The winner of the Commercial & Public Access category at the 2011 Wood Awards had PEFC-certified timber as a key element.

The visitor centre at the Brockholes Wetland & Woodland Nature Reserve in Preston, Lancashire, picked up the best in category prize and builds on its RIBA-competition winning and BREEAM Outstanding background, as one of the most sustainable and innovative buildings in the UK.

The centre comprises a group of timber-framed and oak clad buildings, housing various facilities including a café, conference area and shop. The buildings are all raised on a large concrete floating pontoon on the lake within the reserve. The main structure of the buildings is centered on glulam portal frames that are protected under a timber Structural Insulated Panels (SIP) 'skin'. This provides racking resistance to the buildings while ensuring a high level of insulation and airtightness. The splaying V-shaped glulam rafters are up to 10 metres long, joined with steel flitch plates due to their complex geometry and high connection forces.

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Sustainably sourced from Austria, these were precision engineered to reduce on-site time and eliminate wastage. B & K Structures delivered the five PEFC-certified whitewood spruce glulam beams, alongside the SIP panel system and oak shingles – these rough tiles were formed from tree stumps that would otherwise have been discarded.

Internally, recycled newspaper insulation was sprayed on to the underside of the SIP panels, providing an excellent low-cost and sustainable acoustic dampening fix. The project aimed for zero-carbon both in use and production, using materials of low embodied energy (the engineered timber), high levels of thermal insulation and airtightness, natural ventilation, offsite prefabrication, on-site energy generation and waste treatment. The sourcing and durability of the materials used, potential for recycling, and the distance to site were all considered within the design, with the glulam beams forming an integral part of the overall project success.