National Football Centre unveiled at Burton
12 October 2012This week’s unveiling of the FA’s new £100m National Football Centre could have seen photos of a new iconic timber structure being shown to the world.
The sprawling project, a beacon of hope for English football's future, is impressive and does contain some exterior timber columns and wood cladding.
But for a change in direction about four years ago we may have been talking about one of Europe's largest laminated timber gridshell roofs - covering the full-size indoor pitch element of the complex, one of St George's Park's key facilities.
This was the original design by BDP but ultimately it was ditched at a time when the FA's focus moved on to the rebuilding of Wembley. The subsequent design, by redboxdesigngroup, was focused on steel.
"The Board of St George's Park was reconstituted in 2008 and at that point they completely reappraised the whole project, including design and cost," Scott Field, the FA's head of media relations said.
Main contractor Bowmer & Kirkland Group said that all the buildings were mainly steel frame except the hotel bedroom wings which were predominantly concrete.
"The timber columns to the perimeter were supplied by Billington Structures," said B&K's project director for St George's Park Neil Brook. "These are the only structural timber elements on the project,"
