Timber is becoming the obvious choice for building and housing design, with its traditional aesthetic appeal increasingly reinforced by its benefits in terms of sustainability and affordability. Evidence of this is the rise of timber frame. After several years of consisent growth, it already accounts for 20% of new housing and its market share is expected to hit 25% in 2008.

Against this background, it is becoming increasingly urgent to spread knowledge of sustainable timber sourcing, technical specification and treatment, which remains the preserve of relatively few outside the wood industry itself. And this was the rationale behind the recent one-day Timber in Architecture conference, “Advancing design with sustainable, innovative and creative timber technology”.

According to Ruth Slavid, editor of AJ Specification, who chaired the American Hardwood Export Council-sponsored event, sustainability and carbon footprint were the buzzwords for all involved with wood.

Roddy Langmuir, senior architect at Edward Cullinan Architects, gave an insight into new projects with timber at their heart, stressing the central importance of design detailing as the route to improved performance of timber. As illustrations he held up examples of Austrian wood design in schools, industrial buildings and community halls, which leave the UK construction paling into insignificance by comparison.

In “Pushing timber to the limits”, Andrew Lawrence of Arup R&D concentrated on innovative lamella and gridshell roofing systems, making reference to the new structural Eurocodes – “one of the most advanced engineering codes in the world”. He provided magnificent images from the laminated atrium of Portcullis House in American white oak to the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Kerto softwood plywood.

In the afternoon session Alan Shingler from Sheppard Robson said that 7% of housing in the UK is built using modern methods of construction, compared with 90% in Sweden. The public's perception of prefab is changing and so he discussed the SixtyK house showing SIPs panels from Kingspan as the common "chassis" of the building. Then Mark Bax of BDP demonstrated the Roche HQ, designed with sustain-ability as a top priority and achieving 20% better results than demanded by the 2002 Part L requirements. Here BDP had created unitised prefabricated curtain walling design in American white oak – a design that did not exist before 2003. He also stressed “the importance of getting the contractor on board early, to engage with them and create co-operation”.

Patrick Hislop, senior consultant architect at TRADA, discussed the external use of timber, making the point that problems with insect infestation and rot will not generally occur in timber dried to 20% moisture content or lower. “Fading or greying does not affect the structure or integrity of wood,” he said, and went on to discuss preservation and protective coatings, and durability by design as a major contribution. All horizontal surfaces should be angled to shed water; and overhang projection will help protect wood. But for even-bleaching, he advised reducing overhang, protecting end grain and remembering space for ventilation.

David Hills of DSDHA followed with innovations in timber design of two projects. A Colchester park pavilion building, where external cladding of Finnforest's Thermowood wrapped every external surface of the building, had facilitated a fast build. The Potters Field Park, designed with "charred" wood kiosks/pavilions, involved working with TRADA to create "a resonance between the site and material”.

My presentation was entitled “Choosing the right application for interior and exterior design applications” and looked at a wide variety of examples of applications for hardwood, softwood and composite materials. The aim was to highlight that there is a huge choice of timber species available from around the world for individual uses and criteria by which to select them. The plea to architects was to source more information from experts within the timber trade; and for the architectural media to name species in their articles, in order to give the clue to price, performance and provenance.

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