MICA’s Woodland Quad Shortlisted for Structural Timber Awards

MICA’s Woodland Quad at Wellington College has been shortlisted for Education Project of the Year at the Structural Timber Awards 2025.

The project creates a new Sixth Form boarding house, Day House and Energy Centre within a woodland clearing, carefully balancing contemporary timber construction with the College’s historic setting. The project uniquely showcases timber technology's benefits, setting a new benchmark against traditional materials.

The client, including the governors, were actively involved in identifying spaces where timber's visual presence would enhance the environment. This direct input demonstrates their leading role in embracing timber for its aesthetic and functional benefits. The project benefited from the design team's first-hand knowledge of the UK cross-laminated timber market and its leading specialists, ensuring informed material selection. A smooth transition from design to delivery was facilitated by the specialist timber engineer's appointment by the selected timber specialist (Eurban) at the construction contract stage.

For quality, offsite fabrication of CLT and Glulam elements ensured superior precision for key spaces like main room structures, ceilings, and stairs, a consistency hard to achieve on-site. The speed of delivery and installation was exceptional; offsite manufacturing took just 45 days, with the 4-storey Victoria and 3-storey Raglan structure, internal and external CLT partitions and builders works holes assembled in 65 and 30 days respectively, a timeline conventional construction methods can't match, drastically reducing campus disruption.

Aligning with the UN Sustainability Goals and supporting the College’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2030, the Woodland Quad demonstrates how sustainable design, collaborative working, and cost predictability can create exceptional new educational spaces.