The Weald and Downland Museum Gridshell building in Sussex won the top prize at the 2003 Wood Awards held at the Carpenters’ Hall in London last night.
The building was conceived by Edward Cullinan Architects. It was built by EA Chiverton, and the carpentry was undertaken by the Green Oak Carpentry Company.
The Gridshell, which is made up a a lattice work of curved 36m oak laths, won the structural category and was then voted gold award winner by the panel of judges. They said that its “key quality is that it is interesting and exciting as a building system”.
This year’s awards attracted a record 208 entries. The winners announced at last night’s ceremony, which was attended by 200 people, were drawn from a shorlist of 23. All of these were visited by the judges so they could make their final assessment.
The other winners were the National Trust Visitor’s Centre at Sutton Hoo in the commercial and public access category, the moat bridge repairs at Tattershall Castle in the conservation and restoration category, and a new pavilion in Suffolk in the private category.
An award for innovation went to the “swing-lift” bridge in Gloucestershire designed by Richard La Trobe-Bateman.
Projects highly recommended by the judges were the De La Warr Pavilion in Sussex, Haberdashers’ Hall in London, Ightham Mote, and an assisted self-build housing project in Tilbury.
Over 50,000 copies of a Wood Awards brochure, featuring the winning and shortlisted projects, are now being distributed with Building magazine and the RIBA Journal, the editor of which, Amanda Baillieu, was one of the judges.
In her introduction to the supplement, Ms Baillieu said that the Awards entries “exemplify wood’s possibilities for both tradition and innovation”.
It was also announced at the ceremony that the Wood Awards would now be an annual event.
