Article first appeared in Timber and Forestry E-News

A project that has turned under-valued sawmill products into value-added timber structures has been recognised with a gold accolade in the engineering category of Australia’s peak international design awards.

Suspended Remnants Timber Pavilion is a structure created from a collaboration between two ARC Future Timber Hub projects – alternative uses for under-valued sawmill products in innovative timber structures and prefabrication and digital fabrication strategies for large-scale timber construction – scored in the Good Design Award for ‘outstanding design and innovation’.

The annual Good Design Awards, announced this month during 2020 Good Design Week, is Australia’s oldest and most prestigious international event for design and innovation, with a proud history dating back to 1958. The event celebrates the best new products and services on the Australian market, excellence in architectural design, engineering, fashion, digital and communication design, design strategy, social impact design and young designers.

Good Design Awards 2020 attracted a record number of submissions with an astonishing 835 design projects evaluated in this year’s international event. A panel of expert jurors evaluated each entry according to a strict set of design criteria, which covered good design, design innovation and design impact. Projects for the awards must demonstrate excellence in good design and convince the jury they are worthy of recognition at this level.

The pavilion was designed and fabricated using a bespoke computational tool that combines the generation of structurally efficient geometry with a material inventory constraint. Through automation, an inventory of timber members of short unique lengths, typically deemed unusable in the industry, are repurposed into high-value architectural component. It was fabricated in the Future Timber Hub’s architecture workshops at the University of Queensland (UQ) with support from Future Timber Hub industry partner Hyne Timber.

The awards jury said the innovation applied in material optimisation and form finding optimisation using computational tools was highly commended ... “as is the creativity in optimising material management from source timber. The engineered connections are unique and have applications which are both scalable and suited to 3D printing.” 

CEO of Good Design Australia Dr Brandon Gien said receiving a Good Design Award was a significant achievement given the very high calibre and record number of entries received this year.

“There’s no doubt it has been a really tough year for everyone, so it’s nice to be able to share some good news for a change,” Dr Gien said.

“The projects represented in this year’s awards shine a positive light on our creative and innovative capacity as human beings,” he said. “These inspirational winning projects give me hope and optimism that our design community will continue to innovate, no matter how challenging the world around us is.”

“Our project has been a genuine collaboration between the fields of architecture and engineering, combining attention to detail in the crafting of timber and fabric elements using sophisticated computational design,” chief investigator Kim Baber said.

The ARC Future Timber Hub gave special thanks to its research collaborators Swinburne University of Technology who submitted the entry with UQ, and the support given to the project from Future Timber Hub industry partner Hyne Timber.

For more info visit Future Timber Hub