Peter Blundell Jones Library

Memoirs

Sarah Wigglesworth

British architect and Director of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects. Former Professor of Architecture at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture.

Peter did indeed teach me, at Cambridge. This was my third year of undergrad studies. I am struggling a bit to recall precisely the order of projects that year but I recall that Peter had taken up a post at the University and as a result of residence requirements had just moved his young family to the village of Oakington, outside Cambridge. One project involved designing a home / workspace on top of a disused wartime pillbox in the village. We had to build a model at 1:20 scale, which meant knowing how it was constructed. My solution was a timber stud structure, very tall, expanding as it went up each storey. It looked like a lantern! My father loved it so much he kept the model for years, adding the objects collected on his shelf.

The second project Peter set was an extension to the house that he’d bought. My memory is of a walled garden and old apple trees, but perhaps I am embellishing. I recall designing a garden room that formed a sort of gateway within the garden but I don’t remember anything about whether the house itself was expanded. I kept the drawings in my portfolio for many years. 

Peter also lectured to us, of course, about the alternative strands of modern architecture, which were new to us. They were fun and revelatory, and I think loosened us up a fair bit.