Red louro is not the most widely specified timber in the UK, but as St Anne’s College at Oxford University has shown recently, it’s a hardwood species that can achieve a very special aesthetic in highly contemporary design applications.

The certified timber was used to externally clad and aesthetically link new modern student accommodation and teaching facilities with the traditional architecture of existing buildings at the college.

The species was used to clad the exterior and entrance of a new building located at the heart of the College’s North Campus and was recommended for its durability, aesthetics and excellent weathering characteristics.

The new building, which houses 110 student bedrooms, three 25-seat seminar rooms and an 80-seat lecture theatre, was specifically designed to provide a coherent link with a neighbouring Grade II listed academic property.

The product required needed to be resilient as well as consistent in grade, colour and texture, making red louro the ideal choice. Commonly used for external cladding, red louro takes on a beautiful natural silver colour through age, which adds to its appeal.

Red louro is a medium- to heavyweight timber, with good working properties. A versatile timber that is naturally a pale, reddish brown in colour, red louro is available with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification and is a good alternative to western red cedar for cladding.

Another increasingly popular material is massaranduba, which makes excellent decking. This has featured in a gold-medal award-winning children’s garden at this year’s RHS Tatton Park Flower Show, which is now being re-built in the grounds of a Liverpool primary school as part of a competition sponsored by the BBC.

The rich, dark tones of massaranduba were chosen to contrast with the many bright, colourful plants contained within the “Classroom Jungle” garden, which was designed specifically for children aged from 7-11, and was centred on a jungle theme to appeal to a child’s sense of adventure.

Massaranduba’s durability and stability makes it ideal for decking

Junior schools in the BBC North West Tonight area entered a competition to have the garden rebuilt at their school by designing their own jungle area.

Massaranduba is ideal for decking, thanks to its durability and good stability and movement, lending itself to many heavy applications.

For anyone interested in learning more about alternative species a useful new guide has been published. The Tropical Timbers Guide, available from the Tropical Forest Trust (TFT), is designed to help specifiers, installers and suppliers better understand and evaluate the tropical timbers they use.

Developed to help prevent over-reliance on a narrow range of timbers that can lead to the over-exploitation of specific species, the guide contains information on 64 commercial timber ‘trade groups’, categorised according to the major tropical timber producing and exporting regions of West and Central Africa, South-east Asia and South and Central America.

Certified red louro was used to externally clad and aesthetically link new modern student accommodation and teaching facilities

Each timber species is rated by price, appearance, technical quality and “volume available from acceptable sources” or VAAS. The VAAS value reflects accessible volumes available from FSC-certified forests and from forests that are in transition to FSC certification through a TFT certification action plan, or from other non-controversial, well-managed forest sources around the world.

Sheet material solutions

Against the background of declining availability of certain hardwood species, another route for the architect and specifier is the use of engineered timber and wood-based sheet material. The latter, in particular, is available in an increasingly wide variety in terms of both performance

specification and aesthetics, and it looks as though the diversity is set to grow, with the leading manufacturers investing heavily in product development.

At Timbmet Silverman we’ve just introduced a product that perfectly illustrates latest developments in this field. Diffusion is a range of “3D decorative” carved MDF boards. It’s supplied in 13 designs with the surface machined to create geometric and linear patterns, curved and rippled effects – even a floral design option!

The product is being targeted at architects, interior designers and furniture manufacturers and is intended for a range of interior applications, from retail displays, bar interiors and exhibition stands to feature panelling, bespoke furniture components and even mirror surrounds.

So, in spite of sourcing issues with certain species types, the actual range of options available in timber and wood products is still wide. In fact, it’s growing – although, as always, it is important to make sure you get the right advice and guidance from your timber supplier.