The Scottish Timber Trade Association (STTA) has awarded student Julie McMorran two prizes for her work while studying at Napier University’s Centre for Timber Engineering.
Ms McMorran received the award for Best Timber-related Honours Dissertation Project and Best Student Performance in the Properties & Use of Structural Timber module in the second year of the BSc Civil & Timber Engineering course.
Her Honours Dissertation Project included engineering and design for a new £6m monkey enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo, which incorporates non-rigid fixings so the frames and perches can withstand wind loads and the activities of the monkeys.
Fellow student Nicola Brown was also praised by STTA, winning the Best Timber Design Performance by a second-year Architectural Technology student, for her use of glulam and timber gridshell technology in the design of nursery facilities in Edinburgh.
A fourth prize for Best Dissertation by a Timber Engineer or Timber Industry Management Masters student will be awarded later in the year.
“With increasing recognition of wood’s status as the only truly renewable construction material, it is vitally important that the timber designers, engineers and specifiers of the future are given every encouragement to utilise wood and wood products,” said STTA president Andrew Newton.
