The University of Cambridge has repeated its success in the 2021 Wood Awards with another top award at the 2022 competition, the results of which were revealed at an event in late November.

In the 2021 event the university won the Gold Award for its Magdalene College Library (TTJ January/February 2022) – which went on to win the RIBA Stirling prize – and triumphed again in 2022 with the Homerton College Dining Hall.

Elegant and impressive, the dining hall was praised by the judges for how it celebrates the integrity and inherent beauty of its materials, from its design through to its incredible craftsmanship, and for the space it creates, which is both welcoming and inspiring to students.

The dining hall, buttery, kitchens, and associated amenities give rise to a bright, airy and efficient setting by day, which can transform into a dramatic ceremonial setting at night. The ash-lined buttery serves as a café and provides an area to socialise or to study.

At the heart of the hall is an impressive timber structure with no interrupting supports that allows for a large, clear space; breathtaking to building professionals, educators, and students alike.

Each sweet chestnut glulam truss in the hall is formed of four members, which are connected at a central node and to the fullheight columns on each side, while above these beams an engineered timber roof deck lends lateral stability.

This combination of high-performing engineered timber with traditional joinery achieves an elegance, revealed in the butterfly truss design, which echoes traditional collegiate halls in its aesthetics, but also exploits the compressive strength of timber in its structure.

Homerton College Dining Hall was designed by architects Feilden Fowles, and structural engineers Structure Workshop. It was built by Barnes Construction, with joinery from Classic Barfitting. The wood supplier was Constructional Timber.

The Wood Awards building judges, a team of world-leading professionals led by Jim Greaves of Hopkins Architects, visited all 20 buildings shortlisted in the Wood Awards before deciding the winner, in one of the UK’s most rigorous assessments for any competition.

Having chosen Homerton College Dining Hall as the Gold winner, the judges said they were impressed by the harmony of the structure with the rest of the college, allowing for light and flow from the garden and to other areas of the college to create a building both “natural and iconic”.

Homerton College Dining Hall beat more than 200 buildings in the UK to claim the Gold Award. It was also the winner of the Education & Public Sector category, and of the Structural Award.

WINNERS IN OTHER CATEGORIES

Homerton College Dining Hall was not the only winner of the night, with the likes of Abba Arena, Mews House, Douglas Fir House, and the Equal Access Project all winning their categories and showcasing the diverse use of timber, from large commercial arenas through to intimate private homes.

The Abba Arena was a notable winner, scooping the award in the Commercial & Leisure category. Home to the groundbreaking virtual concert series, Abba Voyage, the building in East London is the world’s largest demountable concert venue, with a capacity of 3,000.

From the auditorium – a four-storey seating area made of 1,650 unique CLT panels, each up to 9.9m long, to the exterior rainscreen made up of 1,400 finger-jointed larch fins, timber is integral to every part of the project.

Timber continues into the front of house, with the central concourse covered by a hybrid spruce glulam and steel canopy structure. Twenty-four hexagonal canopies, each with a diameter of 10m, combine to form the geometric roof structure where LED lighting is integrated into the glulam beams. The concourse is surrounded by seven CLT buildings, each clad with a complex larch rainscreen.

Several companies supplied the timber, including Hasslacher Norica Timber (CLT), Piveteaubois (finger-jointed larch), and ZUBLIN Timber. The larch cladding was supplied by Russwood Ltd.

The Mews House, which won the Private category, is a 127m2 home described as “a simple celebration of timber construction”. It features an engineered joist, timber stud and OSB sheathed frame, while the exterior cladding and expressed glulam are larch.

Timber suppliers included Brooks Brothers Timber UK, T Brewer & Co (engineered timber joists), Lilleheden Denmark (larch glulam beams), Thomasz Raczynski, TAD Builders, Barth Innenausbau KGS (cabinetry), Andy Thompson, and K and D Joinery.

The Interiors category was won by the Equal Access Project – Inner Portico, a timber entrance at St Paul’s Cathedral. The portico provides step-free access to the main church floor.

Home-grown oak was the primary material and was supplied by Whippletree. The LVL structural frame was supplied by Buckland Timber.

The Douglas Fir House was the winner of the Small Project category. This extension to a studio flat was conceived as a single piece of cabinetry and crafted out of Canadian Douglas fir. It was prefabricated by a highly skilled team of carpenters at Emanuel Hendry in Devon, before being disassembled, transported and craned onto site in Muswell Hill in London.

Equally exciting was the announcement of a new category, ‘Restoration and Reuse’, which highlights the projects that use timber to preserve and enhance existing buildings.

The winner in this new category was The Water Tower; a project from architects Tonkin Liu, which transformed an iconic but abandoned piece of local infrastructure into a beautiful, private residence, in what judges described as a “reimagination of what architecture can be”.

The tower features CLT, which was supplied by Binderholz UK.

FURNITURE WINNERS

Among the winning furniture and product design pieces were the Black Oak Fenland Project, Furniture for 2 Bessborough Street by designers Mentsen, and student winner Henry Johnson from Nottingham Trent University, with the Veneer Stool – each outstanding leaders, present and future, in British design using wood.

You can find out more information about the 2022 winners by visiting an exhibition of the models at the Building Centre, or by visiting www.woodawards2022.online. Previous winners of the Wood Awards can be found at www.woodawards.com