Wood Awards winners revealed this week

Architects, specifiers, timber companies, builders and furniture manufacturers will be among the 200-strong guests expected at the Wood Awards 2013 ceremony at Carpenters' Hall, London tomorrow evening.

Wood Awards judging chairman Michael Morrison said this year's event had attracted a "bumper crop" of entries - 318 in all, spanning a wide variety of projects.

"There was a good spread of shortlisted building entries right across the UK," he said. "In no category was there an obvious winner. All the schemes we inspected showcased timber's versatility as a building material as well as a great pool of design and construction talent."

Mr Morrison said it was important that judges were able to give awards this year to some "modest schemes" where the selection of timber, design and workmanship have produced great results on a tight budget.

Hugh Pearman, who edits RIBA Journal and is the architecture critic for the Sunday Times, said this year's entries demonstrated a new confidence, with bigger commercial building projects now exploring timber's attributes.

He said the Wood Awards were anything but niche. "Welcome to the progressive mainstream," he said.

Shortlisted projects range from Wilkinson Eyre Architect's Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth featuring Canadian western red cedar to Atmos Studio's undulating RoominaRoom in London, using birch plywood, European oak and American black walnut.

In the Furniture categories, Angus Ross's deconstructed Tay Bench in Scottish and European oak is shortlisted alongside a second Atmos Studio project, 16m of continuous integrated landscape furniture in Latvian birch plywood with seating for 80 people.

A full report on the event and the winners will appear in the next issue of TTJ.

For more information visit www.woodawards.com.