There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that the UK architectural and engineering communities are increasingly hungry for information on building with wood. TRADA‘s In Touch with Timber Conference (ITWT) in May provided concrete proof to back up the anecdotes.

The event, now an annual fixture, and this time held at the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster, attracted around 260 delegates – up nearly 30% on 2004.

“The increase was partly on the back of the successful event last year,” said TRADA marketing manager Rupert Scott. “But interest among architects in timber construction is clearly growing progressively and more things are happening in the sector.”

Part of the aim of ITWT is to promote timber in construction. The presentations in the morning provided the inspiration with this year’s speakers including Michael Taylor of Hopkins Architects, who described his practice’s work on the Norwich Cathedral refectory which won last year’s Wood Awards Gold prize. He was followed by Ben Tuxworth of Green Futures magazine who made a Discovery Home and Leisure television series about building his own timber frame house, and finally Kevin McCloud, presenter of Channel 4‘s Grand Designs series and self-confessed timber building fan.

The afternoon of the conference provided the educational back-up with a series of presentations on technical and other timber issues, including sustainable sourcing. And these were supported by an exhibition featuring 25 businesses in the timber construction and wood products sectors, plus wood. for good.

“The industry still struggles in some respect to connect with specifiers and part of the aim of ITWT is to build bridges,” said Mr Scott.

But while the premise of ITWT is fundamentally pro-timber, speakers and delegates did not fight shy of the thornier issues and the areas the industry needs to improve to secure continued sales growth in the construction market.

“We wanted a real event with debate and dialogue,” said Mr Scott. “A bit of provocation gets the discussion going over lunch.”

Wood Awards winner

Hopkins Architects is a veteran user of timber and wood products for prestige projects and Mr Taylor reeled off an impressive list. This included the Glyndebourne opera house, which is lined in pitch pine; a hall at Emmanuel College, Cambridge featuring American white oak trusses and oak cladding; and the Inn the Park restaurant in London which is timber clad and decked and uses Austrian larch columns to support the balcony.

According to Mr Taylor, the motivation for using so much wood is a blend of aesthetics, concern for sustainability and the ambience that timber in buildings creates. These all clearly came into play on the Wood Awards-winning £3.2m Norwich Cathedral refectory, which is a free-standing structure built inside part of the cloisters.

Using all solid oak pillars and laminated beams, plus oak cladding and louvres, the building looks as though it grows organically from the cathedral and cloister walls, but it exerts no weight on the old fabric. “In fact the dean described it as a hermit crab – one building living inside another,” said Mr Taylor.

“The wood structure enables us to create a modern echo of the cathedral vaulting and fits with our simple palette of materials, which included the cathedral’s original grade of roof lead and clipsham limestone.”

Mr Taylor praised the input of the timber companies that worked on the refectory, Coulson of Cambridge and Constructional Timber. And he commended the Wood Awards’ achievement in promoting wood to architects. “It has become a very well-known and prestigious award,” he said.

Ben Tuxworth highlighted the problem for timber builders of planning authorities’ unfamiliarity with the subject. Environmental friendliness was, perhaps, the driving factor behind the design of the home he built for himself and his TV series. It features a ground source heat pump, wind turbine, locally sourced oak, Masonite I-beams, Kerto LVL, Sasmox drylining, insulation made from recycled tyres, natural slate and lime render.

“But we had a planning hold-up because of objections from the local authority’s sustainability committee!” said Mr Tuxworth.

Another problem was obtaining all the guaranteed sustainable timber products he needed. “We wanted to use marine plywood for guttering, but our local merchant couldn’t say whether it was sustainably sourced,” he said. “That is an issue that needs sorting out. If they can’t get this assurance, more nervous builders might opt for plastic instead.”

He also said that the timber industry still had lessons to learn about promoting itself and its products. “When our concrete supplier RMC discovered the house was going to be on TV, they were virtually polishing their truck as they drove up,” he said. “We didn’t get exactly that sort of response from timber suppliers.”

Kevin McCloud highlighted just how many of the building projects featured on Grand Designs were either based on a timber structure, used wood products prominently as a finishing or decorative feature or blended with other materials in “hybrid structures”.

“The use of steel together with timber is a very consumer-friendly way of building, with a very good future in housing,” he commented.

He also said that wood buildings appealed to the audience – in fact Grand Designs gets its best ratings when they’re featured. The recent edition on a Finnish all-timber kit house was a case in point. But still the biggest audience so far was for the programme about the construction of a German post and beam Huf Haus.

“We got 5.9 million viewers that week, beating all the other terrestrial channels,” he said.

He attributed timber’s appeal both for self-builders and viewers to the fact that it was “understandable”.

He also maintained that timber’s growing popularity was due to the British starting to “look at design and architecture in a more European way.” “We are more open to contemporary design and international influences. Timber provides us with a natural way of embracing contemporary design with our sense of history.”

Technical developments, said Mr McCloud, had also helped: “The introduction of vapour permeable membranes and flexible render systems have had a profound effect on the performance of timber buildings.”

He concluded that timber construction has a “great and glorious” future in the UK. But he also echoed Mr Tuxworth’s call for the industry to resolve the certification issue and to put the message about wood’s renewability across even more strongly.

“Due to timber’s ability to lock carbon away, it’s our duty to fell and replant more trees and use the wood in construction for the sake of the environment,” he said. “But consumers are still not fully aware of these facts.”

Among the speakers from the industry, Gerry McCaughey added a touch of controversy by criticising the approach of parts of the UK timber frame sector.

“The industry in England is so concerned with fighting itself in the 8-9% of the market it has, that it has forgotten about the other 90%,” he said.

Mr McCaughey, chief executive of Europe’s largest timber frame builder Century Homes, predicted “massive” housing demand in England, with environmental concern giving timber frame an edge, while architects struggle to design masonry buildings that meet EU energy performance standards.

But he said the UK industry needed to spend more money on R&D and educating the public, and it had to compete more effectively with other building methods.

“The battle is going to be won by taking them on in the trenches and fighting aggressively,” he said.