Case Study
Treetop Walkway

The UK’s longest treetop walkway opened to the public early this summer, offering visitors to the National Arboretum at Westonbirt a 300m route up in the tree canopies more typically inhabited by squirrels and birds.

Glenn Howells Architects, working with Buro Happold, used advanced computational parametric principles to create a timber and steel structure, both strong and light, to blend into the trees while following the contours of both land and woodland.

The Treetop Walkway starts and ends at the ground, rising 13m as it follows the valley floor. At four optimal points the walkway ‘bulges’ to form viewing platforms, where visitors can congregate and survey the landscape of the historic downs.

The walkway’s legs are made of timber that will age beautifully over time, spaced at 10.5m intervals so that they don’t interrupt the natural rhythms or sightlines of the existing ancient tree population. Says Glenn Howells: ‘The walkway is designed to disappear as a sinuous silver ribbon that meanders between trees and canopies.’

The Friends of Westonbirt raised £1.9m so that the walkway could provide visitors with a better understanding of the Arboretum and its landscape. Glenn Howells also designed the Arboretum’s 2014 Welcome Building, a curved, timber-clad centre for visitors to this English Heritage Grade I registered landscape and garden, established by the Holford Family in the early 1800s, and now run by the Forestry Commission.

Client: Westonbirt Arboretum
Architecture: Glenn Howells Architects
Engineering: Buro Happold
Cost: £1.9m
Completion: April 2016

Case Study
Hasle Harbour Bath, Denmark

The Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea was an important historical port for industry, fishing and ferry services. Its recent reinvention as a summer tourist destination has been substantially enhanced by the arrival of a new ‘wild swimming’ pool, designed by White Arkitektur.

The Hasle Harbour Bath comprises a 360 sq m floating timber platform and two towers, sited within a network of breakwaters. The platform encloses basins of different depths, and, through its design, clarifies the areas for play and for serious swimming – for example, with lanes provided in the deeper waters. Stepped towers constructed from FSC-certified azobe timber boards rise from the platform to create playful, sculptural landmarks for this area – contrasting it with the solid, granite walls of the manmade harbour breakwaters nearby. The towers are designed to offer natural seating as well as diving platforms, extending from the main stair tower, whose 6m-high top step offers spectacular views of the harbour and the sea beyond.

A 25m-long ramp connects the Harbour Bath to a new landing point along the coastline, where a new building, also clad in FSC-certified azobe timber, houses a sauna, lavatory and outdoor changing area.

Designed for all ages and swimming abilities, the Harbour Bath encourages users to respond to the structure intuitively, and will form the heart of a future development to add further wooden decks to the breakwaters, offering a multitude of leisure and recreational opportunities for the new, residential community planned to populate this end of the harbour.

Client: Bornholm district council
Architecture: White Arkitektur
Completion: July 2014

Case Study
Pyramid Viewpoint, Inveruglas, Scotland

The Pyramid Viewpoint is part of a wider Scottish Scenic Routes initiative by the Scottish government to showcase the country’s natural assets and give interesting commissions to young Scottish design practices.

Glasgow’s BTE Architecture won the competition for one of Scotland’s premier wild destinations – Loch Lomond and its National Park – with the Pyramid Viewpoint drawing visitors to the most dramatic stretch of the UK’s largest inland lake. An existing cafe marks the entrance for visitors, and from the car park, the tall stack of the pyramid is visible above the trees, drawing them to it via a long, curved pathway leading towards the highest point of the Loch Lomond peninsula.

As visitors near the structure a single-storey tunnel frames the landscape, only as wide as the path itself, to lure them in and deliver them to a triangular platform. This is accessed via steps interspersed with benches that become more exposed as the structure rises, mimicking arena-style seating – with the breathtaking scenery as the headline act. The geometry of the pyramid forms an angular timber counterpart to the rocks at the loch edge, while the exclusive use of Douglas fir integrates and unifies the whole site as one large, sculptural intervention.

Client: Scottish Government (Loch Lomond and National Park)
Architect: BTE Architecture
Structural engineer: David Narro Associates
Contractor: Land Engineering
Treated floor area: 60 sq m
Cost: £193,000
Completion: May 2015