A new 15-storey mass timber and steel hybrid tower will now rise over a site regenerated following the London 2012 Olympic Games, with Lendlease receiving planning approval to build S10 Stratford Cross.
Slated to be one of London’s largest mass timber office buildings, the Waugh Thistleton Architects-designed project is part of a wider SHIFT movement to establish the Stratford precinct as the educational and cultural ‘heart’ of East London. According to Waugh Thistleton Architects, the S10 design aligns with “SHIFT’s aspirations through its innovative, sustainable design, prioritising its inhabitants’ well-being, low-carbon materials, and dynamic placemaking.”
Speaking about the development, Matthew Steenhoek, Executive Director of Lendlease’s UK business, said, “The planning approval is a testament to the power of collaboration between the project’s development partners and marks a significant step forward in creating an emerging creative and cultural workplace destination at the heart of East London.”
Wood Central understands the design is fully “future-proofed,” with an adaptable internal layout catering to offices, education, and life sciences. Meanwhile, the building’s hybrid steel–timber frame system, which incorporates cross-laminated timber (CLT), is optimised for design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) to enhance sustainability and reduce construction times.
Waugh Thistleton Architects is at the forefront of the new wave of UK architects using mass timber in office buildings. Today, it specialises in mass timber design and has suggested that lightweight cross-laminated timber could be a quick fix for the country’s housing crisis.
Last year, Andrew Waugh, the business’s director and founder, said architects must abandon the concrete mindset and develop a unique approach to mass timber design. “At first, we were making concrete buildings out of timber,” Mr Waugh told Dezeen last year, with developers focusing on material efficiency, well-being impact and even the Scandinavian concept of “hygge” (or cosiness) instead of height and form.
Published mid-last year, Mr Waugh, with Timber Development UK, released Timber Typologies, a free downloadable ‘beginner’s guide’ for various timber solutions: “In discussion with Timber Development UK (TDUK), we noticed that people were getting confused and referring simply to ‘timber buildings’, leading to miscommunication and misunderstandings.”
“It explains why lightweight timber frames are typically used to deliver lower to mid-rise construction and when you might employ a panelised CLT or a post-and-beam mass timber system.”
- To learn more about the Waugh Thistleton Architects plans for Stratford Cross development, click here.
