Can we build it? Yes we can!

Though we say so ourselves, the latest edition of our sister title Timber & Sustainable Building is a handsome beast. That’s partly down to the fact that the magazine is an offshoot of TTJ, so has good genes. The skills of our art editor Gavin Middlemiss also help. But its good looks are also due to the fact that it features an array of UK timber construction projects that really hit you between the eyes. These range from the Apex concert venue in Bury St Edmunds, a feast of American white oak and Siberian larch glulam, to the timber-framed, Douglas fir-clad Bishop Hooper school near Ludlow and the glulam beam-supported, plywood-skinned Round House on the South Downs, a startling ultra-modern home inspired by a combination of oast houses, windmills and Celtic and Roman housebuilding techniques!

Then we have a muscular structural application of green Douglas fir in the new Robert Burns Museum in Alloway, and the StramitZED house which debuted at Ecobuild in March. The latter is billed as the UK’s first truly affordable ecohome and the company aims to produce 3,000-5,000 a year.

There’s no doubt that timber is the apple of the eye of an increasingly broad swathe of architects, designers and contractors and they’re being increasingly daring in exploiting its aesthetics in homes, schools, cultural venues – you name it.

What working on T&SB also brings home to us is that wood’s appeal to construction is more than skin deep. It uses it because it works in the modern building context. Wood is ideally suited to prefab, offsite modern methods of construction, which reduce the time and money builders spend on site. It also lends itself to a wide range of building types and techniques, with T&SB also highlighting that UK architects are really latching on to the potential that latest engineered wood products add to the design and structural mix.

Most importantly of all, of course, timber structural and insulation products and systems meet the building industry’s environmental needs. And we’re not just talking here about hairy-jumpered architects on a personal crusade to save the planet by making us all live in green-roofed, mud-clad log cabins in the woods. The whole building sector today is driven by the sustainable construction imperative. The pressure on it to build green is two-fold: legislative and commercial. The government is increasingly making Building Regulations a key weapon in its push to create a low carbon economy, and soaring fuel costs are forcing construction to up the all-round energy performance of buildings and build methods. As a result, timber’s renewability, carbon credentials and natural insulating properties are really bringing it into its own.

If you want more proof of the above, just take a look at this year’s Wood Awards entries. This year the annual contest for the use of timber in structural and interior applications and furniture attracted a record 348 entries – a truly diverse and spectacular line-up.

The main beneficiary of wood’s rediscovery and reinvention in construction is, of course, the timber industry itself. Even companies and products not directly involved in or related to the market should reap the rewards of timber’s rising profile in building and the widening appreciation of its benefits that results. Which is probably why the Wood Awards organisers are frustrated that they still have to rely on a small handful of ultra loyal timber sector sponsors. Maybe a quick flick through T&SB or this year’s Wood Awards entries will inspire you to help change that situation and lend your support.