Golden age for timber

摘要

The variety of projects showcased on the 2013 Wood Awards shortlist, coming from across myriad sectors and featuring many types of building, underlines the significance of timber in modern British architecture. Each year, we're presented with an ever greater number of entries, and 2014, I expect, will be no different. While timber's natural beauty and versatility lends itself to bold, eyecatching projects that give room for architectural flair, it is more practical applications and hard-nosed economic facts that put it increasingly in demand within the UK's built environment. A continuing appetite for sustainable building materials and the desire for peak energy performance from finished buildings naturally play to wood's strength as a low-carbon material with high insulation properties.