘Hearing from the occupants of canonical buildings has always been one of my favourite ways of learning about the potential of architecture to impact on people’s lives. Whether it’s the unintended consequences, rumoured reasoning, or secret joys of the building, it’s tenants always have an upper hand on the long departed designer. So to meet the combined occupants and designers of Stock Orchard Street – Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till – during a period of intense reflection, gave a space for all those stories to come tumbling out during our tour. In 2016, they were just embarking on the renovations of Stock Orchard Street to tune its energy efficiency and refit it for later life living. With this project completed in 2020, I can only hope to re-visit and hear new stories of this endlessly work-in-progress home.’ - Hugh McEwen