Press Release

THE SAVILL BUILDING WINS THE GOLD AWARD AT THE PRESTIGIOUS ‘WOOD AWARDS’

19 October 2006

The Crown Estate is delighted to announce that The Savill Building in Windsor Great Park has won the Gold Award at the annual Wood Awards held on Wednesday 18 October, at Carpenter’s Hall in the City of London. In addition, The Savill Building also won awards in the categories of ‘Commercial and Public Access’ and ‘Structural’, beating off very stiff competition from buildings such as the National Assembly for Wales. This is the first time in 30 years one building has won three awards in the same year.

The Wood Awards is the premier award ceremony for the use of wood in buildings and furniture. The awards recognise, encourage and promote outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation in wood which demonstrate the choices that wood products offer for buildings both ancient and modern.

The coveted Gold Award is made to the building that has most impressed the judges from all the projects entered into The Wood Awards. The category of ‘Commercial and Public Access’ includes all buildings funded by public or private clients. Examples include schools, libraries, offices, buildings with public access, hotels and restaurants and public leisure facilities. The ‘Structural’ category includes timber-frame buildings, bridges, interior and exterior structures and decking, funded by private or public clients.

The Savill Building is an iconic new visitor centre, and provides a new entrance to The Savill Garden and the gateway to The Royal Landscape, a unique man-made landscape of gardens, woodland and water located in the south-east corner of The Crown Estate’s Windsor Great Park.

Designed by Glenn Howells Architects, The Savill Building features a stunning grid shell design roof which, at nearly 100m in length, is the largest of its type in the UK.

Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park, Philip Everett, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this prestigious award. The Savill Building offers visitors a truly impressive welcome to The Royal Landscape. It is unashamedly of the 21st century in its design and facilities but through its shape and use of materials it neither dominates, nor is diminished by the woodland and gardens around it.”

The judges were unanimous in their praise for the approach of the building to the site and as a successful piece of architecture in the landscape, they said: “The beautiful magic of the building is exposed to visitors very slowly. Internally, the effect is one of light and space; it is a very pleasant place to be.”

Viewed from the outside, the curvaceous roof appears to float above the building and follows the undulating tree line of the park and gardens. Inside, the criss-cross lattice of the grid shell is fully exposed and, rising to over nine metres, creates an awe-inspiring internal space, subtly linked to the gardens outside through floor-to-ceiling glass panels.

The Savill Building is connected intimately with its immediate surroundings not only through its shape but also in the materials used for its construction. Both the larch in the roof structure and the oak used for the outer roof covering and the floor were harvested from forests managed by The Crown Estate’s Windsor Great Park forestry department.