Joint winners of ‘Branching Out’ have been announced as Simon Feather of Leeds Beckett University and Sandra Reith of University of Leeds, both recipients of the John Makepeace Award. ‘
Branching Out’ was one of the RSA Student Design Award briefs in 2019/20, sponsored by internationally recognised designer and furniture maker, John Makepeace OBE, with additional support from Woodland Heritage.
The ‘Branching Out’ brief set the challenge: How might we harness broad-leaved woodlands and their resources to increase their local economic, social and environmental value? Of particular interest was making better value use of small diameter hardwood roundwood to help improve the economics of woodland management and to maximise the benefits of this largely overlooked but adaptable timber resource.
“One of the great successes of ‘Branching Out’ has been how the brief has been interpreted, reflected perfectly in the two winning entries: Sandra studying an MA in Design Future Study and Simon an MArch in Architecture”, said Woodland Heritage’s Guy Corbett-Marshall. “The winners also reflected the almost perfect split of UK and international students entering, showing that the opportunities woodlands provide know no boundaries”.
Simon’s winning entry is called ‘Re-Foresting’ and is a systemic approach to mobilising local woodland resources, proposing nine model villages set along the M62 corridor. These villages will grow and harvest diverse forests in order to build timber homes, whilst also addressing the housing crisis, increasing woodland cover, supporting ecology and generating healthy places to live. ‘Re-Foresting’ will also help the climate crisis and support the British timber industry.
Sandra’s ‘TRĒOW’ is a new material for high quality processing made from small-diameter logs. It supports the use of domestically grown wood to strengthen the local timber industry and envisages applying it in products such as wall panelling, flooring, chair seats and backs, boxes and even plates. ‘TRĒOW’ is a material in the field of Engineered Wood Products, which is intended for visual use due to its appearance. ‘TRĒOW’ can be used for different shapes due to its malleable raw mass.
Reflecting on her success, Sandra said: “It has inspired me not to limit myself and to go different ways. I am not from product design, but it was a great experience to experiment and get physical results.”
The ‘Branching Out’ brief was launched in September 2019, was downloaded 2,221 times, and attracted 37 entries from 20 different universities; plans for a new challenge in 2020/21 are already well underway.