Nearly 100 architects, specifiers and construction professionals were told exactly why they should use timber at the Time for Timber 2003 conference in Sheffield on October 22.
Sponsored by wood. for good and structural engineer Buro Happold, the event featured presentations from leading architects, engineers and designers with the aim of inspiring delegates to use timber as a structural material.
Attendees at the event, held at Sheffield Millennium Galleries and Winter Garden, were shown internationally-acclaimed projects and heard of timber’s advantages, including its low embodied energy, sustainability, its excellent strength-to-weight ratio and its strong link to structures in nature.
Richard Harris, of Buro Happold, said: “I hope the conference reinforces the fact that the UK is now a timber producing country which opens new possibilities for people who aspire to build and design and timber.”
Speaker David Bills, director-general of the Forestry Commission, said: “It’s a very logical decision to specify timber and it is important to support the sustainable system that is emerging within forestry in the UK.”
Mr Bills also said that the Forest Stewardship Council‘s certification system is not the only test that shows wood is well managed. He endorsed the Pan European Forest Certification system and encouraged architects to take responsibility in timber sourcing as wood “does not have to bear a label to be sustainable”.
Other speakers included French architect Jean-Luc Sandoz; TRADA chief research engineer Christopher Metterm; James Jones & Sons Ltd director Tom Burce-Jones; and architect Ian Sharrat, whose practice designed Sheffield’s Winter Garden – a RIBA award-winning larch glulam conservatory-style structure.
