Timber trophies awarded to the best architectural projects at the UK’s Wood Awards
![Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/7SAgdS2RCc6ExZ3KWLWAm3-415-80.jpeg)
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.
The interior of the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects in Oxford
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 Architects’ pale lime-washed oak recital hall at the Royal Academy of Music
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 Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak’s contemporary folly
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 Architects won gold in the education and public category
Interior details at the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Oxford by Niall McLaughlin Architects
The ceiling of Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre
The Judges Special Award went to Belvue School by Studio Weave.
Storey’s Field Centre & Eddington Nursery in Cambridge designed by MUMA
Studio Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak’s contemporary folly commissioned by the National Trust
Tonkin Liu’s private house project, Old Shed New House
Façade, detail of Tonkin Liu’s house.
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ Macallan Distillery & Visitor experience centre
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Macallan Distillery ceiling structure.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Wood Awards website
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
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.
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Tour the Natural History Museum’s new gardens, a Jurassic lark in London
The Natural History Museum in London has unveiled two new gardens, with resident dinosaurs, after a transformation led by architects Feilden Fowles
By Bridget Downing Published
-
Drama Republic moves into a colourful, handcrafted workspace in London
For the new creative HQ of production company Drama Republic, Emil Eve Architects remodels a warehouse into office space in London’s Holborn
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
Hideaway House in London features timber panelling inspired by the New York hospitality scene
The elegantly refurbished Hideaway House by Studio McW in London features timber panelling inspired by Philip Johnson’s The Four Seasons Restaurant
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
‘Modern Buildings’ tours south-east London through a guide to post-war Blackheath and Greenwich
‘Modern Buildings: Blackheath and Greenwich’ is a detailed survey of a London borough’s rich trove of new modernist architecture
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Triangle House invites you to its inner world of colourful surprises
Triangle House by Artefact is a private home in Epsom, outside London, combining Caribbean style, colour and functionality
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Tour the refreshed Saint Andrew Holborn: an icon reveals its crisp new interior in London
DaeWha Kang reimagines Saint Andrew Holborn church through a sensitive architectural solution that blends tradition and modernity in London
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
A Suffolk house by Studio Bark pairs a fresh visual language with low-energy design
Suffolk house Water Farm is off-the-grid but defiantly on the map, a bold new object in the landscape with a strong visual impact and minimal carbon footprint
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Westminster Coroner's Court renovation delicately blends moments of softness and austerity
Westminster Coroner's Court gets a refresh and addition, courtesy of Lynch Architects and artist Brian Clarke
By Ellie Stathaki Published