Cuerden Valley Park Visitor Centre, Lancashire

Cuerden Valley Park Visitor Centre with triple glazed timber windows and doors from Green Building Store
We are pleased with the quality of the workmanship of the windows and doors and they look superb.

John Stainton – Project Manager

We were keen to have good quality engineered laminated timber, which wouldn’t warp, rot or move. Green Building Store’s windows were recommended to us and offered the engineered timber we wanted and also excellent sealing technology.

John Stainton – Project Manager

We found that the price for triple glazing with a U value of 0.85 W/m2K was competitive with other quotes for double glazing we’d had from local joiners.

John Stainton – Project Manager

The aesthetics of the windows and doors are very good. They have a green/ grey finish and are sometimes mistaken for metal windows as the paint is so well finished.

John Stainton – Project Manager

The Cuerden Valley Park (CVP) Visitor Centre in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, includes a café, office space and classroom area, and was designed by Straw Works Ltd, and built by Straw Works, with the Park Trust and volunteers, and sub-contractors. Built entirely out of natural materials, with car tyre foundations and no cement or concrete, it is a hybrid straw bale building, part loadbearing and part timber frame.

Green Building Store’s triple glazed PERFORMANCE timber windows and doors were specified for the project.

Design

The building combines loadbearing straw bale walls and timber frame construction, making it a hybrid. The roof is covered in cedar shingles – with the rear section mono pitch and the front section forming a curved roof. Where the two join, clerestory windows provide natural daylighting into the corridor below. A curved glazed screen forms the front elevation, with a raised decking area overlooking the fantastic views of the parkland.

The project is the first Living Building Challenge registered building in the UK. The Living Building Challenge is an international sustainable building certification program set up by the non-profit International Living Future Institute. Living Building Challenge buildings encompass seven performance areas: site, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity and beauty.

The Cuerden Valley Park (CVP) Visitor Centre is also one of the six shortlisted projects for the inaugural ASBP (Alliance for Sustainable Building Products) Awards*. The awards recognise construction projects which exemplify excellence in sustainability through their products, design and delivery.

Construction

The building was designed so that volunteers from the Park Trust could build it themselves, which together with this particular design has saved the Trust in the region of £100,000 of labour costs.

People from the local community volunteered throughout the project and Straw Works ran training courses in natural material building techniques, such as straw bale building, lime plastering and cedar shingling. Engaging the local community in the project resulted in a great sense of ownership in the finished building.

Triple glazed timber windows & doors

Green Building Store’s PERFORMANCE range of triple glazed timber windows and doors were chosen for the project.

Project Manager John Stainton said:
“We were keen to have good quality engineered laminated timber, which wouldn’t warp, rot or move. Green Building Store’s windows were recommended to us and offered the engineered timber we wanted and also excellent sealing technology.

We also found that the price for triple glazing with a U value of 0.85 W/m2K was competitive with other quotes for double glazing we’d had from local joiners.

The aesthetics of the windows and doors are also very good. They have a green/ grey finish and are sometimes mistaken for metal windows as the paint is so well finished.

We are pleased with the quality of the workmanship of the windows and doors and they look superb.”

More information

*The winners will be announced at the ASBP’s Healthy Buildings Conference and Expo which takes place on 28th February 2019 at London South Bank University.

27th February 2019

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