Northern Ireland students dominate wood awards

University of Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast won the top architecture and engineering prizes at this year’s Irish Third Level Student Wood Awards while the award for best design project went west to Letterfrack College in Co Galway.

Architect and television presenter Duncan Stewart praised the nine students and their colleges who were shortlisted for the awards at a prize-giving ceremony in the Royal Dublin Society. He also called on other colleges to follow their lead and use wood because “it is a proven sustainable material with major environmental benefits”.

Catriona Hickey of University of Ulster won the architecture section for an ambitious project the Big House in the City, a temporary residential complex to house homeless people and using wood throughout. It comprised 21 dwelling units and a “Big House” designed for public and communal facilities.

The winner of the engineering award, Neil Campbell, of Queen’s University Belfast, demonstrated the strength qualities of steel-reinforced pre-stressed timber beams.

Jens Kosak of Letterfrack College designed a “Fixing Free Bed” made from poplar plywood. Letterfrack, which is the furniture design centre of Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, has been a consistent winner of the national student wood awards. While Mr Kosak’s project will be marketed as a flat-pack design, it has a major advantage in that it is assembled without the use of tools or fixings. The design has been submitted for testing to British Standards.

The awards were launched in 2006 by the Wood Marketing Federation in association with Wood NI. The main sponsor is Coillte, with funding also provided by COFORD and the Society of Irish Foresters.