Invite to reap Awards rewards

In terms of entries, the annual competition for use of timber in construction, interiors and furniture goes from strength to strength, this year attracting 362. This highlights not only that a Wood Award is now a sought-after trophy for architects, designers and manufacturers to put on their mantelpiece, but that using timber increasingly presses their performance, aesthetic, and eco buttons and is used ever more widely in UK building.

More than that, the Awards underline that timber's construction potential is being explored in ever more interesting, adventurous and technically demanding applications. It's not seen as a curiosity or a touchy feely, decorative supplement to colder, less tactile products, but a stand-alone material in its own right, capable of rising to the most demanding uses every bit as well as its non-renewable man-made rivals.

Take this year's Wood Awards Gold winner - and here's the science bit. The Hurlingham Club pool pavilion features a five-vault, monocoque timber cassette roof, that required a "fully parametric 3D model" to design 1,300 profiles for I-beam, OSB and plywood elements.

At the other end of the scale spectrum, but equally cutting edge, are the Wood Awards Private Category winner, an ultra modern house extension, and the famous Timber Wave structure, which took the Judges' Special Commendation this year.

The former uses larch in every form: glulam, solid timber, veneer and engineered boards. The Timber Wave, which was instigated by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) for the London Design Festival, comprises hundreds of laminated sections of American red oak, linked by specially engineered steel nodes, and truly demonstrates the structural abilities and untapped potential of hardwood.

But while the Wood Awards show timber-based building boundaries being broken, the competition itself still has its limitations, namely the level of direct timber trade involvement.

It is vigorously supported by sponsors AHEC, the Carpenters' Company, Canada Wood, Wood for Good, TRADA, and American Softwoods, plus the BRE. The number of projects identifying the involvement of timber suppliers has also risen recently. But the organisers still believe there is a huge opportunity for the wider timber industry to buy more into the Awards, both as a showcase for individual products and wood overall.

"The Awards are there for the industry to use," said organiser Lucy Kamall. "The advice to companies is to follow their products more, discover what they're being used for and capitalise on this. You may find they're in an entry already, or a project you can put forward for the Awards. It could be a tremendous shop window for your business and products."

2013 will make a Wood Awards connection more valuable still, with plans to raise their profile at exhibitions and design festivals and garner more publicity via social media.

It is also making efforts to draw the trade in deeper, with the possibility of a trade representative on the judging panel and the launch of a downloadable app, which will give access to information, photos and even videos of this year's winners and shortlisted entries. The organisers say the latter will be a powerful tool to highlight timber's potential and they want it to be taken up as widely as possible in the trade to break more boundaries still.