Giles Downes is running late. He’s been delayed at a previous appointment, discussing a high-profile, multi-million pound project with some illustrious players (whose names can't be revealed yet).
Downes doesn’t wear a watch and instead relies on his mobile phone for the time, something that is not always easy to see when you’re deep in discussion on issues you’re passionate about – and there’s no doubt that the boss of widely-respected London-based practice, Sidell Gibson, is passionate about architecture and the use of timber.
The multi-award winning practice’s client list is a who’s who of European blue-chip businesses, including The Savoy Group, Bank of England, Railtrack, Reuters and Deutsche Bank Asset Management. It’s worked, too, on projects for the Duchy of Cornwall and English Heritage, the latter being one of the sponsors of The Wood Awards, the annual competition for use of timber in construction and interiors of which the multi-tasking Downes is also chairman of judges.
When he arrives for this interview, apologising profusely for his tardiness, it’s quickly apparent that he’s not a man who likes to be still for long. With a passion for sculpture (he’s currently thinking of working in bronze) and a long-standing house restoration project in France, as well as a thriving practice employing around 90 people, plus his association with The Wood Awards, he manages to fit a lot into the average day. 
His experience with timber is not limited to architecture. “I enjoy doing joinery myself,” he confided. “In fact, I’ve made all the doors and windows for the house in France.”
But it wasn’t until Sidell Gibson won the £6m contract in 1997 to restore parts of Windsor Castle after the fire in 1992 that he enjoyed his first experience of using green oak in a major project. “Suddenly we found ourselves involved in the biggest, most elaborate green oak project in the country. I was trying to design joints and details from whatever I could glean from books.”
The project also pushed the boundaries in its use of glulam and with the use of computer-controlled routers and complicated design programming. It involved restoring St George’s Hall and the former Royal Private Chapel, including a new Lantern Lobby. These were the only areas of the restoration to include new designs and formed the largest new design commission by the Royal Household in the 20th century. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “baptism by fire”.
“Our brief was to provide the best of modern British design and craftsmanship that would be sympathetic to the restored staterooms and included the most elaborate and extensive use of green oak for the ceiling of St George’s Hall, and modern laminated hardwood techniques for the new vaulted areas,” said Downes. The result? The project has won countless awards for a successful intervention into one of the most sensitive historic buildings in Britain.
As a result of his successes at Windsor, he was asked by the Carpenters’ Company (one of the oldest London livery companies) to become a Freeman, and subsequently a Liveryman (he is now Junior Warden and will be a Master in three years' time). And it was through the Carpenters' Company, which is another sponsor of the competition, that he got involved with The Wood Awards. Following on from Windsor, the latter has deepened his enthusiasm for working with timber.
“The use of timber in building has grown hugely in the last 10 years,” he said. “And through the Wood Awards I get to see 240 of the best schemes each year – and visit 25 [on the shortlist]. I learn a lot from seeing these designs and each year there are newer things which push timber in more than one direction.”
This, in turn, he added, helps inform many of his own design projects. “We try to use timber where we can,” he said. “Much of our work is in the City of London, which is dominated by stone. It’s rarely timber because it’s still frowned upon, 350 years after the Great Fire of London. But The Wood Awards informs me a lot. Just seeing a huge range of examples every year is a fantastic learning opportunity.”
One Wood Awards winner he highlights is the Savill Garden Gridshell in Windsor Great Park, not far from his own practice’s earlier handiwork. The 90m-long latticework design uses 20km of locally-sourced finger-jointed larch lathe. “What’s especially nice is that it uses timber extremely efficiently, using thin branches and young shoots from coppiced woodland.”
On the occasions he does use timber, Downes said he likes to have fun. A case in point is a private house with a shallow vaulted roof in veneered timber panels that will look “like the back of a lute, inside out”. 
“There is a deep link to timber and, because it’s a living material, we have a natural affinity with it,” he said. “No two pieces are the same, and the history of our understanding and development with it and how we use it comes through in its appeal. It tends to be used in more interesting ways than bricks.”
The technical challenges of timber, like shrinkage, he added, can be designed around.
“I was learning during the Windsor project, and we were working extremely fast,” he said. “We felled the trees, shaped them and put them up in the roof very quickly and the wood was not just shrinking, but twisting. This meant the joints didn’t stay still, which created some difficulties.
“If I was doing it again, I would cut the timber, and do the basic forming to the member sizes we wanted and then stick it in a pound for a few months to allow the tensions to come out: then when we cut it and used it, it would be more stable.”
New adhesives, and particularly engineered wood products, like glulam, he said, have helped tame timber’s natural tendency to move and deform and boosted confidence in its use in construction. “You can now build sophisticated structures, under controlled conditions, which means there’s a bigger range of things we can do than ever before.”
Timber’s ‘naturalness’ gives it an obvious advantage in the government's drive to sustainable development. Downes also expects to see more “composite buildings where the qualities of wood and another material are combined in one element”.
On a more fundamental level, issues about how wood is grown and cut, transported and processed, will also impact on the sustainability debate as will its use for energy generation. “If you start growing timber as a crop just for biofuel, then you’re not using it to its full advantage,” said Downes.
But overall the future of timber in construction looks rosy. “Personally, I’d be foolish if I didn’t approach each project with an open mind [on material specification],” said Downes. “But timber is growing in use all the time, whether it’s timber frame for construction, or cladding for exteriors.”

Passionate about timber: Giles Downes

The Lantern Lobby at Windsor Castle

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