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Cypren Edmunds: “I would outlaw siloed thinking”
In the first instalment of a new feature where we try to get into the heads of prominent people in green building, we asked the president of the European Straw Building Association to peer into the void, peer into his record collection, and peer into the future.
Cypren Edmunds didn’t set out to revolutionise construction. With a background in sport, music, and carpentry, his journey into sustainable building began in a damp-ridden London flat where water dripped from light fittings and mould covered the walls. That experience transformed him from frustrated tenant to housing activist – and now one of Europe’s most passionate advocates for straw construction, as chair of Straw Building UK and president of the European Straw Building Association.
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What makes you happy?
Small wins.
What keeps you up at night?
The fear that we will retrofit the wrong values into the future and the possibility that we are mistaking momentum for progress.
What makes you think?
The way change feels urgent, but the systems around us stall and, how forests cooperate through fungal networks better than most people do.
What turned you on to sustainable building?
I had seen enough damp walls and weak housing association apologies to last a lifetime.
What is your favourite building?
The straw-insulated fire station in Montreuil, France. It answers the most common question I get about straw buildings – “but what if they catch fire?” – with architectural clarity, public confidence, and pas de merde.
What is the worst thing you have ever seen on a construction site or finished building?
Plastic-wrapped façades sweating into oblivion and builders blamed for failures of regulation and procurement.
If you could change one thing in construction practice, what would it be?
I would outlaw siloed thinking. Then I would make insurance, planning, and procurement climate-literate.
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Relistening to Talk Talk’s ‘Life’s What You Make It’ as if it were a strategy document.
What is your worst trait as a built environment professional?
I can be impatient with slow systems, sometimes I’m too early with ideas.
Who or what has been the biggest influence on how you work?
I could name it, but then I would lose it.
What is the most unsustainable thing that you do?
Use a smartphone made of conflict minerals.
What technology gets you excited for the future?
A tool that benefits mankind and is not manipulated for cruelty. Anything that redistributes power without ego.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
‘Mr Bojangles’ by John Holt. A song about dignity, memory, and dancing through what life throws at you.
What do you want to be remembered for?
Making straw credible and for building unlikely alliances that made something beautiful happen.
What makes you optimistic about the future?
Young practitioners asking better questions than my generation ever dared.
For information on building with straw visit www.strawbuildinguk.org
