Constructing a complete building from home-grown materials might be described as the Holy Grail of contemporary timber architecture in the UK, a statement of faith in the quality of our native forest products.
Currently 80% of the timber used in construction in this country is imported. That might seem paradoxical given the strong connections made between wood and sustainability agendas. But the total embodied energy costs of transporting the raw material from other corners of the globe (presuming they come from properly certified forest sources) are still outweighed by an equation that takes account of the high quality of the imported timbers, their low production costs and the well-organised shipping systems that are already in place. For UK-grown timber to compete effectively requires a sea change in the construction industry’s perceptions of the availability and quality of the domestic product. It also needs architects and designers to be better informed on the properties and characteristics of the available species if they are to make full creative use of the resource.
Happily, the supply chain for UK-grown timber has improved immensely in recent years, although some species are insufficiently plentiful to ever be able to replace their imported equivalents. There are other barriers to the use of UK-grown timbers, however, not the least being EU procurement rules that prevent their exclusive specification on projects where public funding is involved. This obstacle has been exacerbated in Scotland by the fallout from the problems surrounding the construction of the country’s Parliament building, with any form of risk-taking on publicly-funded projects currently regarded as a complete no-no.
Given a list of circumstances that, cumulatively, may appear to mitigate against the use of UK-grown timber, some lateral thinking is required to produce the demonstration projects necessary to convince a still-sceptical construction sector. Waterston House, the new headquarters for the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club (SOC), is a good example. Located on the East Lothian coastline within a short drive of Edinburgh, the building is constructed almost entirely from timbers grown in Scottish forests.
The history of the project is instructive. With the value of the club’s premises in Edinburgh having risen substantially, the sale of the property facilitated the purchase of a site close to the small village of Aberlady. Land being expensive, however, a significant shortfall still existed between the available funds and the anticipated construction cost of the proposed new facility, and a campaign was instituted to secure additional donations and sponsorship in both cash and kind. The largest amount of in-kind sponsorship came from Forestry Commission Scotland, whose agenda to see a building of significant size constructed from 100% Scottish-grown timber accorded with the desire of the architects to extend their already substantial experience in the use of locally sourced materials.
The architect Simpson & Brown is perhaps better known as one of the foremost conservation practices, but recently it has completed several modern timber-framed and timber-clad houses as well as Arbroath Abbey visitor centre and the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, all of which have made exemplary use of home-grown material.
The SOC headquarters at Aberlady takes this interest – and the case for UK-grown timber – several steps further. The chunky structural frame (manufactured by Carpenter Oak & Woodland and erected in only six days) is formed from Douglas fir and used in its ‘green’ form to take full advantage of the á
Ü pegged joints tightening as the timbers dry. At the project’s early stages the secondary framing was intended to be C24 but, by using larger sections, all of the rafters were produced from C16 Douglas fir (the Sitka spruce originally specified was not available in the lengths required), again in ‘green’ condition.
All internal stud walls and ceiling joists have been formed from Sitka, with the latter closely spaced to facilitate future expansion into the roof space. Counter battens are also Sitka, while the horizontal and vertical external cladding (dried and machined by James Jones & Sons) is made from untreated larch and intended to weather naturally under the roof’s deep, protective eaves. From experience, the architects sought to install the larch as soon as possible after cutting to ensure the best results were achieved.
The determination to use Scottish-grown timber seems to have continued through the building where possible. Oak trees specifically felled for the project (and kiln-dried and machined by Russwood) provided most of the flooring, while the windows and doors (manufactured by Norbuild in Forres) are of larch and Douglas fir. Project architect Jenny Humphreys admits to some difficulty in securing the necessary quality of timber over the lengths required to make these unusually large elements and suggests that in future the practice would design doors and windows in sizes more suited to the specific characteristics of these materials. Another native timber lesson learned.
That caveat aside, the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club is a triumph in a number of respects, not the least being the creation of a purpose-built facility for the club on a site with extraordinary amounts of birdlife immediately to hand (the building already has birds nesting in its eaves). From the members’ perspective this is an immense improvement on the former city-centre premises, and generous sponsorship combined with extraordinarily energetic begging and borrowing on the part of the club has ensured the project’s financial equilibrium.
Architecturally, the building responds to the pantiled vernacular of East Lothian and sits low and unassertively into the flat landscape. Not being a publicly-funded project, its construction contracts were unconstrained by EU procurement legislation. Without Forestry Commission Scotland’s donation of almost all of the required timber it would probably not have been designed or built in the way that it has, but as a demonstration project of what can be achieved with UK-grown timber, the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club is unquestionably an object lesson well worth visiting.
