Wolves Lane Centre is a north London horticultural and community food growing hub with a mission to make good food accessible to all. They grow and distribute local and organic food and plants, and offer space for education, enterprise and community events. The centre is managed by consortium organisation The Ubele Project and OrganicLea, and is home to BlackRootz, the first multigenerational Black-led growing organisation in the UK.

Working with straw bales taken from fields in the periphery of the city and other materials drawn from the bioregion, such as clay, we developed a building system featuring lightweight timber frame and straw infill. The buildings are roughly rendered with red pigmented lime, and roofed with simple lightweight agricultural steel cladding that slips down the elevations to create a hat. The straw bales create deep reveals, and the glazing, alternating between being set to the outside and the inside, makes places to sit and perch. The buildings form a series of courtyards, moving from the more public-facing spaces to the working back-of-house. Construction of Phase 01 has completed on site and Phase 02 will see the addition of final building that will enclose the courtyard around Buildings B and C, as shown below. 

Through a process of co-design with the client and other stakeholders, the buildings were conceived as tools for learning and communicating the value of plant-based materials, with the construction process reimagined as a real-life, evolving platform for community learning. A critical part of the project’s conception was ensuring that the design and build processes were distributive and empowered users with the necessary knowledge to maintain their buildings themselves. Teams of site users and volunteers engaged directly with materials, gaining a practical understanding of their structural and experiential properties.

Photography by Henry Woide

Wolves Lane Centre is a north London horticultural and community food growing hub with a mission to make good food accessible to all. They grow and distribute local and organic food and plants, and offer space for education, enterprise and community events. The centre is managed by consortium organisation The Ubele Project and OrganicLea, and is home to BlackRootz, the first multigenerational Black-led growing organisation in the UK.