This month’s Cullinan Studio Sustainability
Talk ‘Timber Trends’ was introduced by the series’ curator, Brendan Sexton, as
a chance to take a step back from the technical and simply “get lost in the
material”. Meredith Bowles of Mole Architects used his projects to demonstrate
how timber can be celebrated even within the constraints of a simplified
‘kit-of-parts’ approach.
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| Mole design entry for Coton Visitor Centre |
The incremental increase in size of timber trusses
over Mole Architects’ shortlisted design for Coton Visitors Centre makes for a
roof of expressive grandeur. The practice’s design for the Cambridge Department of Architecture studio extension warranted visualization of the build process
through the eyes of the contractor: timber elements were assigned as a series
of primary, secondary and tertiary pieces in kit of parts.
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| Mole studio extension |
Following on from this Simon Smith pondered,
in the context of the UK’s limited timber resources, how can we do more with
less? He captured the great capabilities of timber design through the novelty
of hardwood timber bike frames. At the other end of the scale, he noted the
material is finding its way into the corporate environment, having been chosen for AHMM’s
plans for the new Google headquarters in Kings Cross. Simon’s practice,
Smith and Wallwork, is currently working with Cullinan Studio on developing a prefabricated
panel system for a modularised school building at
St Joseph's Catholic School
in Swindon. Simon suggested that much of the system could be locally sourced from
UK timber – a building “grown in Britain”. Still, although the decking could
all be sourced from Norbord UK, the softwood flanges would have to be sourced
from Germany where larger timbers are available.
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| Cambridge University students' bridge designs |
Smith and Wallwork have already engaged in extreme local sourcing designing
a small bridge over a ditch for the Woodland Trust in Cow
Hollow Wood, Cambridgeshire. Having involved students from Cambridge
University in the design project, Simon, lecturer Michael Ramage and PhD
student Patrick Fleming came up with the idea of planting a living willow bridge.
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| Willow stress testing |
A lack of structural precedents for willow weaving meant real innovation, with
calculations and stress testing performed from scratch. Having planted the main
willow members on each side of the crossing point, coppiced white willow of 40-50mm
diameter was woven to form the bridges arch and deck.
Despite the late spring
the willow has started sprouting in the last month, officiating the bridge as a
true living timber structure.
Later Ted Cullinan presented his series of Olivetti
offices in the 1970s, which also demonstrated how timber can be used in order
to animate a structure, albeit less literally than a living bridge. Situated across
the North in Carlisle, Belfast, Derby and Dundee, featured playful systems of plywood
fins and trusses, with easily divisible adaptable panels. The event’s chair,
Roddy Langmuir of Cullinan Studio, noted that back then Ted designed with plywood almost as CLT systems
are designed today.
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| Construction of the Olivetti offices |
Ted noted the trend of designing in wood
becoming bulkier in order to reduce the number of joints, resulting in the
prevalence of CLT over frame structures. There is a worry that systems such as
CLT might mean a loss of valuable carpentry skills. This accords with the critique of current culture quoted by Simon, that there is a tendency
toward "substitution of more material for less labour". Nurturing the
next generation craftsmen is vital. Equally crucial is better timber education
for the insurers of today and tomorrow; the event’s discussion acknowledged
that insurance issues of fire risks as well as any procurement limits need a
lot more work.
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| Studio in the Woods |
However at the crux of the projects
presented, was the importance of educating a new generation of timber
designers. Indeed timber jointing and detailing often takes more design effort
than masonry or concrete. Meredith highlighted this with his involvement in
Studio in the Woods, a course for young architects and students that enables
hands on experience in designing and building in timber. Such experience allows
for a better understanding of fixing design, which when mastered allows the
simplicity of the material to shine through.
Roddy surmised that British timber ingenuity
could be a result of its relative scarcity in the country. Designers such as
Meredith, Simon and Ted, have had to innovate with the material to ensure is
goes further, showing that perhaps it is the designers and not the timber that
should be grown in Britain.
