The “Timber in Context” competition challenged student designers and architects to explore new structural and ecological possibilities of timber construction through innovation in contemporary and traditional wooden materials.
The brief: To design an interactive agricultural and environmental skills training centre in the Greater Bakenburg area in the Waterberg district of Limpopo province. Entrants had to incorporate local ecological knowledge and biodiversity awareness to enhance climate-change resilience, sustainable subsistence farming, and livelihoods that support the local economy.
The initiative is sponsored by York Timbers in partnership with the Department of Trade, Industry & Competition (the dtic) and the University of Pretoria (UP).
The panel of judges for the competition were:
- Braam de Villiers of Earthworld Architects
- David Krynauw of David Krynauw furniture makers
- Christo van der Hoven, director at Mass Timber Technologies and lecturer at UP
- Emma Ayesu-Koranteng, lecturer at NMU
- Tlholo Sesana of Tshwane University of Technology.
After several exhausting weeks of researching the location’s socioeconomic, physical and environmental conditions, learning about wood properties and timber construction, peer review and coming to terms with the latest design software, the entries were in.
The winners were announced at the Timber Construction conference, and the winning design by Shannon Govender of UP took top honours. She received a cash prize of R30,000. Second was Nicola Smuts, also from UP, who received R15,000.
