Red oak Wave on show for six weeks

The Timber Wave, an intricate Arch made of American red oak designed for the London Design Festival (LDF), will be in place outside the Victoria & Albert Museum for a total of six weeks.

The LDF runs from September 17-25, but the museum has given special permission for the structure to remain, arching over the building’s main entrance on Cromwell Road, for another month.

The 12x16m Timber Wave is a collaborative venture between The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), Angela Levete of AL_A architects, engineers Arup and specialist contractor Cowley Timberwork. It has been prefabricated at Cowley’s plant in Waddington and it will be delivered to London in sections. It is expected to take around a week to erect, ready for the official unveiling by the US ambassador on September 19.

AHEC European director David Venables said it was an “incredible honour” for the structure to be allowed to stay in situ after the end of the LDF.

He said that his organisation had put forward American red oak for the project because, while not widely used in the UK to date, it is the most plentiful US hardwood and AHEC was determined to make the resource more widely known and available worldwide.

“In order to make the contribution American hardwood is capable of to the global wood fibre supply, we must absolutely raise the profile of our most prolific species,” he said.