It doesn’t seem so very long since the idea of UK architects designing with timber was considered to be a highly unusual and, indeed, quite eccentric activity, so it’s a bit of a surprise to realise that the seminal project that arguably made it hip to use wood on new and uncompromisingly modern buildings – Henley River and Rowing Museum by David Chipperfield Architects – was actually designed 20 years ago. OK, in usual UK fashion it took several more years before it was completed, but since then even the remotest parts of the country have witnessed the construction of new buildings clad or structured with timber.
And they don’t come much remoter than the Shetland Isles, that bit of the map that usually finds itself boxed up, resized and fitted onto the page somewhere either east or west of Scotland, depending on the format of the particular atlas you’re looking at. As a result, few who have not actually visited the Shetland Isles have any real idea of their precise location, their distance from mainland UK or, indeed, their very particular topography in which no part of the landscape is more than 5km from the sea.
In fact there are more than 100 islands, just 15 of them inhabited, that span the 100 miles (145km) between Fair Isle and Out Stack, the UK’s northern-most point. Shetland itself lies 600 miles (960km) north of London, as distant as Berlin or Milan and closer to Bergen in Norway than it is to Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh. And it is this connection to Scandinavia that not only forms much of the Shetland Isles’ rich cultural and maritime history, but also the reason why this wind-battered and largely treeless landscape has something of a tradition of timber usage, particularly in the remaining boatbuilding workshops that still construct variations on the sixareen – a descendant of the Viking longboat – as well as replica vessels for the annual Up-Helly-Aa festival, the northern mid-winter mardi gras that is climaxed by the ceremonial burning of a galley.

Ancient & modern
All this is but context for the recently constructed Shetland Museum Archives complex by BDP Architects that combines restored elements of the 19th century, B-listed Hay’s Dock with a substantial new-build element in the centre of Lerwick. The town is home to some 9,000 people, around 40% of the Isles’ population, and although its economy is nowadays largely dominated by the off-shore oil industry, the fishing traditions that have dominated life here since the time of the Picts have left behind many archaeological and other historical artefacts that until now have been only inadequately displayed. No more, however – the new museum provides a custom-designed home for 3,000 objects ranging in scale from a working lighthouse to delicate Fair Isle knitting and Shetland lace as well as ample evidence of the Pictish and Viking settlements that one existed here.
The building itself draws heavily on local traditions in its design – Hay’s Dock is the last remaining 19th century harbour in Shetland and its intimate scale was a major driver in the project’s conception, as were the ‘Lodberries’, Shetland’s indigenous merchant’s houses that were built on the water’s edge with their gables facing the sea. In stark contrast with these domestically-scaled aspects of the project, however, is the 24m high Boat Hall, the complex’s pivotal element on the four sides of which timber-clad trapezoidal walls incline skywards in representation of the sails of 19th century herring drifters. This is unquestionably the project’s tour-de-force – both inside and out – and the one that gives the museum the distinctive image used on all its marketing material.
Most of the museum makes exemplary use of traditional materials – harled (rough rendered) masonry walls, slated pitched roofs and timber windows – whose resilience in the face of the extreme maritime climate is well proven, but a great deal of research and development has been carried out in Scotland in recent years on the use of timber cladding in maritime conditions and the Boat Hall is perhaps one of the most unusual – and courageous manifestations of this endeavour. The structure itself is a steel frame, onto which prefabricated cassettes of Siberian larch have been fixed, the timber having been given a sawn finish that has been stained to match the tarred sails of herring boats.
Inside, the Boat hall reveals itself as a three-storey volume lit naturally by the tall slot windows that separate the four wall planes. The spatial drama is enhanced by the suspension of five traditional boats in mid-air within this ‘chimney’, the timber cladding of which has been sanded and coated with a colourless varnish that not only gives a neutral backdrop to the objects but assists in their overall illumination.

Wood references
Timber makes a significant contribution to other parts of the building, albeit in a rather more low-key way – the flooring throughout is made up of reclaimed English oak boarding, the restaurant furniture has also been hand-crafted from reclaimed oak and the main reception counter has been formed from the salvaged keel of an 18th century sailing ship.
Shetland Museum and Archives has quickly matured into a cultural hub for islanders who daily see that timber is not an inappropriate material to use in construction, but for others the choice of the complex for the top prize – the Gold Award – in the 2008 Wood Awards may seem an odd one, given that many of the other buildings and structures entered have been formed entirely, or mostly, of timber. But this would be to misunderstand the significance of this particular project – it forcibly demonstrates that there are no geographical or climatic barriers to the use of wood on new buildings in the UK; it shows that cultural traditions – no matter how strong - are open to re-interpretation and that timber can be the distinctive contemporary element in the contrast between old and new; and it is a useful exemplar of the constructional and economic value of timber when considering the off-site fabrication of unusual building elements.