Future proofing in style
Future proofing in style
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1/7 Embracing change
Architect Sarah Wigglesworth is adapting her ecohouse to suit her and her partner’s needs as they age, including creating flexible space to accommodate a carer if required.
Graham Jepson
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2/7 Housing for over-55s
Wigglesworth’s research into housing for older age at Sheffield University has fed into several recent schemes for her practice, the largest being two for the over-55s in Devon.
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3/7 Considerate design
Both feature communal gardens and social spaces, as well as flats large enough to accommodate assisted living.
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4/7 Shared space
The communal lounge at Shell Cove flats and cottages complex for over-55s in Dawlish, on the Devon cliffs overlooking the sea, by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects.
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5/7 Future proof
Wigglesworth's Charred Timber project in London provides a new light and airy extension to an existing building, future proofing the layout for later life.
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6/7 Material contrast
Charred timber cladding creates a contrast to the existing house and sets the new extension apart, forming a family of garden buildings.
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7/7 Well-planned
The new, open plan annexe has a pitched ceiling, allowing roof lights to shed light into a generous interior.
The refurb at architect Sarah Wigglesworth’s home off Caledonian Road in north London is anything but conventional.
Since featuring in Channel 4’s Grand Designs in 1999, the house has achieved cult status for its pioneering green credentials, audacity and wit.
At the end of a cul-de-sac, it looks like a series of crazy experiments stuck together, with three distinct blocks representing living, working and sleeping, all finished in radically different materials.
Rising above it all is the tiny study of Wigglesworth’s partner Jeremy Till, an architect who’s also head of Central Saint Martins art and design college.
“We wanted a really inventive building that could embrace the comings and goings of everyday life as well as being very green,” says Wigglesworth, 62, recalling the original concept. “It was a bit of a two fingers up to minimalism, too.”
Twenty years ago, many of the green ideas incorporated in the house seemed eccentric.
“We called it ‘slick and hairy’,” she says of the walls insulated with straw bales, grass roof, solar panels, composting loo, the chicken coop and veg garden. Now the world has caught up, and the house is a blueprint for living with climate change.
Joyful housing for older age
The changes Wigglesworth is making now are the result of her research into housing for older age.
An academic as well as an architect, she recently led DWELL — Designing for Wellbeing in Environments for Later Life — a three-year research project at Sheffield University.
The findings focus on new buildings, exploring proposals for imaginative and adaptable places for people to live in what she calls “third and fourth age” — 60 to 80, and 80-plus.
Joyfulness is the key, she says, “because if people don’t love their building then you’re going nowhere. Architecture has to be uplifting.”
These flats and houses need to be accessible, have space for live-in carers and be connected to high streets so that residents don’t feel “ghettoised”. The research also includes proposals for downsizer housing.
The project led Wigglesworth to think about her own home, and what changes she could make for the future.
“I haven’t got children to take care of me, and I know I want to stay here,” she says. “You’ve got to start thinking about these things in your sixties.”
Beside a ground-floor bedroom she has created a second small kitchen suitable for a carer. She ditched her composting loo, as the compost needed turning and might take too much effort.
She’ll continue to live and sleep on the first floor but there’s room for a lift. The kitchen will have an eye-level oven (“no bending down”) and an induction hob (“so we can’t leave the gas on”).
Insulation will make the house more energy efficient still, while the original design already allows for easy division of the building so her current office can be let for income.
Wigglesworth’s research has fed into several recent schemes for her practice, the largest being two for the over-55s in Devon. Both feature communal gardens and social spaces, as well as flats large enough to accommodate assisted living.
A new one-level eco-house in Willesden was built for a graphic designer who lives with his mother and his children.
“They plan to pass it from generation to generation,” says Wigglesworth. And in Crouch End, she extended a small cottage for “third agers”, with flexible ground-floor space for downstairs sleeping or a carer.
- Sarah Wigglesworth is leading a cycle tour of her London buildings this Sunday as part of the London Festival of Architecture.
