Wood Awards reward timber industry

Writing this guest column last year I speculated that the bumper crop of entries for the Wood Awards might be a sign that the industry was working its way out of the recession. Well, we all make mistakes and a year on I think my other suggestion makes more sense - that the level of entries was more to do with the Wood Awards having become an established and well-respected feature of the building industry. This year's total was not quite as large as the bumper crop of 2011 - but was still the second highest entry in the Awards history.

As in all recent years there was a splendid diversity of entries. Shortlisting is, by general agreement of all the judges, the most difficult part of the whole judging process. The need to whittle down the entries to a manageable 30 that can be looked at in detail is obvious. However, doing this on the basis of a few photographs and a brief description is surprisingly tricky and can provoke a good deal of argument between the judges.

This year we tried a different method of shortlisting, sending each judge a full set of the entry documentation and asking them to compile their own shortlist of interesting looking projects. These were all combined onto a single score sheet before the judges met for the final shortlisting day, which produced some intriguing results. A few projects appeared on more or less all judges lists and were shortlisted with little disagreement - but there was also a very long tail of schemes chosen by only one or two of the judges. These were the ones that took the time on the shortlisting day.

The result was a shortlist of eight pieces of furniture and 22 buildings with a great deal of diversity in scale, complexity and cost. At the massive end of the scale was the impressive Marks & Spencer building at the Cheshire Oaks shopping area - a major commitment to a more sustainable building with a fine timber roof. At the other end of the scale were the delicate lampshades designed and made by Alex MacMaster - and it would be fair to say that there were projects of every scale in between. The common factors in all the projects were, of course, the intelligent and appropriate selection and use of wood and the degree of craftsmanship on display.

After the shortlisting process the actual judging is a pleasure. All the buildings are visited by two or more of the judges taking in three of the four countries of the UK - sadly this year nothing from Northern Ireland to follow last year's winning entry.

The furniture is judged on a slightly different basis as the transportable pieces (six out of eight this year) are delivered to Carpenters' Hall for judging and only those pieces that are fixed or particularly massive are visited in situ. We have become concerned that this is placing an onerous burden on the shortlisted furniture entrants as transporting furniture to London and back is an expensive business. We hope that the Wood Awards will cover this cost in the future to encourage more furniture entries.

The Wood Awards judges attempt to take a balanced view of the overall quality of each of the entries. It is not just about the design of the piece - though this is, of course, important. It is also about the selection of timber, the detailing and the level of care and craftsmanship that have been put into the finished article - be they major buildings or single pieces of furniture. As in previous years the Awards entries have provided some wonderful schemes and pieces for the judges to consider and, once again, some very well deserved award winners.