Searching for
‘Can Do’ Firms
A name that seems to keep
cropping up when we look for
capable off-site manufacturer’s
is Benfield ATT, so we thought
we’d investigate them a little
more.
Apparently the firm
was founded in 1995 to
manufacture Swedish
style timber frame houses
for Scandia-Hus, having
themselves been established
to import and sell the products
of their Scandinavian parent
company in the early ‘70’s.
The business had grown well,
so when it faced an adverse
exchange rate against the
Krone, it was only logical to
transfer the technology and
the fabrication to the UK.
The houses were not cheap,
but the superior performance
standards of the Scandinavian
technology employed in their
design, made their sustainable,
low energy, air tight
characteristics very popular
with those that could afford it.
Thus, the little company that
was formed to replicate this
was, arguably, one of the very
first to promote these benefits
throughout the UK.
Archetech - Page 138
It has to be remembered
that it is only since that time
that even the UK Building
Regulations caught on to
the improvements needed.
While these have been
progressively upgraded, they
remain woefully behind the
northern European standards
that the firm offered at that
time. Although the gap has
narrowed, it still maintains
a lead having become
increasingly focussed on
delivering Low Energy
Buildings since the recession.
Initially known as AbbacHus, to capitalise on its
technological superiority
the firm soon changed
its name to Advanced
Timber Technologies (ATT).
Additionally it began to offer
Canadian style platform frame
homes, competing with other
UK firms to supplement and
grow business from its base
of replacing imported homes.
This also meant offering
38x89 stud panels, rather than
the 140 stud Scandinavian
convention which are also
its mainstay today. At that
time UK Building Regulations
enabled them to build 4 and
more storey blocks of flats
with such frames. In fact, in
2000 a unique demonstration
building - Timber Frame 2000
(TF2000) – became one of
the most significant research
projects undertaken. This
collaborative project involved
the construction of a six storey,
timber frame building – at
that time the tallest of its type
in the world – to show the
commercial and technical
benefits of using timber for
medium rise buildings in the
Snohetta-isolated-cabin-Norway-Bjellandsbu-Akrafjorden
(source Pinterest)
The TF2000 Building under construction
UK. Its success encouraged
greater adoption of timber
frame in construction. Today,
solid and composite timber
buildings of 11 stories have
been built with 30 and more
on international drawing
boards.
In 2002 ATT was acquired
by a firm owned by leading
environmentalist, Professor Dr.
Michael Benfield, changing its
name to Benfield ATT. As he
explains “Applying Marshall
McLuhan’s famous phrase, ‘The
Medium is the Message’, it is
absolutely clear that timber
buildings have symbiotic
relationship with nature. What
better way, then, to promote
the need for environmental
sustainability than designing,
making and building timber
buildings.” To support this
belief the firm was first in the
sector to gain ISO quality,
TRADA ‘Q Mark’, and FSC Chain
of Custody certifications,
bolstering this with HRH Prince
Charles’ sponsored Business
in the Community ‘Big Tick’
awards for 3 years in a row.
With this ethic flowing
through its corporate veins,
it was not long before
Benfield ATT were involved
in commercial, educational,
healthcare, leisure, and
industrial projects using
engineered timber structures.
Besides flats and houses
it gained a reputation
for tackling some of the
more intricate and difficult
construction challenges – in
timber! Examples of this are
a dental and health clinic
created on a curve and
balanced on a single row of
piles to meet exacting ground
and site conditions in Exeter,
the complex curved glulam
‘Armadillo Shell’ roof for a
visitor centre near Cardiff, a
huge 30m span portal frame
for a furniture factory in the
wilds of Dorset, the UK’s first
amphibious house in Marlow,
and a circular crèche for an
international ‘cherry picker’
manufacturer in Milton
Keynes. As Prof.B (as he has
become known) smilingly
states, “The things other
people shy away from are
exactly what we like to get to
exercise our skills, experience
and capabilities. While we’re
very happy to prefabricate
and build ‘standard’ houses, if
it’s ‘different’ it ‘gets our juices
going’.”
This ethos of doing different
things, often differently,
has spurred the firm’s
development of traditional
carpentry, modifying this to
produce standardised feature
roof trusses, ‘systemised’ post
& beam structures, and the
use of hybrid glulam ‘cross
laminated’ timber for solid
timber walls, floors and roofs
of ‘interesting’ carbon neutral
structures. As Porf.B concludes,
“We like to work with people
who have new ideas and who,
like us, see timber as a key
sustainable material in our
quest to ‘save the planet’. It is,
after all, the only renewable
building material on earth.”
www.benfieldattgroup.co.uk