Wood Awards wows them

Even rarefied design magazine Wallpaper was impressed. Its tweet may sound like faint praise. "We have always been partial to the humble building material of timber", it said. But from Wallpaper's high falutin' perspective, that adds up to quite a compliment.

It feels like we say this every year, but this time around the Awards shortlisters (indeed the 318 entries to the contest overall) do seem to be of a higher calibre, cover a wider design and application spectrum and use a broader palette of timber and wood products than ever.

The projects we feature in this edition include the soaring Abraham Sports & Learning Community building in Telford, with its huge CLT roof supported by massive glulam pillars. There is also the stunning European oak, American ash and glulam interior of Bishop Edward King Chapel in Oxford. At the other end of the scale are Rigg Beck, a private house in Cumbria that perfectly blends timber and Lakeland stone, and the intriguing Expandable Surface System, comprising geometrically perforated birch ply that can be moulded into virtually any shape of structure.

Furniture entries are equally diverse; ranging from multi-coloured dining chairs to a chest of drawers that looks hewn from a solid block of wood.

What the Awards demonstrate more clearly than ever is that UK architects, builders and designers are not only increasingly drawn to timber, but also increasingly confident about using it in aesthetically and structurally demanding applications; a confidence boosted by growing appreciation of the performance potential of modern engineered wood products. Some (but surely, dwindlingly few) might say the Awards projects and some of the materials they use have little relevance to the day-to-day business of the average timber trader. But the wider consensus is that, thanks to the organisers' marketing efforts and the resulting media coverage (and the shortlist will also be on show at Timber Expo and the 100% Design exhibitions), this has now become one of the biggest and best shop windows for the performance and design potential of wood generally.

Underlining that timber is now swimming strongly in the construction mainstream - where the Wood Awards itself has also no doubt helped steer it - is the fact that several wood-based buildings also feature in the shortlist for the Institution of Structural Engineers' prestigious Structural Awards . We also have further evidence this week that architects are raising their timber building sights, with news that the UK will soon once more have the tallest wood-based residential structure in the world - a 10-storey crosslaminated timber block in Hackney .

Compounding this good news is that it comes at a time of - finally - increasing confidence in the UK economy generally and construction in particular.

All this, and the new tougher Part L Regulation for construction energy performance, feeds a growing belief that the country is on the verge of a new era in timber building.