RAWCORE
SUMMER SCHOOL
INNOVATING WITH STRAW AND CLAY
24-27.09.2025
ABOUT SUMMER SCHOOL
Join us for a 4-day Summer School where architects, engineers, farmers, and innovators come together to experiment, learn, and create. This is your opportunity to step into a space filled with openness, curiosity, and unexpected discoveries. Together, we’ll explore the possibilities, limitations, and methods of working with these timeless natural materials—making straw and clay our main ingredients for innovation. This is a theory and practice-based collaborative course, where you will learn the principles, techniques, test fail and push boundaries of working with straw and clay. You will be encouraged to expand your own ideas and designs or create radicalcombinations of how these two can form a new dialogue. The joint learning from the course will help us consider the materials and methods for the new house we plan to build on the farm next year, as much as we hope they will manifest themselves in your future projects, too.
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ABOUT THE FOUNDER
STEVE BARRON
Steve is a director of films and music videos, including iconic works like Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' & A-ha's 'Take On Me’, Madonna’s ‘Burning Up’ and Dire Straits VMA winner ‘Money For Nothing’. He directed features such as the original $140m grossing 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles', cult soccer film 'Mike Bassett - England Manager' and 'Electric Dreams'. More recent television has seen Steve direct Bafta nominated ’The Durrells’ and many series including the David Tennant starer ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ and the hit PBS/Masterpiece returning series ’The Marlow Murder Club'.
In 2016 with the imminent arrival of Steve’s first granddaughter he was inspired to launch an ecological venture for future generations. He dreamed up a plan to research, design and build a farmhouse using hemp as the primary sustainable construction material. He purchased a 53-acre farm property with derelict cattle-shed and barns in Cambridgeshire, England. Barron teamed up with architect Paloma Gormley whose environmental credentials were exemplary. The beautiful Flat House is the result. Off grid, powered by solar and wind, Margent Farm has become a home and a centre for education specialising in natural fibres. Margent’s construction materials have been supplied to, amongst others, the Young V&A, The Barbican, Nando’s, Gails, E5 Bakery, Clerkenwell Design Week, The Design Museum, etc. These materials are now being created for a wider market through a new joint venture with Hemspan, called Margent Form Ltd. Next step on the horizon is another inspiring, natural build on the farm, Haystack House. Alongside studies with the Cambridge University architectural department the hay house will be built appropriately inside the existing hay pole barn. We’re all looking forward to a natural future.
PROGRAMME
Day 1
Introduction.
Site, materials, tools and techniques.
Day 2
Mock up
Developing ideas and innovation.
Day 3
Refinement
Improving, upscaling, testing and prototyping.
Day 4
Review
Recording and presentation.
Other:
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Wholesome vegetarian breakfast, lunch and dinner included.
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Camping space. Please bring your camping gear: tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat. Camping space will be provided including campervan parking. We can provide a handful of mattresses and blankets. Please do let us know in advance if you need help with arrangements.
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Evening events: talks, walks, creative sessions and games.
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Breathwork and Sauna sessions.
Margit Kraft
Margit is an architect based in London, Munich and rural Italy. Her portfolio includes built works in straw, earth and other low carbon, local, circular and chemical free building materials.
She has worked on a wide range of public and private sector clients in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Zambia and the UK. Margit is a member of ACN (Natural Materials group), earth building organisation EBUKI, and contemporary music collective Musarc. She teaches sustainable architecture at the Bartlett, UCL.
Margit is an ARB registered Architect and has studiet at TU Munich and the Royal Academy of Arts in Copenhagen.
MEET THE TEAM
Barbara Jones
Barbara is a pioneer of strawbale building, founder of School of Natural Building, key person behind EcoCocon pre-fab straw panels. She teaches at Todmorden Learning Centre and is dedicated to creating affordable houses for ordinary people using healthy and natural materials without compromising quality.
Achievement include: Woman of Outstanding Achievement (UKRC) Lifetime Achievement Award (Women in Construction) World’s Best Woman Builder (CIOB).
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Anastasia Glover
Anastasia is a British-Greek architect and Design Fellow at the University of Cambridge co-running a third year architecture studio on regenerative design.
Her practice, Glover Architects, based in London, focuses on remodelling unusual historic properties and embracing slow architecture. They work with with local and salvaged materials, vernacular techniques, layering of spaces and time’s inevitable patina. Completed projects include remodelling a ruined Irish 15th century castle, English 17th century farmhouses and landscapes, various London townhouses, and re-inhabitation of ruins in Greece.
She speaks five languages and is a founding member of Musarc, an avant-garde choir collective who perform all over Europe.
Basia Swierc
Basia is a Polish-British architect and Sustainability Lead at Blake + Blake Architects, where she restores and enhances historically sensitive landmark projects.
With 12-year experience in the industry, Basia is passionate about sharing knowledge and empowering younger generations towards designing regenerative and inclusive architecture. Her past and present collaborations include D-Lab, RIBA Learning Centre, Scale Rule and Open City.
Enjoying hands-on experience, she has recently completed her first house from reclaimed and natural materials as part of her research on opportunities and limitations in sustainable building practices.
Darshil U. Shah
Shah is Associate Professor in Materials Science and Design at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Architecture, and leads research at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation (CNMI). His expertise include: Design & manufacture with sustainable composites; Function-structure-property-processing relations in natural materials; Bioinspired and multi-functional biomaterials; History of materials technology; Design education & pedagogy
Tim Sweatman
Tim is a managing director at Eco-Composites, a UK based product development company using sustainable composite materials. He helped develop the BastWave - the corrugated hemp and resin sheets as prototyped on the Flat House. He will be teaching different techniques and methods using the shop press, resin and composite materials.
Steven Barron
Steve is a British filmmaker, farm owner, hemp grower and a person full of exciting ideas. Steve will give you the tour and story behind the Flat House and the farm.
CONTACT US
Address
Margent Farm,
Huntingdon,
PE28 3FB
Contact
0044 7754 929 163
