concepts · updated 2026-07-19
Polly Cooper
confidence: low volatility: cold verified: 2026-07-19fresh
Architect who co-founded a passive-solar practice with Ken Haggard at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1976 (later the San Luis Sustainability Group). Cal Poly Architecture faculty 1974-2002 (emerita). Co-recipient of the 1996 ASES Passive Solar Pioneer Award and co-author of Fractal Architecture: Design for Sustainability (2006). Credited by David Bainbridge as likely having designed more water-wall homes than anyone else in the world.
M. Polly Cooper met Ken Haggard at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1975; together they established their architectural practice in 1976, later known as the San Luis Sustainability Group (SLSG). She served as Architecture faculty at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from 1974 to 2002 and holds emerita status there — the strongest independently confirmed detail of her career.
Co-recipient with Haggard of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) Passive Solar Pioneer Award, 1996. Co-designed, with Haggard, what is reportedly California’s first permitted straw-bale house. Co-author with Haggard of Fractal Architecture: Design for Sustainability (BookSurge Publishing, 2006), and co-author (with Margot McDonald and others) of “Sustainable Environmental Design Education (SEDE): A Curriculum Model for Architects and Landscape Architects,” presented at the 28th National Passive Solar Conference (ASES, 2003) under the San Luis Obispo Sustainability Group affiliation.
Very little independent record
Nearly every source frames her as “Haggard’s partner” rather than documenting her independently. She has no dedicated Wikipedia article (the “Polly Cooper” Wikipedia entry is an unrelated 18th-century Oneida historical figure), and the firm’s own site has no working individual bio page for her. Individual credit on specific built works (the Botanical Garden Education Center, Congregation Beth David, Camp Ocean Pines, etc.) goes to the firm, not to her by name. Education, birth date, and licensure status are not documented anywhere found.