Grow

Strategies for Sustainable Living (student category): distinction and category winner

Architect: Lisa Bond

This project looks primarily at the growth of a sustainable forest and using this as a local resource to produce an all new DLT (Dowel Laminated Timber), SIP alternative for the use of retrofit and construction. Overall aim of the panels is to supply the island with an affordable structural solution that is easier and faster to erect on site as well as being healthier, lower in carbon and almost 50% more breathable than the dense EPS alternative that exists on the market. As well as producing a mass timber panel that is completely natural and solely timber, the facility itself reduces the use of carbon heavy products and materials in as many areas as possible. Using a phased construction approach, the building can be produced using the in-house DLT panels, resulting in a carbon negative construction, as opposed to regular forestry harvesting, logging horses will be used instead of carbon heavy vehicles. The facility also enables the local community to learn and engage in an environment that will teach them skills in the self-build process, regular DIY solutions they can take back to their home, and provide classrooms and workshops open to the public to provide safe, direct, in person learning facilities to aid the crisis from the inside out.

The judges commented that the concept of retrofitting of our existing building stock is at the forefront of design currently and this project explores this idea with the use of a sustainable forest. From this idea, the judges felt that further work and products could be developed, and they appreciated that the use of homegrown timbers could result in lower costs in the retrofit of properties and significantly reduce the energy required to produce and transport it to Aberdeenshire and further afield.