B&K Structures, making its second appearance at Ecobuild, hasn’t looked back since expanding from steel into timber about three years ago.
“Our timber business has really taken off; it now accounts for 70% of business,” said design and technical manager Chris Hopkinson.
With sweeping glulam beams, walls of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and a centrepiece ‘fountain’ of the materials, the emphasis on B&K’s stand was on wood.
“The stand is a feature to show the capabilities of the materials and how you can form them in all sorts of ways. They don’t have to be a square,” said Mr Hopkinson.
B&K, which designs, supplies and installs structures, has been working with CLT for about a year and already has an impressive tally of projects, including Wellington Academy in Wiltshire, the Woodland Trust’s new headquarters in Grantham, and a sports centre at Uppingham School, Leicester.
Later this year it will start on site for the new Scunthorpe Sports Academy, a structure of five, interconnecting glulam geodesic domes which incorporate structural insulated panels. The project’s timber element alone is worth more than £3m.
“It’s going to be visually dramatic,” said Mr Hopkinson.
At Ecobuild B&K also highlighted its new carbon calculator service which enables it to calculate the carbon footprint of any combination of structural materials on a new-build project.
