Timber Studio aims to address 3 themes of enquiry: contemporary material histories with a focus on the timber industry in Scotland; the care for, and reuse of, existing urban fabric; and the creation of community buildings that engage with issues of material waste, skills training, and social justice. 

Initially through research and drawings, students investigate material selection as a holistic process that considers the lifecycle of timber from the planted forest, to the milling of components that arrive on site and the associated labour at each stage. 

This knowledge is then transplanted to a ruinous back land site in Dunbar. Through making a series of models, and drawings students consider how we can care for neglected urban fabric, and how we potentially prop, repair and re-inhabit it using timber structures. 

Alongside these strategies of reuse students engage with a local charity, The Ridge, writing briefs for buildings that both support their apprentice’s training and foster communal gathering. The resultant projects aim to propose a framework of caring for the environment that extends beyond the bounds of the proposed buildings and into the wider community.

Image credit: Lucas Gjessing, Timber Studio, Composite Drawing - School for Apprentice Joiners