In collaboration with Architect’s Mowat & Company, we are working on the retrofit of the headquarters of Syke’s Timber, a family run business dating back to 1865

Low carbon design and timber construction is at the forefront of this project.

Retrofit is central to our approach in lowering the embodied carbon of our designs. This new farm shop for the Knepp Estate illustrates that even a lightly framed, low quality agricultural building has potential for re-use and re-imagination. Designed with Kaner Olette. Photography by Richard Chivers

We were delighted to provide engineering design services to Surman Weston’s delightful self-build house. Featured in February’s RIBA Journal. Photo by Percy Weston  

Bury Gate Farm, a new parkland villa in the South Downs National Park, is featured in this month’s RIBA Journal. Designed In collaboration with Sandy Rendel Architects   Photo by Ståle Eriksen

Behind the Red Moon by El Antsui at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, until April 2024. This is the second Turbine Hall installation that we have designed, in collaboration with The White Wall Company.

We have been working with Feilden Fowles Architects on the design of a new arts, culture and education centre for Eastbourne Council and Towner Gallery.

The scheme at Black Robin Farm is in a stunning location on the South Downs, near Beachy Head and has recently been submitted for planning.
In collaboration with Ritchie + Daffin, and Jonathan Cook Landscape Architects.

Image courtesy of Feilden Fowles.

A permanent commission by Conrad Shawcross, Manifold (Major Third) 5:4, was unveiled this month outside the Moorgate entrance to the Elizabeth Line.

We developed the geometry and material approach for the artwork as well as the structure, which is designed to resist blast and vehicle impact loads.

Photo by GG Archard

We’re delighted that the proposed development of the Dulwich Picture Gallery site, with Carmody Groarke Architects, has received planning permission. At the centre of the scheme is a new light-weight timber pavilion for children, and the extension of a Grade II listed cottage building.

Installation for Leeds 2023 City of Culture, with Michael Pinsky, Studio Bark and Alt Environmental Engineers. An array of 7m tall braced Douglas Fir columns in the city centre.

Photo by Tom Joy

Threefold House, with Knox Bhavan Architects, has been nominated for a RIBA London award
A lightweight steel frame allows the chamfered, zinc clad box to ‘float’ above the boundary wall

Photo by Edmund Sumner

Planning permission has been granted on behalf of Benyon Properties for a mixed-use scheme, retrofitting a series of warehouses on the Kingsland Road in Hackney.

We have collaborated with Architects Mowat & Company, and environmental engineers Ritchie + Daffin to design a low energy and low carbon scheme arranged around an urban woodland garden.

Competition design for a floating pavilion in Butrint, Albania
with William Matthews Associates

Raw and affordable. Playful and welcoming.
Agricultural structure is celebrated here, and fully integrated into a beautiful new studio and home.

Cow Shed retrofit with David Kohn Architects

Photo by Max Creasy

As featured in this months Architect's Journal. A low cost, low carbon house, built as part of the Studio Bark No Building As Usual programme.

Nest House employs U-Build, a building system that utilises modern materials and fabrication methods to create a simple structure that minimises weight, waste, transport, plant, and the requirements for skilled labour. Structural efficiency is designed into the system via the cellular form and by mobilising the stiffening effect of the face panel. The resulting structure is exceptionally lightweight and stiff, yet tolerant of movement.

Designed with Chan and Eayrs and built by Timber Workshop

A derelict dairy farm in west Dorset, retrofitted to provide inclusive holiday accommodation, a community centre, workshop and educational smallholding.

Photographer: Lorenzo Zandri

Homerton was awarded best education building, best structural design, and overall gold award at the Wood Awards this year.

A brilliant collaborative project with Feilden Fowles Architects, Constructional Timber, and Barnes Construction

Photo by Jim Stephenson

The Colossus Of Constantine being installed in the Cisterna at The Fondazione Prada.

Working with Factum Foundation the 4th century monumental statue has been reimagined by experts led by Claudio Perisi Presicci.

Working with The White Wall Company for Tate Modern we designed the structure for the latest installation in The Turbine Hall, by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña.

Until April 16th 2023.

Clay at the H.G. Matthews Brickworks

This work, with artist Conrad Shawcross, is on display for the first time in 10 years.

FE analysis model for a viewing platform, and steps to the beach, from a clifftop

Designed with Collective Act and Assemble, Dream Machine is an immersive experience exploring the extraordinary potential of your own mind, stimulated by light and music.

Photographer: Brenna Duncan

This event marked the culmination of an extraordinary 10 year project, led by Hamish Lowe, to celebrate the discovery of the largest intact piece of 5000 year old bog oak found in the UK. The table will be on display at Ely until 2023. Structure Workshop designed a demountable bronze frame that supports the timber table top. Photo: Keith Hepple

So pleased to share an image of the new Dining Hall at Homerton College that opened its doors this month. Photo by David Grandorge

The hall takes advantage of its regular plan by using a two-way spanning three-dimensional space frame. The efficiency of the structural form is directly expressed in the architecture, with minimal use of material to achieve the long spans.

The lightweight enclosure allows for the frame to float above perimeter fin columns and for light shallow foundations to spread loads into the ground.

2022 Civic Trust Award for Hackney Bridge

We are delighted that our meanwhile project in the Olympic Park for MakeShift has received a 2022 Civic Trust Award.

The scaffold is down on our project for Homerton College, Cambridge. Revealing the pigmented concrete and glazed faience facade for the first time.

Harvesting ash thinnings for use in a pavilion in Swadlincote with Robert Barnes and London Metropolitan University School of Art Architecture and Design students.
Photo credit Mike Roylance.

Recently completed art gallery and artist's studios in Clapham. The project maximises the retention of existing fabric to save on embodied carbon.

To coincide with COP26 we have released Version3 of the Structure Workshop Carbon Calculator.

In reaction to the climate emergency we must prioritise the reduction of carbon in every project that we do and see this action as both an arbiter of good design and a driver for creativity. The measurement of carbon is the first step in this process.

To receive a free copy as an Excel file please email carboncalculator@structureworkshop.co.uk
The update features simplified data entry, carbon comparisons of alternative solutions, and improved graphical output.

These interactive kinetic sculptures will be on the sea front in Ramsgate until Autumn 2022.

Each beacon has two perforated disks which can be rotated by hand to spell
H O P E in semaphore.

Photographer: John Sainsbury
Artist: Conrad Shawcross

A new viewing tower in raw steel, for the Sussex Prairie Garden.
The tower was conceived as a counterpoint to the adjacent Dutch barn conversion, both designed with Sandy Rendel Architects.

Temporary timber outdoor stage at Charleston Trust, the former home of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and the Bloomsbury Group in Sussex.
The stage is hosting a season of talks and events this summer.

Photographer: Jim Stephenson
Architects: Pup Architects

Timber pavilion with cantilevered concrete pool structure.

We are working with IDK Architects to design a low carbon alternative to the traditional steel portal frame.

This image shows one solution; a 3-pinned truss in lightweight timber.

We are delighted that Hackney School of Food has been awarded the honour of the following awards:

MacEwen Award 2021
2021 Civic Trust Award Winner
AJ Retrofit Awards: Schools

Structural works are now substantially complete on the dining hall at Homerton College Cambridge. But it will be a while before the scaffold comes down and we can see the timber frame for the first time.

We are delighted that Yorkton Workshops has been awarded the honour of:
AJ Best Workspace Under 2000m²
As well as:
AJ Best Retrofit Project of the Year 2021 across all categories.  

As signatories of Engineers Declare, and as part of our commitment to low carbon outcomes in design, we have made our in-house Carbon Calculator tool freely available to any third party.

The tool calculates the Embodied Carbon (kgCO₂e/m²) associated with a structure, building or installation from 'cradle to grave'.

For a copy of the spreadsheet please send an email to carboncalculator@structureworkshop.co.uk

Early stage concept designs for a timber theatre in France.
With Assemble.

We are honoured that four of our projects have featured on front covers of the Architect's Journal in 2020. Testament to some of the amazing clients and designers we've been lucky to work with in past years.

Exciting progress being made by Factum Arte in Madrid, casting and welding together Manifold.

Selected as part of the Crossrail arts program this will is a permanent commission, to be installed outside the Liverpool Street Station entrance. At 8m tall, and cast in bronze it is the most ambitious of the series that we we have designed to date for the artist Conrad Shawcross RA, and demands the high standards in workmanship, materials and geometry.

After 5 years of design and construction the transformation of the Grade I listed Fratry is complete. This is the most significant intervention at Carlisle Cathedral in 150 years and is built on the site of the medieval cloisters with a stone arcaded pavilion and bronze link structure making the original refectory hall and undercroft fully accessible for the first time. Designed with Feilden Fowles Architects

Winchester Walk starts on site.

A warehouse retrofit project in Borough Market, comprising a new basement and two additional floors. Designed and coordinated using Revit.

Located near London Bridge and a stone’s throw from Southwark Cathedral, it is a fascinating site and one of the oldest in South London. Excavations are constrained by the remnants of the mediaeval Winchester Palace that occupied the area between the river and the current market.

Clarnico Quay achieved practical completion this month. The ‘meanwhile’ canal-side public destination is sandwiched between Hackney Wick and the Olympic Park. The project is led by community developer Make Shift and features co-working spaces, art studios, event venues, public spaces, markets, restaurants and bars.

Clarnico Quay finds inspiration in the converted warehouses of Hackney Wick – the five steel-framed buildings provide simple, adaptable workspaces within pragmatic, demountable structures. Exposed structure with carefully considered connections enhance the beauty of the functional steel frame.

Contractor's yard, designed in collaboration with HASA Architects, has received planning permission this month.

Located within the Highgate Conservation area in North London, the proposal features five new single-storey buildings to be used for exhibitions, cooking workshops, performances and 'creating collaborations around the topics of food, creativity and ecological transformation'.

The buildings will sit in close vicinity to a series of restored greenhouses, which we worked on with HASA (highlighted as 'Phase 1' on the plan above). Information on this project can be found here.

Work is expected to start on contractor's yard later this year.

Schism explores the geometric possibilities of a regular tetrahedron, with 19 tetrahedra arranged spherically to allow entrance to an internal space. This image shows Tetrahedron 8 being craned into position.

Working alongside artist Conrad Shawcross, Structure Workshop designed a 'kit of parts' system to be fabricated in the UK for ease of transport and installation at Cheateau La Coste in Southern France.

A new sixteen-metre tall steel sculpture by artist Eva Rothschild unveiled earlier this month in Kings Cross, London.

We have been working alongside Eva and steel fabricator The White Wall Company on a pair of tubular sculptures, with the second sculpture due for installation in Dublin later this year.

social distancing at.....Surrey Docks Farm (photo by Simone Bossi).

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak the Structure Workshop design office is closed until further notice. We are working hard to maintain our high standards of service and have procedures in place that allow us to work remotely and continue to develop designs, produce information and respond to enquiries.

We are monitoring the situation and are hopeful that the measures being taken by us all are effective in combating the spread of the virus, and that business and life in general can return to being a bit more normal. In the meantime we thank the NHS and all key workers for the incredible work they are doing.

A new build detached house in Surbiton, Surrey, with design references to the local mock-Tudor houses. The house has an exposed external steel frame infilled with brick masonry and a slurry finish to create a simple monolithic form to the front and side elevations.

1:3 prototype bridle joint.

The joint forms the centre point of a large timber valley roof and is designed for the predicted working loads as well as to facilitate a construction sequence.

Physical modelling promotes understanding, discussion and design development ahead of construction.

Over the past year we have been developing our in-house Revit capability. This image of a 3D building information model describes a visitor centre we are designing for the National Trust in Surrey.

The building uses whitewood cross laminated timber for wall and ceiling panels in combination with highly engineered beechwood laminated veneer lumber for the trusses. Lower carbon, lower energy.

Bicameral was officially unveiled at Chelsea Barracks this month.

We have been working on the sculpture with the artist over a period of 2 years since the competition bid.

The work occupies a 9m cube and bifurcates and trifurcates in strict proportion from stem to tip. The structure is fabricated from water jet cut aluminium plate, machined to a tolerance fit, and assembled entirely using dowels.

We were delighted to hear Wraxall Yard gained planning permission this month.

We are working alongside Clementine Blakemore Architects and Ritchie+Daffin to convert several disused agricultural buildings in Dorset into accessible holiday rental accommodation.

The crises of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss are two of the most serious issues of our time. Buildings and construction play a major part, accounting for nearly 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions whilst also having a significant impact on our natural habitats.

Structure Workshop, as a signatory of the Structural Engineers Declare pledge, have committed to strengthen our working practices to create structural engineering outcomes that have a more positive impact on the world around us.

https://www.istructe.org/structural-engineers-declare/

Topping out! A concrete framed house located at the foot of the South Downs in Sussex.

Designed with Sandy Rendel Architects, the house will be brick-infilled with discrete elements of fair faced concrete, including prominent rammed concrete columns that use the local Fittleworth stone as aggregate.

Photo courtesy of Sandy Rendel.

We have been investigating the properties of the tetrahedron for over a decade on behalf of the artist Conrad Shawcross.

These models were made recently to inform and record our understanding of variations on the Boerdijk–Coxeter helix (tetrahelix).

Reversing the Smirke Door at Carlisle Cathedral. Each stone is labelled before being carefully removed in order to reinstate the the original orientation and allow level access to the Fratry.

Optic Monolith, originally designed for Frieze London, has been installed in the Pilane Sculpture Park, Klövedal, Sweden.

It's been given the perfect location - on a ridge with the light behind.

We have been selected to be a part of an international team to design a new art academy in Zwevegem Belgium with Assemble and Czvek Rigby. The proposals employs a reduced palette of terracotta blocks and timber framing.

Photo Courtesy of Assemble.

Box House is to be featured this April on Grand Designs: The Street (9pm Thursday, 25th April).

Photography: Lenny Codd

Granby Winter Garden opens this March!

This building houses a creative space owned and run by locals in the community of Toxteth, Liverpool. It forms the epicentre of Assemble’s Turner Prize winning Granby Four Streets, an urban regeneration project focused on a socially sustainable vision for the area.

We’re delighted that works have finally begun at Carlisle Cathedral.

The HLF funded project, led by Feilden Fowles, comprises a new contemporary entrance pavilion to the grade I listed Fratry building which is being altered and refurbished to extend its exhibition, education and interpretation functions.

15-minute entry to Surman Weston's balcony egg drop competition.

The geometric and structural design is currently underway for a new sculpture by Conrad Shawcross Studio, titled The Asymmetric Rope Machine. To be installed at MONA, Tasmania.

Exploded Paradigm in the new CITC building, Philadelphia.

The 18m sculpture is the latest in a series of ‘axioms’ that we have worked on for the sculptor Conrad Shawcross exploring the properties of tetrahedra.

Design is currently underway for the New Nissan Hub, a Fuel Station of The Future and we are delighted to be part of a team led by Foster + Partners.

This building will provide a sustainable and innovative refuelling network responding to the automotive's market shift toward alternative sources like electric power.

Pivot House is a new super-low energy, low impact family home in the Norfolk countryside. The building sits outside any settlement boundary, hence the design meets the challenging criteria of Paragraph 79 (formerly Paragraph 55) of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

The building concept relates to the nature of tree growth, with a parabolic arrangement of beams flying from a central spine. This is demarcated by the location of the tree placed in the centre of the courtyard, providing a complex timber framed structure, which can be achieved on a realistic budget using locally sourced air dried timber.

The building is lowered into the landscape with a green roof to subtly blend the building into its surroundings, as well as enhancing local biodiversity.

Structure Workshop has been providing scheme and detailed design through concept to construction.
Drone shots courtesy of Studio Bark

∞ Blue (Infinity Blue) is the centrepiece of Invisible Worlds, a major new permanent exhibition at the Eden Project in Cornwall, which opens to the public this Friday, May 25.

Designed with Studio Swine the installation pays homage to cyanobacteria, one of the world’s smallest living beings.

The structure comprises 15 tonnes of ceramic faience supported by a steel frame and housing 32 cannons which project scented vapour rings into the exhibition space of the newly-renovated Core education building.

Image courtesy of the Eden Project.

We are working with Makeshift and Carl Turner Architects to design a 'meanwhile' project at Clarniqo Quay, on the edge of the Olympic Park.

The project is featured in the AJ this month and will deliver affordable creative workspace in an move to balance the development of nearby Hackney Wick where this type of opportunity is being lost.

In 2015 Isis militants released video footage of themselves destroying the face of one the commanding stone statues that had guarded the gates of the ancient city of Nineveh for more than a thousand years. The Lamassu – winged bulls with human faces – were among the most monumental casualties of a spree of destruction that over just a few days reduced many of Iraq’s most precious artefacts to rubble.

This life-sized representation, installed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square is part of an ambitious long-term project by Michael Rakowitz The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist with an intent to reconstruct the 7,000 objects known to have been looted from the National Museum of Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion by the US-led coalition.

Working with art fabricators The White Wall Company we developed and designed the sub frame and armature that allowed 10,000 brightly coloured date syrup cans to be fastened to the envelope giving the sculpture its distinctive appearance.

We are delighted to be part of a team, led by Adam Khan Architects, that has won the competition to upgrade the Carlton and Granville community centres in South Kilburn, north-west London.

The project, for Brent Council, will transform the two historic buildings into a new complex featuring an enterprise hub, nursery school, community facilities and housing. Partnering with local residents and organisations will help ensure the much-needed resources meet the needs of the local community

This project builds on our existing relationship with Adam Khan Architects, whom we previously collaborated with on the Pensthorpe Wildlife Gardens multi-building master-plan.

Wonky desks, giant fig trees and mindfulness classes: is this the office of the future?
Oliver Wainwright reviews our new project with Selgascano Architects in the Guardian today.

We are delighted to have been involved in this immersive installation using light, robotics and sound to celebrate Hull 2017 UK City of Culture.

The site specific work is located in the streets around Hull's historic old town and will be open everyday to the public (excluding Christmas day and Boxing day) until 7th January 2018.

We are delighted that Feilden Fowles Studio has been selected as the Wood Awards Small Project Winner 2017.

The structural system uses paired timbers and dowels rather than bolts. Beams, rails and noggins follow a half-depth hierarchy and are set out to minimise cuts and wastage in the plywood decking.

The Beijing Canopy has been installed successfully at Guorui in Beijing, China.

This is a re-designed version of the large scale sculpture first shown at the Royal Academy in 2015.

This latest version features new arrangements and larger tripods, and allows for the corrosive effects of high humidity and pollution to meet a 50 year design life in the public realm.

This month saw completion of the first U-BUILD house. A completely CNC routed plywood self-build system, designed in collaboration with Studio Bark.

July saw completion of the reinforced concrete shell of a new house on the South Downs that we have designed with Adam Richards Architects. The house is designed around a double height hall with service cores.

Progress shot of the first new production facility building for the Charlie Bigham's Campus in the West Country.

Photo courtesy FFA.

Welcome to our new website, we hope you enjoy it.

We have initially selected 20 of our favourite projects to launch the site with and look forward to adding new work and past projects as time goes by.