The Practice has established itself as a leader in the field of low-carbon design using locally-sourced timber such as oak, beech, sycamore, Douglas fir and ash. S&CC’s design work is underpinned by unique research into the properties of hardwoods, allowing us to advise our clients on environmentally-friendly construction.

The use of British hardwoods provides an ultimate negative-carbon structure. Either timber is used in construction or it tends to be burnt of left to decay. With European wood stocks increasing, all timber can be considered sustainable. However, with many diseases killing off trees, a viable store for the carbon is essential.

For more information on timber in construction visit GreenBeams

Award Winning Timber Projects

Swinton Estate

TechFest 2024 – Shortlisted
IStructE Northern Counties 2022 – Zero Carbon Projects Award, Winner

Between 2022-24 in collaboration with the Swinton Castle Estate, S&CC designed a truly negative-carbon whole office, including the substructure. 

The Swinton Estate wanted to create a low carbon building using their own resources. They were aware of S&CC’s specialist knowledge of timber frame construction using hardwoods and commercial softwoods, alongside our expertise in historic forms of timber in construction. Their estate office is the first-known to use such innovative materials to achieve both a negative carbon superstructure and zero carbon foundations.

In link with GreenBeams project, S&CC studied several hardwoods including beech and sycamore, which have no designated structural properties in Eurcodes or the previous BSs. This allows S&CC to design negative carbon structures in chunky local hardwoods to store sequestered carbon.  

  • S&CC helped select timber, saved from the estate’s biomass boilers.
  • Thirty-five year old beech and sycamore thinnings used for the main structure.
  • Larch from trees infected with Sudden Larch Death were used for joists. 
  • The office had Hempcrete, stud and stone walls 
  • Foundations were constructed with second-hand stone
  • Concrete and steel were avoided. 
  • Life Expectancy is150+ years, based on other buildings on the site.
  • Constructed with a carbon footprint of -8tonnes CO2e for the structure.
  • Highlights misconceptions that timber cannot store carbon

Brancepeth Castle

IStructE Northern Counties – 2022 Special Commendation for the Small Projects Award

  • Brancepeth Castle is a family owned castle SW of Durham. 
  • The fabric is mostly C14th and C19th.  
  • The family’s aim is to gradually stabilise and restore this impressive castle near the River Wear. 
  • One of the first steps was to replace the old lead and felt roofs with new quality lead.
  • This was achieved in the NW Roofs.  S&CC designed simple strengthening to around 50% of truss ends where decayed.
  • S&CC advised that the West Roofs over the Grand Stair and over the Victorian ‘Medieval’ Hall should be clad in zinc rather than lead to reduce loads and avoid the need for major strengthening.

Hoggerstone Hill Farm

IStructE Northern Counties – 2021 Heritage Project Award

In this project, the Architect Client sought to convert a barn into a house with minimum carbon emissions. 

  • It made use of an existing stone and timber barn which had a first floor loft at one end. Making use of existing structures is the key advice given by IStructE for low carbon construction.
  • Within the roof, there had been failures in the structural timbers. Like most traditional buildings the roof had all the features of eaves-spread: inadequate ridge beam which had allowed sagging, bi-axial failure of purlins, leaning of one or both elevation walls, loss of bearings to the trusses, cracks to the gable walls. Many of the common rafters were kept and along with around half of the original purlins.
  • The solution for the roof was to insert stiff chunky ridge beams and some replacement purlins. For the new large span timber beams the client purchased the last few air dried sycamore and ash beams through Greenbeams, a sister company to S&CC. 
  • Air-dried sycamore and ash beams were also used as lintels to support new openings in the walls.
  • For the first floor structure, sycamore timber was purchased ‘green’ from a sawmill after S&CC had checked the logs for viability.  Similar sycamore timber was sawn for new floor joists supported by the main beams. The floor needed to be detailed by S&CC to minimise the impact of expected shrinkage in both the vertical and horizontal directions.
  • As most of the building was founded on a rock outcrop, only minor works were needed to the foundations.  Minor amounts of concrete were used to pack out panels of masonry that had been founded on soft soil where there had been minor settlement.
  • The limecrete floor would mean the building had an overall slightly positive footprint.  Most previous ‘low carbon’ buildings had resulted in a highly positive carbon footprint after concrete foundations and slabs had been added.

West Mural Tower, Auckland Castle

IStructE Northern Counties 2019 – Heritage Project, Winner

S&CC worked with Doonan Architects and the Auckland Castle Trust to fully repair and renovate this isolated west tower. Emergency works were needed to save the tower.

Auckland Castle was once part of the private residence of the Prince Bishops of Durham. It is now one of the best preserved bishops’ palaces in Europe.

Middleton Lodge, Richmond

IStructE Northern Counties 2017 – Small Projects Award, Highly Commended

S&CC helped Middleron Lodge create a new wedding venue within the listen walled gardens. The new structures on the inside and outside of the historic walls were designed for short and long-term bracing for the leaning walls. The main venue used steel beams while the rear lean-to buildings had low carbon timber trusses.

Terminal Building at Askham Bar Park & Ride, York

ICE Smeaton Award 2015 – Certificate of Excellence

S&CC worked on creating a central hub for a major new transport interchange in York, offering substantial park and ride facilities with up to 1000 spaces. This landmark building is an integration of engineering and architectural design to create a prominent state-of-the-art, negative-carbon structure. The main element in the construction was timber, which poses unique challenges for engineers. Less obvious innovation in the civil engineering design was needed because green timber was used, rather than laminated members. The engineers had to devise a solution for supporting the substantial weights of 250mm deep chunky green timber.

The main structural components of British Douglas fir were chosen to maximise the mass of sequestered carbon and to minimise the carbon footprint.