Behind Buckland Timber; a quick peek at ten award winning glulam projects
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As Buckland Timber celebrate passing our tenth year milestone we’ve been looking back at all the glulam projects we’ve been involved in.
There are a LOT! And while not all of them are big and complicated, we have over the years collected a fair few special projects that have made it into the public eye, either because of their location, being featured on popular TV shows like Grand Designs, or receiving accolades from several industry awards.
Here is a quick peek at some of them.
1. House for Theo & Oskar (Dalewood)
Converting and extending a family home to make it more accessible, a large extension with a self-supporting timber roof dramatically increased the ground floor area, allowing for ease of movement and for the bedrooms to be accommodated. The extension also added a new wider entrance hall with level access, as well as an accessible wet room and an additional adjacent bedroom for guests or carers as and when required.
Winner British Home Awards Award for Excellence
Shortlisted for the RIBA South East Regional Awards, Sunday Times British Homes Awards, Wood Awards, IStructurE Awards and AJ Specification Awards.
2. Clifford’s Tower, York
The brief was to repair historic fabric and create enhanced visitor facilities at Clifford’s Tower. ‘Inspiring and sensitively designed new structure within the historic monument’ was requested with improvements to access, interpretation and facilities for visitors and staff. The project includes vital conservation works as well as architectural improvements which enhance the visitor experience.
Shortlisted Wood Awards 2022
Shortlisted Structural Awards 2023
Won three York Design Awards – the John Shannon Award for Conservation, the Young People’s Award and the York Press People’s Choice Award.
3. Tarn Moor
This project was a commission to design and supply a glulam frame as part of a new build eco-friendly house in Surrey.
Winner of the Low Energy Project of the Year at the Structural Timber Awards 2022.
4. St. Paul’s Cathedral
This carefully executed timber entrance adds to both the functionality and beauty of St Paul’s Cathedral, helping ensure this world-famous icon is a place for all, regardless of faith or mobility needs.
St Paul’s Net Zero 2030 ambitions strongly informed both the material section and design, which minimises both embodied and operational carbon of the new structure by employing glue-laminated timber in the frame, along with the highest standards of care, construction, and craftsmanship.
Winner Wood Awards 2022
5. Blackdown Hills
OK, not technically award-winning, but this is one of the most ambitious homes ever seen on Grand Designs!
A scaly, curving house reminiscent of a giant coiled snake in a field, the house takes inspiration from an ammonite shell found on their land in the beautiful Blackdown Hills in Devon, spiralling onto the landscape over two levels.
Featured on Channel 4’s Grand Designs as a great example of experimental architecture.
6. UK Hardwoods Building
This building is a great example of local businesses working together to make use of timber sustainably and creatively. The entire life cycle of the building was important, how it was built, how it functioned, and even its potential deconstruction in the years to come was considered. The building is (we think) the largest UK grown glulam structure made, and its clear span design with no central posts avoids destroying the utility of the building – making it both practical and visually appealing.
Shortlisted Wood Awards 2022
7. St Albans Cathedral Welcome and Learning Centre
From the careful decisions on the formation of a new entrance to the uncovering of an existing high-level walkway, the result of this project is a new insertion made with specially made Bovingdon bricks and glulam timber with simple steel supports, enhancing the Grade I listed cathedral and Chapter House.
Winner RIBA East Award 2021 and RIBA East Conservation Award 2021
8. The Boilerhouse Café Royal Holloway
The Boilerhouse for Royal Holloway, University of London, comprises a new café pavilion and event space carefully inserted into the courtyard of the original Boilerhouse complex serving the Grade I Listed Founders Building.
The pavilion is comprised of prefabricated off-site components including a flitched steel plate and glulam timber superstructure with a curving sculptural saddle-like copper roof lifting and acknowledging the original Boilerhouse chimneys.
Winner Civic Trust Regional Award
9. Rawlings, Bristol
This project was a new suite of offices for a glass distribution company dating back to the 1800s.
The company has expanded in recent years owing in part to the huge increase in demand from local craft breweries in Bristol and further afield.
Outgrowing their previous warehouse and offices they commissioned a new purpose-built office adjacent to their newly acquired warehouse complex.
Winner British Council for Offices’ (BCO) South West and South Wales award for projects up to 1,500m2
10. Primrose Cottage, Kingswood
Architect Lynne Palmer approached Buckland Timber in early 2019 to help her develop the engineering calculations and detailing for a residential extension. The project was to convert a listed property in Buckinghamshire into an accessible home. Juxtaposing a 17th Century thatched cottage with a newly formed, glulam framed extension.
Winner AVDC Design Award and Build-It 2019 award shortlist.
If you have any questions about these or any of the projects you can see on our website, or you’d like to have a chat about your next project, do get in touch and one of the team will be happy to help.