Make It Wood

Make It Wood participated in the WoodSolutions seminar yesterday which focused on building with cross laminate timber and included a visit Lend Lease’s Forte.  The build has been underway for less than a month and already includes two storeys of CLT which really demonstrates the speed and ease of building with wood.  Once complete the building will reduce CO2 emissions by over 1400 tonnes, in comparison to a concrete or steel building.  That is like taking 345 cars off the road for a year.

View of Forte (below) from adjacent apartment building.  Note the clean construction site, only four builders and the crane to the right which simply lifts the CLT panels into place.  The black plastic wrapped cube to the right of the building is a pre-fabricated bathroom, made in Brisbane to top quality European standards.

Panels on the back of a truck, delivering from the Lend Lease warehouse (below), ready to be lifted into place.

The CLT panels are pre-fabricated in Austria and brought to Melbourne in shipping containers through the Suez canal.  They are stored in Lend Lease’s warehouse at the end of North Wharf Road.  It is a little like a giant flat pack delivery from Ikea!

Paintings by local primary school children depicting the ‘house of the future’ on display at the Forte site.

A cold, windy day at docklands in Melbourne.

Read more about Forte

The final day of the WoodSolutions tour took Make It Wood and the Australian group of architects and engineers to West Ham bus garage, in Essex.  Built by Transport for London (TFL), the challenge was to design a huge garage to house 320 double decker red buses with a low carbon footprint and 25% renewable energy.  This was achieved through the use of glulam beams, biomass boilers, a wind turbine, recycling facilities and even a green roof.

The Southward Primary School extension (below) is another KLH cross laminate timber build designed to hold 7 classrooms and an admin room. CLT not only stores carbon, but it is incredibly quick and easy to install.  On site work began just 8 days ago clearly demonstrating the speed at which CLT can be put together.  In this time there have been only 4 chippies, a crane driver at work.  The site is clean, safe and efficient.

The panels of CLT were prefabricated in Austria and driven to London (below)

The big panels lend themselves well to the size of the classrooms.

King’s Place Concert Hall is a steel framed building within a building to elimate noise and vibration from the Piccadilly line.  Both the balcony and stalls are lined with European oak-veneered panels.  All the wood comes from a single 500 year old oak tree which stood in a forest in the Spessart region of Germany.  The tree yielded over an acre of veneer.

The wood has been placed to ensure ultimate acoustics. Architect Paul Jolly explains ‘there was evidence that timber areas help with the tonal beauty of chamber music.  Timber can be moulded easily into details to replicate appropriate acoustic geometries.

Quirky fact for the day – London has 8500 double decker red buses and 100 bus garages.

Built for Lord Rothschild, Windmill Hill at Waddlesdon Manor (below), was designed as an archive and study centre with supporting offices and storage. Completed in June 2009 the property took 21 months.

Paying tribute to the location’s working past is the select choice of materials, including oak windows and shutters, rendered walls, wood cladding, and zinc roofs, with walls 1.5m thick in some places to establish a stable internal environment.

‘We didn’t just want to drop an alien object beside the farmhouse.’ said architect Stephen Marshall.  ‘We wanted it to look like a piece of sculpture, not tacked on.  The giant triangles supporting the roof are like furniture.  It has been such a wonderful thing that I enjoyed being part of’.

Clad in kiln dried oak the owners sand the wood down and varnish it every six months (above)

The reading room roof comprises ‘two huge trusses made of wood that just lean against each other,’ says Marshall. ‘Then you simply infill the gaps to get the grid.’ The challenge was making 600 glulam solid oak beams veneered with oak.  It is unusual as there are no visible nuts and bolts.

James Fitzpatrick, fitzpatrick + partners (Sydney), Eileen Newbury, Leading Edge Events and Peter Maddison, Architect and Host of Australian Grand Designs (below)

Vertical louvers previously installed to protect cattle from high winds now provide effective shading to those in the Reading Room. (below)

Savill Gardens Garden Centre (below) has a gridshell roof structure which took 12 months to build.  The longest length of wood in the world – 95 metres of larch – follows the edge of the building.

The Crown required that timber from the park be used where possible.   ‘There is no timber better than mine’ claimed the Royal Forester (apparently).

Following the fire at Windsor Castle (below) architect Giles Downes redesigned four major state rooms.  Although traditional in style, the new designs represent a radical reinterpretation of gothic architecture inspired by sinuous plant forms.

Andrew Waugh is probably the most enthusiastic designer of wood buildings in the UK.  When asked why? ‘I understand it is the architect’s responsibility to act to help reduce the effects of climate change.  Wood is the only viable alternative to concrete or steel.’

(Above) Andrew Waugh, of Waugh Thistleton Architects with Darren Stock of Australand Property Group discuss the benefits of wood buildings in Waugh’s latest project on Whitmore Road.

Whitmore Road, Hackey (below) consists of 6 storeys of CLT and is due to complete within the month.  Situated next to the canal, the building actually overhangs the water by two metres.  It has a hardwood chestnut cladding and big windows characteristic of CLT.  The building will be mixed residential and business and possibly home to Andrew Waugh himself.

Murray Grove (below) is the world’s tallest wood structure.  Built from CLT the 9-storey building was constructed from only 265 trees.  Waugh persuaded the client to build from wood. Why? Because he genuinely believes that buildings like this store large amounts of carbon and can help us tackle climate change.  The build efficiency is unlike any other.  The timber structure itself was constructed over a nine week period by four men, each working a three day week.  It was occupied ahead of schedule in January 2009.

Every apartment in the building sold out within 75 minutes of going on sale.  Surveys show tenant satisfaction to be very high in an area of deprived London.

Old timber clad truck ready for action (above)

The fabulous WoodSolutions tour continued with day 3 of discovering wood buildings.  As Manager of Planet Ark’s Make It Wood campaign I am finding it fascinating learning about exactly why people choose wood.

Hackney in NE London has the biggest collection of timber buildings in the UK thanks to the local government’s ‘Timber First’ policy.  It is famous for Waugh Thistleton’s Stadhaus on Murray Grove – 9 storeys of cross laminated timber and others include Mossbourne Academy, architect Marcus Lee’s house and a new CLT development on Whitmore Road.

Mossbourne Academy (below) replaces the former Hackney Downs School and accommodates 1,000 pupils aged 11-16, with a special focus on teaching information and communication technology.  Previously the failing school was one of the worst in the country.  Built 7 years ago, the largest post and beam glulam structure in the UK is now one of the most successful schools.

The design brief called for open space allowing the Principal to see into the classrooms.  The wood structure and large windows allowed for this.  After 7 winters the building is still in good condition proving the durability of timber.

Heathrow Terminal 5 Architect Marcus Lee designed his own two-storey eco-family home in a deprived area of Hackney.  However, his house truly shows off the beauty of open post and beam frame.  With five girls to look after, he wanted to build quickly.  That’s why he chose wood. The build was astonishingly fast. Work began in March 2005, when drainage was dug and foundations installed. It was completed by May.

When asked why he chose wood he said, ‘You can cut wood and shape it.  It is warm.  To me, it feels like a holiday home.  It is an excellent insulator.  We always feel warm and cosy in here. I’d like to build another home from cross laminated timber’

When asked what his biggest challenge was he responded, ‘pleasing the client – my wife!  No seriously, getting the structure right to budget.  And the open plan approach means that the services (electrical, gas) are on display which sometimes isn’t so attractive.’

The layout is influenced by Japanese design, with storage arranged along the sidewalls hiding everything from the washing machine to – on the first floor – a narrow shower room.

Marcus and Rachel’s Highbury home has been built from Siberian larch. The house also uses red cedar for frames and cladding, and Douglas Fir for the balconies, all of which add subtle variations of tone.  The house has no load-bearing walls so it provides a flexible space. If you like you could move rooms around. You could even unbolt this house and put it somewhere else.

Quirky fact for the day – larch is the only deciduous conifer.

Cambridge – the ultimate resort for students of the ‘University of Life’.  Such is the destiny for those wishing to study; or is that to punt up the river.  Note that these students are particularly brave as the weather was most unfriendly today.

The Darwin Study Centre, home of Charles Darwin himself, was designed to maximise the view of the river whilst reducing traffic noise from the road.  Hence it faces the opposite direction to that which you might think.  The green oak structural beams are starting to crack but just add character to the beautifully planned room.  Kiln dried oak furniture sit perfectly in this area.

Cambridge Institute for Education (below) opened in 2005 constructed with Glulam support beams.

The library (below) consists of common joists and twined primaries which gives  beautiful effect to a layman like me.

Cambridge Swimming pool (below)

And just to prove that buildings don’t have to be made from wood to be beautiful – whoops I shouldn’t say that! 

Corpus Christi College (below)

King’s College Chapel (below)

Day 2 of the WoodSolutions tour of South England commenced with a visit to a cross laminate timber (CLT) site – St John’s College School in Cambridge.  The build will make place for a classroom, science bock, music and drama centre.  The panels have been delivered by lorry 1000km from Switzerland.  A team of 4 builders will construct the 2 storey building in less than 2 weeks.  I asked the site engineer why the client chose wood and the response was, ‘wood keeps it simple.  There is very little work onsite.  It is a stable material and much quicker to build with.  It is much more forgiving than concrete or steel.  If you make a mistake you can simply cut it in seconds.’

The window cutting (above) is simply cut out of the CLT with no need for support joists as the wood is strong enough in itself.

In contrast Greensted church (below) has been storing carbon for over a millenium.  It dates back to AD1000 and is possibly the oldest standing wood building in the world.  It uses a vertical stave construction.  The church bears witness to the work of Saxon, Norman, Tudor and Victorian builders who variously extended, repaired and restored the building over the ages. In 1848/9 the church underwent severe restoration works, and in 1990 works were undertaken to stabilise the church as it stands today, whilst in 2005 the spire was completely re-shingled in Oak.