Castleoak - Abbeyfield

Project Overview

Castleoak has delivered both innovation in timber frame design, manufacture and construction with great collaborative working to our customer, Abbeyfield. We've pushed the boundaries of timber frame manufacturing and off-site fabrication to deliver efficient, environmentally sound, quality living space.

The care home project at Winnersh is a solid example of innovation in healthcare with its unique design concept directly evolved from understanding how dementia sufferers interpret their environment and how the building and its facilities should reflect this in order to provide comfort, security and independence for residents.

The complexity of the building and its unique circular structure combined with flat roofs and terraces was made even more challenging by the decision to eliminate bricks and blocks from the construction method. This step was taken to remove any delays during the construction period as a result of material shortages or lack of skilled tradesman.

Castleoak worked with its trading partners to develop a factory fitted system that would meet customer and design requirements. Manufacturing at Castleoak's in-house ISO9001 accredited factory ensured the quality and accuracy required for such a complex structure was achieved as well as giving control over supply chain timescales and costs.

Using timber frame as the central construction method together with off-site manufacturing at Castleoak's in-house factory meant that the length of the programme could be significantly reduced, health and safety risks at site were reduced, and an extremely high level of quality and accuracy was achieved throughout construction.

Timber for Castleoak frames comes from an accredited environmental process, assuring sustainable sources certified to FSC or PEFC standards. Considerable savings were made on waste generation through the design process, for example, all off-cuts were recycled as noggins and used in the electrical fix off-site at the factory.

Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, praising the collaborative working process throughout the design and construction phases of the project, as well as the final care home delivery.