Congratulations are due to our colleague Robert Hairstans, who heads up the Centre for Offsite Construction and Innovative Structures. His family home has scooped him a WPA Wood Award.
Academics are quite used to taking their work home, but Robert did this quite literally.
“Robert Hairstans’ 1930s bungalow in Edinburgh was named Modified Wood Project of the Year by the Wood Protection Association at its inaugural awards ceremony.
Dr Hairstans, head of Edinburgh Napier’s Centre for Offsite Construction, chose Accoya, one of the most advanced wood products on the market, to clad the exterior and to provide the external support beams of a cantilevered glazed kitchen extension.
The project, with David Blaikie Architects, involved the removal of a dilapidated sunroom and the reinforcing of the foundation to carry a timber offsite fabricated ‘Sitooterie’. The upgrade resulted in major energy performance improvements.
Robert said: “The renovation work on my house applied knowledge ascertained working here at Edinburgh Napier.”
Wood Protection Association Director Steve Young said: “Whilst modest in scale, this project actually is a showcase for the benefits of Accoya in sustainable construction and technique that help to reduce the cost and time of building on site.”
Accoya is manufactured by Accsys Technologies. John Alexander, director of sales & product development said: “The varied use of Accoya throughout the property in Edinburgh is testament to the product’s performance and appeal.”
This is probably a good opportunity to point out that in our centre we might mostly end up with piles of broken timber – but we do give it away to the locals for their garden projects and wood burning stoves…so there is probably more than one ‘Sitooterie’ that owes a lot to timber research here at Napier 😉
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