Zublin Timber - Maggie's Oldham

Winner of 2018 Offsite Awards - Healthcare Project of the Year

Maggie's Oldham is the world's first building made from hardwood cross laminated timber, created from CLT manufactured and installed by ZÜBLIN Timber. The pioneering use of engineered tulipwood is a trailblazer for future CLT adoption. Timber is known to significantly reduce blood pressure, heart rates and recovery times. It has more health and well-being benefits than any other building material, according to the Wood Housing Humanity Report 2015.

Supported on 4m steel slender columns, the building floats above a garden framed by trees. From a central oasis, a tree grows up through the building, bringing nature inside. On entering, the visitor is met with a space, light & unexpected views down to the garden below, up to the sky and out to the horizon.

Designed by dRMM Architects, Maggie's Oldham is constructed from 20 panels of five-layer cross laminated American tulipwood, ranging in size from 0.5m to 12m long - some of the panels used in Maggie's Oldham were curved. They also included custom cut-outs and a routed recess detail, so doors could close flush without additional door frames. American tulipwood CLT offers unparalleled strength & lightness and is one of the most sustainable species because of how fast it replenishes, through natural growth alone. The tulipwood CLT has been carefully detailed to bring out its natural beauty. It's fine, variegated finish is more akin to furniture than a construction material. The slatted ceiling was created from wood left over from the CLT fabrication process, ensuring no waste.

As well as offering aesthetically pleasing & calming elements, offsite manufactured timber systems also provide rapid construction times with increased levels of accuracy throughout the build process. This comes as a huge advantage when constructing healthcare buildings where budgets and timescales are frequently challenging. It was an extremely efficient construction process, completed in a year, due to the large amount of offsite timber prefabrication, eliminating the need for wet trades.

There is a direct correlation between the quality of an environment and human health & wellbeing. The best practice guidance, set out in BREEAM Healthcare and the Good Corporate Citizen Model (NHS), recognises this. A holistic design should also include measures to reduce energy costs throughout the lifecycle of the facility.

Timber systems are designed to maximise thermal performance and minimise air leakage, resulting in well-insulated, higher-performance buildings that do not require expensive bolt on technologies to enhance the environmental performance & will ultimately reduce running costs. The continuing savings made from increased energy efficiency can have a huge impact on budgets.

 

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