Tree management centre

Invisible Studio was commissioned to build two new buildings for a new tree management centre in the Gloucestershire, UK. Architects wanted to use the timber from the arboretum – as the client had an extraordinary resource which they hadn’t previously exploited. As a result, all the timber was grown and milled on site, and used for the construction with no further processing.

  The first building – a tiny mess room – provides space for staff and volunteers to eat and take time out while also including storage and facilities to maintain kit. This little cabin-like building has an almost fairy-tale quality. Its location was determined by the surrounding trees beneath which it nestles, while its hyperbolic paraboloid roof has been shaped by the winter sun; it was designed so that during the winter months it would allow daylight into the yard behind. Inside it is simple with just two rooms and a loft storage space, all lined in plywood.

The second space is a vast timber-framed shed built to house the machinery needed to maintain the estate’s 15,000 trees. To create its large column-free open-plan space, huge Corsican pines, around 140 years old, were felled. These were then milled, graded and hand-hewn on site to provide the 20m-long beams needed for the building’s king post trusses.

Wolfson Tree Management Centre Mess Building, Tetbury, UK
Program: mixed use
Architect: Invisible Studio
Engineering: Buro Happold
Completion: 2017