Six structures and two product designs have been announced as the Wood Awards 2021 winners at a ceremony at The Building Centre in London.
Established in 1971, the Wood Awards is the UK’s premier competition for excellence in architecture and product design in wood.
The competition is free to enter and aims to encourage and promote outstanding timber design, craftsmanship and installation. The independent judging panel visits all the shortlisted projects in person, making this a uniquely rigorous competition.
The Awards are split into two main categories: Buildings and Furniture & Product. Within the Buildings category there are five subcategories and a Structural Award. Furniture & Product is split into Bespoke and Production. The Gold Award is given to the project that the judges deem to be the winner of winners.
The judges chose Magdalene College Library as this year’s Gold Award and Education & Public Sector category winner.
Judge Jim Greaves comments, “Magdalene College Library is a tour de force of architectural design and achievement. The different forms of the reading rooms are beautiful and experienced sequentially as they lead one through the building.
“The brick, timber and stone has been designed exquisitely with a thorough understanding of their intrinsic qualities."
Magdalene College Library is the first substantial addition to the main college site in over 50 years. Built alongside the Grade I listed Pepys Library, the new library is an arrangement of simple brick volumes with timber windows and pitched roofs that echo the gabled architecture of the college. Interconnecting rooms lined with bookcases, reading desks and galleries are arranged on a tartan grid between linking passageways.
Three main reading rooms organise the principal circulation route, from the three-storey entrance hall to a double-height central reading room, up to a long single-height room at the top of the building. The stepping of these spaces in section is followed by the stepping of the plan form, allowing the building to address the differently scaled garden space either side.
The interior spaces are created by a glulam and CLT structure, supported on load bearing brickwork and populated with oak shelves and tables. All the key features are perceived as an interwoven set of elements. Roof lights, columns, floor beams,
shelves, windows, desks, and balustrades form a coherent warp and weft throughout the space.
The roof is a grid of timber lanterns with glazed gables separated by wide internal gutters.
The lanterns limit glare and overheating while bringing light into the plan. The roof lanterns are supported by brickwork chimneys that provide fresh air circulation.
The buildings judging panel is led by Jim Greaves of Hopkins Architects. The panel includes Andrew Lawrence, Arup; Kirsten Haggart, Waugh Thistleton Architects; Nathan Wheatley, engenuiti; David Morley, David Morley Architects; architectural journalist Ruth Slavid; and Andy Trotman, Timberwright. The furniture and product panel is led by design critic, curator and journalist Corinne Julius. The panel includes Oliver Stratford, editor of Disegno magazine; Rod Wales of Wales & Wales; and previous winners Yael Mer of Raw-Edges, Eleanor Lakelin, and Sebastian Cox.
As a not-for-profit competition, the Wood Awards can only happen with collaborative industry sponsorship. Major Sponsors are American Hardwood Export Council, Binderholz, The Carpenters' Company and Timber Development UK. Other Sponsors include American Softwoods.
