Serjeant Award for Excellence in Drawing
The UK's current timber industry produces 11 million tonnes of timber of which only 2.8 million is used in construction, making the UK the second largest importer of timber for construction in the world, following China. However the UK’s position becomes more significant when considering that the size of the UK’s population is only 3% of China's. This reliance on imports makes choosing timber for construction a decision which is constantly swayed by both external political climates and environmental climates.
The project proposes a new industrial forest bordering Wales stretching from the Forest of Dean to the Forest of Bowland, capable of producing an annual yield of 12.7 million tonnes a year, replacing a quarter of all materials used in the construction industry in the UK, and cutting imports to zero. A series of six industrial sawmills will line the new forest, each with its own new village incorporating housing and leisure facilities. The project will create a new typology for building in the UK, one which recalls timber frame buildings built between the 13th and the 18th centuries but at the scale of strategic and operational systems necessary within new frameworks of post-human global warming.
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