Timber trophies awarded to the best architectural projects at the UK’s Wood Awards

Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre
Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre and recital hall was awarded gold in the interior category.
(Image credit: Adam Scott)

The UK’s annual Wood Awards, which celebrates the use of wood in architecture and design, has awarded Niall McLaughlin Architects, Studio Weave, MUMA and Ian Ritchie Architects its prestigious timber trophies.

The awards, originally founded in 1971 as the Carpenters’ Award and renamed in 2003, celebrates projects for craftsmanship and innovation across different categories from commercial architecture to private homes.

Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre

The interior of the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects in Oxford

(Image credit: TBC)

In the education and public category, the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Oxford by Niall McLaughlin won gold. The building, also nominated for the RIBA Stirling prize this year, features smooth and layered European oak and Siberian larch throughout the interior of the learning centre for Worcester college, with pergolas and terraces overlooking the cricket pitch.

Another RIBA Stirling prize nominee winning gold in its category was Storey’s Field Centre & Eddington Nursery in Cambridge designed by MUMA, within commercial and leisure. The holistic design includes halls lined with oak paneling, exposed interior structure in layered ash and veneered plywood and turreted roofs clad in western red cedar.

Ian Ritchie Royal Academy of Music

Ian Ritchie Architects’ pale lime-washed oak recital hall at the Royal Academy of Music

(Image credit: TBC)

Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre and recital hall was awarded gold in the interior category, for its acoustically refined cherry-lined theatre and pale lime-washed oak recital hall with sculptural roof oculus inspired by the design of a musical instrument.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners impressed the judges with the Macallan Distillery & Visitor experience centre designed around a Norway spruce structure reinforced with steel for the structural gold award, while the Judges Special Award went to Belvue School’s undulating frame in western red cedar designed by Studio Weave.

Studio Morrison pavilion

Studio Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak’s contemporary folly

(Image credit: TBC)

Another RIBA favourite, nominated for the House of the Year 2018, Tonkin Liu’s Old Shed New House was awarded gold for the private category. The house, set on the site and foundation of an old shed, has a timber louvered façade inspired by silver birch trees on the property and employs Siberian larch, Latvian birch and Scandinavian spruce throughout.

Meanwhile, Studio Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak won the small projects category with their contemporary folly commissioned by the National Trust. Set in the 18th-century walled garden designed by Georgian landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown of Berrington Hall in Herefordshire, the structure forms a concertina that was engineered using a five axis CNS cutter and assembled in the workshop.

The Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Oxford by Niall McLaughlin

The Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Oxford by Niall McLaughlin Architects won gold in the education and public category

(Image credit: TBC)

Interior details at the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre

Interior details at the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Oxford by Niall McLaughlin Architects

(Image credit: TBC)

The ceiling of Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre

The ceiling of Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre

(Image credit: Adam Scott)

Belvue School by Studio Weave

The Judges Special Award went to Belvue School by Studio Weave.

(Image credit: Jim Stephenson)

Storey’s Field Centre & Eddington Nursery in Cambridge designed by MUMA

Storey’s Field Centre & Eddington Nursery in Cambridge designed by MUMA

(Image credit: TBC)

Studio Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak’s contemporary folly commissioned by the National Trust

Studio Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak’s contemporary folly commissioned by the National Trust

(Image credit: TBC)

Tonkin Liu’s private house project, Old Shed New House

Tonkin Liu’s private house project, Old Shed New House

(Image credit: Greg Storrar)

Façade, detail of Tonkin Liu’s house.

Façade, detail of Tonkin Liu’s house.

(Image credit: Greg Storrar)

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ Macallan Distillery & Visitor experience centre

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ Macallan Distillery & Visitor experience centre 

(Image credit: TBC)

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Macallan Distillery ceiling structure.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Macallan Distillery ceiling structure.

(Image credit: Angus Bremner)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Wood Awards website

Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.