Emerging from a six-acre site near Cilibion is a striking timber-framed learning centre, and client groups and volunteers are very much part of the workforce. RICHARD YOULE reports.
IT is a learning centre, but not as you might know it. Constructed from larch, capped by turf, plastered in due course with clay and insulated with sheep's wool and straw bales, the round-pole building in Gower really stands out.
And, what's more, different groups of people are helping to build it.
Murton-based Down to Earth Project is running and managing the development at its new Little Bryn Gwyn site, near Cilibion.
It is, in building project speak, both the client and principal contractor.
The new-build follows the award of a £716,000 Big Lottery Fund People and Places grant, which targets projects encouraging community involvement.
And that gets to the heart of what social enterprise Down to Earth Project is all about, explains director Mark McKenna.
Groups from Swansea housing charity Caer Las, Communities First, Cefn Coed Hospital and Abertawe Bro Morgannwg's traumatic brain injury service are or will be learning new skills by turning their hand to carpentry and timber-framing work, among other building jobs, at the North Gower site.
Local volunteers have also been putting in the hours.
"We are still in the first year of a three-year project, but it should be finished before then," says Mark. "The feedback has been pretty remarkable."
Essentially, he says, people who come along all want to come back.
Down to Earth Project has been operating from Manselfield Road, Murton, since 2005, where it has given thousands of people — especially disadvantaged and hard-to-reach groups — the chance to get stuck into traditional, sustainable building projects. And confidence-building seems to be a happy by-product.
Down to Earth Project employs 10 staff and will keep its Murton operation while developing the six-acre Little Bryn Gwyn site, which it shares with the charity Valley Kids.
Down to Earth Project also has planning consent for a residential building for 25 guests at its new venue, but a planned re-design by Valley Kids has been turned down by Swansea planning officers.
Rare breed pigs and other animals are also set to take up residence at Little Bryn Gwyn in due course.
Mark says the learning centre is ticking criteria set out by environmental rating system BREEAM, and has no doubts it will make a big impact.
"This is a huge investment for Gower and Swansea," he says. "It is genuinely going to be a landmark building."
AS project and site manager, Seb Haley has seen oak trees grow from little acorns, so to speak.
Groundwork for the Down to Earth Project learning centre near Cilibion, he says, began last June.
Tonnes of larch processed in Monmouthshire began arriving in the following weeks.
"The frame is absolutely awe-inspiring," says Seb.
He explains that larch has plenty of tannin that gives the timber a similar longevity to oak.
"It's naturally weather-proof," he says.
Seb and his various helpers have been blessed with some pretty decent weather, with 11 dry days in a row this winter during which time 390 square metres of turf were laid on the roof.
There is plenty of work left to do — and Seb is confident the building will stand the test of time, with a raised timber floor to protect from the ravages of damp.
"It'll last for hundreds of years," he says.
Down to Earth Project also has a new building at Swansea University's under-construction Bay Campus, in addition to its base in Murton, Gower.
Original Link - South Wales Evening Post
