Episode Information The House of Straw, Islington

Date Published:

19/05/2008

Architects Jeremy Till and Sarah Wigglesworth bought their plot of land beside a busy railway line in Islington, north London, at auction. It was a brownfield site, previously containing light industry, and because there were sitting tenants the couple had to wait for four years before they could start building. But once they got the go-ahead, they embarked on an ambitious and often challenging build.

The materials they chose were unusual throughout: the walls of the bedroom are made of straw bales, tightly packed to reduce the amount of air in the straw and so the danger of combustion. The rear wall of the living area is also made of straw. Originally, the idea was to give the bales a transparent waterproof covering, but in the end all but one section was clad in tin.

Living beside a noisy railway line heavily influenced the design of the house, as well as the building materials that were chosen. In order that passing trains aren't too much of a disturbance, the wall facing the railway is clad with sandbags to cut down noise, and the rest of the office block covered in a fabric quilting. The whole steel structure also sits on springs, to dampen vibrations from the railway.

The office block is raised off the ground, sitting on 10-foot-high walls made of gabions (cages filled with stones). And the interior is no less dramatic: a vast open living area glazed along one side joins the bedroom and office wings, and a five-storey library tower with a lookout/reading room at the top rises up through the centre.

Right from the start, there were doubts about whether the building would actually work, and whether some of the materials used would endure in the long term. For instance, the couple couldn't be entirely sure that, in 10 or 15 years time, the straw walls might not have turned into a heap of rotting compost. 'But that's a risk that we're prepared to take,' said Sarah. 'Without trying it, you'll never know.'

All in all, the building was highly experimental. In effect, the couple were making it up as they went along, which ultimately led to them encountering many problems and falling way behind schedule. 'I've got no regrets,' commented Jeremy early on, 'but there are bits [of the build] that are desperately over-complicated, and a bit of simplification on the way might have been easier on our health and our wallets.'

Update
Two years after building began, Grand Designs returned to the site, and the house was finished (or very nearly). In some ways this building is as much an activity as a home. The bales are surviving well and providing good insulation; the springs reduce the vibration from passing trains, though they don't eliminate them completely.

At an overall cost of about half a million pounds, this was an expensive and risky venture, but Kevin for one loved the result. 'It's a celebration of ideas,' he says. 'In what, architecturally, are very serious times, they dared to make it fun.'