Winner of Winners
Arup’s BSkyB Believe in Better Building scooped no fewer than five Structural Timber Awards. It’s designer Arup Associates won the Architect of the Year Award, Best Commercial Project and Best Low Energy Project, while glulam frame supplier B&K Structures won Best Education Project. The icing on the cake, however, was the project being chosen as the "Winner of Winners".
The pioneering massivholz office and training building demonstrated the potential for timber to deliver high speed, high quality and exemplar sustainable commercial buildings, opening up an exciting new market for timber.
Best Retail Project
The Best Retail Project award went to Wiehag GmbH for the design, supply and installation of the glulam gridshell roof over the new Crossrail station at Canary Wharf.
Wiehag overcame numerous challenges in the construction of the 14,000m2 roof, which cantilevers 30m out over the water at each end, including the manufacture of double curved members. The company was also highly commended for this structure in the Project of the Year Award, while Arup was highly commended for the same project in the Engineer of the Year Award.
Best Private Housing Project
Wilkinson King Architects was awarded the Best Private Housing Project trophy for its work on Sussex House, a four-bedroom contemporary country house overlooking the South Downs. The use of CLT in the construction enabled the complex design to be transformed into reality extremely quickly and cost effectively. The building is conceived in a series of layers, with the first floor clad in cedar.
Best Healthcare Project
The Best Healthcare Project award was won by Alan Baxter for Maggie’s Centre Oxford.
The "treehouse" structure is supported on glulam piloti, which are raked and fixed to conceal pile caps with screw piles below the ground in groups that evoke a thicket of trees. This design greatly reduces the impact of construction on the local ecology.
Product Innovation Award
Arup is the winner of the Product Innovation Award, sponsored by the Confederation of Timber Industries, for its 4.5T glulam Superbeams, which integrate building services with timber structures helping timber frame construction to be more competitive.
"Arup, in collaboration with dRMM architects, adopted the counter-intuitive approach to turn beams on their sides to create a nearly flat soffit, allowing services to be distributed underneath saving 400mm in depth per floor", the judges explained.
Project of the year
Project of the Year went to Hess Timber for the design, manufacture and installation of the glulam timber structure for the Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility – a hi-tech waste to energy plant. The construction work has already started and the glulam element was completed in March this year – the rest of the building is due to be completed next year.
The 42m-high facility will be the tallest glulam project in the UK so far.
Other winners on the night were:
Best Social Housing Project: Accord Group/LoCal Homes
Client of the Year: Veolia/Leeds Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility
Contractor of the Year: Morgan Sindell/New Park and Northway Primary Schools
Engineer of the Year: Engenuiti/Banyan Wharf
Pioneer Award: Ramboll UK
