Five Rivers Health & Wellbeing Centre

The Five Rivers Health & Wellbeing Centre in Salisbury features the UK’s first large-scale solar car park built with sustainable glulam timber. Designed by 3ti for Wiltshire Council, the structure demonstrates how engineered timber can support renewable energy infrastructure while reducing embodied carbon.

Three gullwing canopies cover 70 car park spaces, constructed using spruce glulam for the main structural elements and UK-grown larch glulam for weather-exposed components. The curved rafter beams were manufactured in-house at Buckland Timber’s Devon facility, located within 100 miles of the site, reducing transport-related carbon emissions. The canopies support transparent bifacial Glass-Glass solar panels with a combined capacity of 220 kWp, generating energy from both sides of the panel.

The project uses innovative Spirafix™ ground anchors instead of conventional concrete foundations or steel piles, significantly reducing carbon footprint while improving installation speed and end-of-life recyclability. Glulam’s superior strength-to-weight ratio – three times stronger and a third lighter than structural steel – enabled longer spans with fewer support columns, improving both functionality and material efficiency. The manufacturing process requires only one-tenth of the energy needed for equivalent steel beams.

In its first year, the solar car park generated 186MWh of electricity, providing approximately 10% of the leisure centre’s power needs, saving £50,000 annually on electricity bills, and reducing carbon emissions by 36 tonnes – equivalent to planting 600 trees.

Shortlisted for a Structural Timber Award 2024