Shallow Plans

A major issue with UK timber is that very few species have strength classifications. To achieve a strength classification it takes thousands of the same timber to be put through a rigorous and distructive test to understand its abilities. Because our timbers dont have strength classification they are not used within construction.

To ackowledge this, I have designed using a ‘worst case’ scenario. Timber is better is compression than tension. Limiting the overall span and implementing a shallow plan ensures that using timber within this structural system will not fail . Alongside wood construction can create growth of a propoerty using the identity of the owner. Away from the corporate identity that has been initially set up.

The plan uses a small selection of longer 4m timbers but primarily uses 2m to 2.5m lengths. This is an efficient length of timber to extract from harvested trees. The variation in 2 - 2.5m lengths ensures trees can be selected for purpose eliminating wastage from cutting to a consistent size.