The Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council operations centre in Ballyogan, Co Dublin, is the overall winner of the Wood Awards Ireland (WAI) 2014. “The building is a work of innovative and knowledgeable designers in whose hands wood finds its full expression,” said state architect Ciaran O’Connor at the awards ceremony in Dublin Castle.

The Ballyogan building competed against 63 other projects which were reduced to a shortlist of 18, comprising three major public buildings, five small-scale buildings and 10 projects in furniture, innovation, conservation and international projects. The awards were presented by Tom Hayes, Minister of State with responsibility for forestry.

Timber for the winning projects was sourced in forests throughout the world from Ireland to the US and from Europe to New Zealand. The only stipulation was that all timber had to be sourced from sustainably-managed forests and in accordance with the EU Timber Regulation, which counters the trade in illegally harvested timber.

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European larch, Scots pine and Norway spruce were used extensively in the Ballyogan building, which “sequesters approximately 1,000t of carbon dioxide within the timber structure,” claimed lead architects Bob Hannan and Merritt Bucholz.

Homegrown timber featured strongly in a number of shortlisted entries, including the winner of the international award ‘‘Vessel’’ by O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects. This wood-stack temporary structure was designed and built as a special installation for the international exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

The structure was meticulously assembled from 5,250 pre-sawn lengths of Sitka spruce sourced in Coillte’s forests and sawn by Glennon Brothers the Longford-based sawmill. Gem Joinery – also based in Longford – carried out the detailing and installation.

Sitka spruce was used in the highly commended Airfield Evolution in Dundrum, Co Dublin, while it was used throughout in Eugene Boyle’s ‘‘Garden of Plenty’’. This won the silver gilt medal at last year’s Bloom Festival in the Phoenix Park using spruce supplied by the Murray Timber Group, oriented strandboard from Coillte Panel Products and bark mulch from Laois Sawmills.

In the renovation category, a Tipperary sawmill combined with the industrial archaeologist, Dr Fred Hammond, to restore the waterwheel in Kilbeggan Distillery using European larch for the wheel floats and oak in the sluice gate.

American white oak was the main species used by McCullough Mulvin Architects for its restoration project in the Dublin Dental Hospital, which won the conservation award. The architects combined oak with existing pine floorboards to create a unified space without damaging the integrity of the existing protected buildings in Trinity College.

The furniture award went to O’Driscoll Furniture for its role in the installation of ‘‘Tree’’ in the Dell building in Cork. Described as “a timber installation of great technical skill and bravado,” by O’Connor, it contained 400 separate yet interconnected elements of white oak climbing 15m in a four-storey atrium.

WOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COURSE CLOSED IN LIMERICK

The Wood Science and Technology Department at University of Limerick is closing down. No new entrants are being accepted to the highly respected Bachelor of Science and Technology Degree course.

Ironically the announcement took place in a month when the importance of wood research and technology has been emphasised at events such as Wood Awards Ireland organised by the Wood Marketing Federation (WMF).

“While we in th WMF have been promoting wood successfully in recent years, there is still a lack of knowledge on wood usage, treatment and design in Ireland compared with other European countries,” said Paul Harvey, chairman of the WMF. “This is why we place great importance on the support of UL who specialise in wood science, technology and timber testing. This decision is a retrograde step for the industry.”

A spokesperson for Glennon Brothers said the closing down of the department will have a major negative impact to the wood industry sector. “Technology is advancing so fast within the industry to a point where all the companies place significant reliance on trained intelligent graduates with a high knowledge base of wood to ensure competitiveness,” he said. “This course is specifically tailored toward the wood industry and is unique in Ireland and to most of Europe.”