The building in Telford features a 150mm “reverse” timber frame wall structure, featuring Natural Building Technologies (NBT) Pavawall construction - interlocking NBT woodfibre insulation boards fixed to the outside of the studs, with OSB racking board on the internal face.

The studs were filled with sheep wool insulation and the external wall finish features vertically-aligned green larch cladding, sourced from the building’s surrounding woodland and wider Shropshire.

The Pavaroof construction features a build-up similar to the walls, using thicker woodfibre insulation boards and an external finish of western red cedar shingles.

As well as delivering U-values of 0.20W/m²K and 0.15W/m²K for the walls and roof respectively, the NBT constructions contributed to an airtightness of 0.64m³/hr/m²@50Pa, greatly outperforming the Building Regulations’ requirement of under 10m³.

Heating is provided in the form of two 8kW wood-burning stoves, with the provision of a gas fired back-up system.

A mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR) system recovers heat from the expelled air to pre-heat the incoming, fresh air.

The building was the overall winner of the 2011 Shropshire Building Excellence Awards and a finalist in the West Midlands region LABC Building Excellence awards.

“The building has performed brilliantly,” said Russell Rowley, the Severn Gorge Countryside Trust manager. “Even in temperatures as low as -16ºC it feels nice and warm inside and that’s with only using the wood-burning stoves.”

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