The winners of #TDChallenge23 have been announced.
The ‘competition’ enables students to learn how to design and build with timber while providing skills they can take into their careers by simulating real challenges the students will face.
Fiercely competitive, from the 150+ who first registered, 34 students from 22 universities were selected from across the UK for the competition’s finals at NMITE’s Centre for Advanced Timber Technology to face a judging panel comprised of professional, academic and industry experts. The mixed-discipline student teams came together and worked online for five months to produce their entries. They were given the task of reimagining Widemarsh Cricket Pavilion in Hereford, a timber-framed pavilion currently only used for storage.
The local community wanted a multifunctional space that is welcoming, warm, easy to maintain, produces more energy than it consumes and costs little to run. Teams had to retrofit and extend the building, and the triangle of ground bordered by roads and paths. The winners – who named their team ‘Hemphasise’ – proposed to transform Widemarsh Pavilion into a flexible learning facility and community hub which would offer opportunities for skills development, enhanced social mobility, and community cohesion. The winning design adopted a whole-building approach to meet the EnerPhit retrofit standard. Their proposed building fabric provides a medium-weight construction with thermal mass to store heat. Many of the materials are hygroscopic (breathable) and thus able to support the management of moisture.
Tabitha Binding, head of education and engagement at TDUK, said: “To have any hope of addressing the climate crisis, our future professionals need to know how to build and retrofit using the lowest carbon structural material – timber. The TDChallenge is unique, offering students the opportunity to get beyond their course work and apply their learnings in a pragmatic way by working together as professionals do, and on a real-world project. Timber is often not taught sufficiently at UK universities, so this challenge has become an important way for the industry to ‘plug the gaps’ and ensure that incoming professionals have the skills they need to thrive and build – or retrofit – the sustainable, low-carbon buildings we need today. Specifying the right products and detailing for longevity and reuse is essential.”
The challenge is brought together by Timber Development UK in a collaborative partnership with AECB, BE-ST, NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University and Passivhaus Trust, with software from Trimble, the Passive House Institute and AECB PHribbon.
Are you a student or recent graduate? Sign up to participate in our University Design Challenge 2024 – which is focused on affordable, sustainable timber housing at www.timberdevelopment.uk
