Wood may be on more of a roll than you think, and if we are willing to keep the promotion going there is much to be gained. Yes, Building magazine may be having a regular go at timber frame, but there are others, including the national press, who are trumpeting wood.
In the same week as the Institute of Wood Science attracted 100 architects to its Cardiff Convention, we saw and heard many accolades to wood at the RIBA Stirling Prize award ceremony in the audio-visual show at the Baltic gallery in Gateshead – broadcast on Channel 4. These were echoed next morning by Hugh Pearman, Sunday Times architectural correspondent, who referred to timber as now having “a renaissance”.
But, as your TTJ leader pointed out last week, wood. for good is still needed along with such bodies as AHEC, which sponsored the Stirling Prize for the first time, and the Timber Trade Federation, which is increasingly backing timber happenings these days.
For, as Keith Fryer also pointed out, it’s not the cost element of timber that is really important. It’s the performance that counts in the end.
Michael Dickson, chairman of Buro Happold, speaking in Cardiff, called on the timber trade to embrace collaborative working of “customer focus, collective aims and shared success through continuing partnering, waste minimisation and the Right First Time approach”.
Finally, let me share a Stirling experience with you! The Barnhouse Private Residence in London, a fine-looking timber structure, won one of several RIBA Awards, amid much whooping and hollering by the winning architectural team at the next table. When the noise died down I enquired of them the identity of the species. “Don’t know, can’t remember!” was the reply. Lesson: promotion, promotion, promotion and education, education, education!
