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Up next in our Timber Revolution series is a look at the Dalston Works apartment complex in London by Waugh Thistleton Architects, which is the world’s largest cross-laminated timber building.

Completed in 2017, Dalston Works is a 10-storey residential development in east London that contains 121 apartments with balconies as well as two ground-level courtyards, retail and restaurant space and an integrated flexible workspace.

Upon its completion, the project became the world’s largest cross-laminated timber (CLT) building, was its uses more of the material by volume – 3,852 cubic metres – than any other building. Dezeen is not aware of any larger CLT buildings constructed since.

Rectilinear brick-clad CLT building on a corner site in Dalston — Dalston Works is a mixed-use development in east London

It was designed by local architecture studio Waugh Thistleton Architects – a Shoreditch-based timber specialist that has been predominantly working with engineered wood since 2003.

Waugh Thistleton Architects also designed Murray Grove, which was previously profiled as part of Dezeen’s Timber Revolution series.

CLT is a panel material made by gluing at least three layers of wood at right angles to each other, which is significantly less carbon-intensive than other structural materials such as concrete or steel.

The panels are characterised by structural rigidity in two directions thanks to the arrangement of the layers and are cut to size before being assembled on-site.

Dalston Works has external, party and core walls as well as flooring and stairs made entirely from pieces of CLT that were delivered to the formerly neglected brownfield site over 374 days.

Brickwork facade of Dalston Works in east London by Waugh Thistleton Architects — It is the world’s largest CLT building

“[CLT] is replenishable, beautiful, healthy, fast and economic,” Andrew Waugh told Dezeen, who co-founded the architecture studio with Anthony Thistleton in 1997.

“Timber is easy to cut and to build with, so the buildings are easy to adapt – so they last longer,” he added.

“This also makes the material easier to use as part of a prefabricated system so that we can make higher quality buildings faster and with better working conditions for those involved.”

Ground-floor courtyard within brick-clad Dalston Works — Two ground-floor courtyards feature in the design

The development is separated into several boxy volumes, while the CLT frame was clad in traditional bricks chosen to reference the Edwardian and Victorian architecture of nearby warehouses and terraced properties.

“[The brickwork] was important to the client and to the planners,” reflected Waugh. “I am happy with the way it looks but would have preferred a lightweight cladding material.”

“We needed to greatly increase the amount of timber in the structure just to hold the bricks up in the air,” Waugh explained.

Brickwork facade on Dalston Works in east London — The CLT structure is clad in traditional bricks

Despite this, Dalston Works weighs a fifth of a concrete building of its size, according to the studio, which reduced the number of deliveries required during construction by 80 per cent.

Creating a lighter core meant that the project could reach much higher than if it had been constructed in concrete, since the development sits above the underground Elizabeth Line railway.

The project’s CLT frame also has 50 per cent less embodied carbon than a traditional concrete one. This refers to the amount of energy required to produce and form a material or object.

Perspective of the sky above the brick-clad Dalston Works building — A timber core means that the building weighs less than a similarly sized concrete structure

“There wasn’t a great deal of client motivation or legislative demand for any measures beyond meeting BREEAM and building regulations,” Waugh recalled, referring to standards that limit operational emissions as opposed to embodied emissions.

“My own view is that building regulations are pretty effective – and if you have an efficient, airtight building which is passively designed to suit its location then the operational carbon demand will be pretty low, and you have to assume that we will generate it from renewable energy in the near future.”

“Lots of stuff and complex gear designed to very slightly reduce the energy demand is a bit of a waste of resources. The real issue here is reducing the use of concrete and steel – the carbon savings from doing that are immense.”

According to project engineer Ramboll, more than 2,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide is stored within Dalston Works’ CLT frame.

Nearly six years on from Dalston Works’ completion, Waugh reflected on the significance of the world’s largest CLT building.

“At the time it was an important milestone – to demonstrate that timber is a viable alternative to concrete and steel – and at scale,” reflected the architect. “But I think it’s dangerous to measure a building’s success by its size,” he warned.

Rectilinear brick-clad residential complex building in Dalston — Andrew Waugh has called for action from the UK government to encourage more mass timber architecture

Known as a long-time campaigner for the use of mass timber in architecture, Waugh said that he recently wrote a “big piece” to the UK government calling for it to invest more in sustainable architecture practices, explaining that the UK has been “left way behind” compared with various mass-timber projects being created in other parts of the world.

“The UK is behind in terms of timber because we have a government that does not prioritise carbon reduction – and is heavily influenced by lobbying from both construction companies and the manufacturing industry,” said the architect.

“Architects need to start driving demand – seeking out opportunities to design in timber and build a market. Designers need to prioritise carbon reduction in their work and start reconsidering how they think about success in the buildings they design.”

The photography is courtesy of Waugh Thistleton Architects.

Illustration by Yo Hosoyamada

Timber Revolution

This article is part of Dezeen’s Timber Revolution series, which explores the potential of mass timber and asks whether going back to wood as our primary construction material can lead the world to a more sustainable future.

Reference

London studio Waugh Thistleton Architects has unveiled the Black & White Building, a mass-timber office building designed for The Office Group in Shoreditch with a slatted tulipwood facade.

The 17.8-metre-high office building, which the studio says is the “tallest mass-timber office building in central London”, was built from a combination of beech, pine and spruce timber.

Black and White building made from mass timber — The building is located in Shoreditch, east London

Constructed from structural timber, Waugh Thistleton Architects clad the exterior of the six-storey building in tulipwood timber louvres from the street level to the roof.

“The design means that you also get the beauty of the timber internally,” Waugh Thistleton co-founder Andrew Waugh told Dezeen.

“It’s a simple form driven by the context of timber engineering, as well as the context of the surrounding Victorian buildings – these were also constructed using current methods and built to a brief,” Waugh added.

“There is no narrative here, it is pure modernism.”

Tulipwood timber cladding on the Black and White building — Tulipwood louvres protect it from the sun

Waugh Thistleton Architects constructed the 4,480-square-metre Black & White Building from prefabricated components that were precision-engineered to be slotted together.

This means the building, which Waugh describes as “visibly sustainable”, is dismantlable and can be disassembled rather than demolished at the end of its life with its materials reused.

Wood-clad interior of London office building — Wood was also used to decorate the interior, with sculptures created from wood beams

Its foundation and lower ground floor were made from concrete, with the rest of the structure constructed from cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Curtain walling was made from glued laminated timber (glulam), while columns and beams were constructed from laminated veneer lumber (LVL), which the studio said helps save on space.

“We have CLT panels for the core and CLT panels for the floors,” Waugh Thistleton Architects associate director David Lomax said. “And then the columns and beams are made from quite a highly engineered product called LVL.”

“We’re talking about typically, at the lowest level where the loads are greatest, about 100 millimetres on each side of the column saving in its dimensions,” he added.

“That’s made out of beech, which is a hardwood so it performs much, much better. [It’s] smaller columns.”

Inyterior of Black and White office building — London studio Daytrip designed the interior

According to the studio, by using engineered-wood materials rather than a traditional concrete and steel structure, the building saves “thousands of tonnes in CO2” as it generates much less greenhouse gas.

The building also has at least 37 per cent less embodied carbon than comparable concrete structures, according to The Office Group (TOG).

It was named the Black & White Building as it replaces an earlier building on the site, a Victorian brick warehouse with a timber interior that had been painted black and white.

The existing building was deteriorating and not suitable for a retrofit, Waugh Thistleton Architects said.

“It couldn’t be extended – it was very small and had no foundations,” Waugh said. “Extending it would have been just a cosmetic exercise. This isn’t romance, it’s architecture.”

Workspace inside the Black & White building by Daytrip — Warm hues contrast the timber walls inside

After meeting Waugh at a panel talk about sustainability, TOG co-founder Charlie Green asked him to instead create a new building that would be suitable for the site.

“We took our planning consented scheme, and we used the envelope and the massing of that to ask Andrew to create something within that form that’s timber,” Green said.

“He did more than that, he redesigned it so we had a more efficient core position to create a better flow of space, and came up with this timber scheme.”

The office is partly powered by 80 photovoltaic panels on its roof, with all other energy coming from green suppliers, Green said.

Daytrip-designed interior of Shoreditch office building — “Wasabi green” was used for the interior

Design studio Daytrip created the interior of the building, which contains 28 offices in different sizes as well as six meeting rooms, break-out areas and focus booths and a dedicated yoga and barre studio on the ground floor.

The building’s timber features are also visible inside, where the timber walls match the wooden furniture.

“We reacted to the original concept and the sustainable drive and wanted to continue that in the interiors,” said Daytrip co-founder Iwan Halstead.

“We wanted to respect and celebrate the timber part of the architecture.”

Wooden furniture in interior by Daytrip — Most of the furniture comes from UK suppliers

Timber beams from the Victorian warehouse that previously occupied the site were kept and turned into wooden sculptures that decorate the ground-floor lobby.

Daytrip aimed to also keep the furniture as local and sustainable as possible.

“A lot of the specifications and furniture are UK suppliers and that was something that we wanted to make an effort to achieve, and we’ve done it with 80 per cent of the furniture,” Halstead said.

The overall interior design was informed by Tokyo’s original Hotel Okura, a mid-century modern hotel that was demolished in 2015 but has since been rebuilt.

A colour palette of muted green and earthy hues, which Daytrip gave names like “wasabi green,” is combined with tactile materials, including some made from recycled components.

Chequered floor inside The Office Group building in Shoreditch — The interior design was informed by Hotel Okura in Tokyo

At the top of the building sits a rooftop terrace, while a central lightwell was designed to help maximise the building’s natural light.

The building is “about sustainability more than anything,” Waugh said. “It’s a bright future for architecture, not the hair shirt and oat milk that sustainability is always described as.”

TOG operates more than 50 workspaces in the UK and Europe. These include an office in Borough Yards with an interior by Danish designer David Thulstrup, and a Euston workspace with an interior informed by nearby buildings such as the British Library.

The photography is by Jake Curtis.

Reference

Thistleton

Dalston Works by Waugh Thistleton Architects became world’s biggest CLT building

Waugh Thistleton Architects designs mass-timber Black & White Building

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