{"id":4513,"date":"2019-02-19T08:17:39","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T08:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/wp\/?p=4513"},"modified":"2021-04-14T17:18:17","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T16:18:17","slug":"the-latest-in-modern-construction-techniques-comes-to-stroud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/2019\/02\/19\/the-latest-in-modern-construction-techniques-comes-to-stroud\/","title":{"rendered":"The latest in modern construction techniques comes to Stroud"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The exterior view. Photo by Bill Hicks – click to enlarge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you have travelled along Cainscross Road during the past couple of months,\u00a0you may have been intrigued by the sight of a tall crane lifting elaborate pieces of timber, as if part of a giant jigsaw. At first a timber skeleton has\u00a0emerged and then walls have been raised of clean, precise wood, appearing\u00a0almost like flower petals. A team of skilled workmen have been assembling\u00a0these shapes and gradually a building has formed before us. And what a\u00a0structure, almost organic in form with complex shapes intersecting.<\/p>\n

The Stroud Civic Society visit took place just after the last timber panels had\u00a0been secured and at the invitation of the Christian Community. Our party was\u00a0able to go inside the Church and see the crystallised form. We were privileged\u00a0to be introduced to the building by the Architect Nick Pople and the Structural\u00a0Engineer David Tasker. They explained that the choice of timber for the main\u00a0construction was based on the versatility of the material, the finish and\u00a0acoustic properties which will resonate sound. While the wood itself is a\u00a0carbon capture and will reduce or counteract the carbon content of the\u00a0building.<\/p>\n

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The interior, showing the roof from below. Photo by Bill Hicks – click to enlarge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sensation of the design is uplifting. Twenty or more visitors, all with\u00a0yellow high viz jackets and safety helmets, entered the main space. All eyes\u00a0were drawn upwards by the\u00a0form of the walls, which are faceted to imply\u00a0pillars, defined by the intersecting planes of the walls. Above these planes\u00a0branch out almost as the underside of a Gothic fan vault. The ceiling gains a\u00a0dynamic as a result of the intersecting planes which intensify towards the\u00a0Apse where the altar will be placed. The five-sided window openings are high\u00a0up and take up the pattern of the faceting, as the window heads fit into the\u00a0pitch of the roof vaults. The windows will be glazed with white glass.<\/p>\n

This building uses a new wood building technology called Cross Laminated\u00a0Timber, a form of plywood, writ large, 15cm thick or more. Each panel has\u00a0been calculated and drawn in the office of the architect and checked by the\u00a0engineer before the information is sent to Munich in Germany. There, the\u00a0measurements are translated into panels with exact angles to intersect with\u00a0its neighbour, each numbered and then shipped to Stroud. The building team\u00a0assembling them come from Ireland from where they travel to sites wherever\u00a0this system is to be used. The degree of precision is astonishing. Most joint\u00a0lines and junctions are only a few millimetres wide. All the fixings are\u00a0invisible, being on the outer shell. It has been a daunting task for the builders\u00a0because they are handling the internal finished surface at the structural\u00a0stage, where conventional construction would be overlaid with finishes such\u00a0as plaster. All the electrical sockets and lighting have to be pre-determined\u00a0and fed from the back of the structure. The chapel is tall and is surrounded by\u00a0a range of single storey rooms which will have sedum roofs. So from the road,\u00a0the chapel will appear to stand above the surrounding podium. The exterior\u00a0will reflect the shape of the interior. The roof will have cedar shingles and the\u00a0exterior walls covered with an insulation and render.<\/p>\n

The Civic Society and those who attended the site visit are grateful to the\u00a0Christian Community for allowing us this glimpse of the building. This was a\u00a0special moment in time just before the finishing stages when the bones\u00a0beneath the skin are visible.<\/p>\n

Particular thanks to Paul Abel and Tim Alloway\u00a0for the site arrangements. We look forward to visiting the completed building\u00a0which is to be consecrated in October. We are sure that it will add to the\u00a0architectural interest of Stroud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest in modern construction techniques comes to Stroud<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,35],"tags":[43,42],"class_list":["post-4513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pastevents","tag-cainscross","tag-church"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/IMG_2311-300x199-1.jpg?fit=300%2C199&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5171,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4513\/revisions\/5171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stroudcivicsociety.co.uk\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}