Buro Happold engineer made Professor at University of Bath
Bath office’s timber expert branches out into teaching
Buro Happold structural engineer Richard Harris has been appointed part-time Professor of Timber Engineering at the University of Bath.
The position, which sees Harris spending one day a week at the University, is to lead and develop a research programme in innovative timber engineering. This research, within the University’s Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, is part of the work being carried out by the new Building Research Establishment’s Centre in Innovative Construction Materials.
The appointment is in recognition of Harris’s unique and extensive experience of timber structures.
Richard Harris said: “It’s a great honour to have been appointed to this post and it promises to be a fascinating and challenging time. The research work will be closely focused on innovation and should lead to more effective use of timber in construction.”
As well as research, Harris will teach a lecture course to undergraduate students and will provide a focus for timber engineering expertise within the University.
“I’m looking forward to teaching young people and I hope to pass on my enthusiasm for using timber as a structural material. The benefits - sustainability, low embodied energy, good strength:weight ratio, as well as architectural beauty – are well known but sorely under used,” said Harris.
Professor Peter Walker, Director of the research centre at the University, said: “We are delighted to have such an experienced, internationally recognised timber engineer join the team. Timber engineering is a very important area and Professor Harris’s expertise will play a vital role in the centre.”
Harris has made timber a specialism since 1974 when he worked for Kier Ltd designing wooden temporary works such as shuttering for concrete and props to excavations. Subsequent timber engineering projects include:
Hooke Park College - constructed in green round wood
The Earth Centre in Doncaster - where several small gridshells were constructed as landscape structures
The Globe Theatre in London - constructed in green oak to recreate Shakespeare’s Elizabethan playhouse
The roof for Cork Airport - a long span roof using glue-laminated timber
Sheffield Winter Garden - completed in 2002, this striking building in Sheffield city centre is a 22m-span parabolic arch structure in laminated larch
Caerphilly Castle Visitor Centre – made largely of green oak and completed in 2003
Norwich Cathedral Visitor Centre - constructed in laminated oak and Kerto LVL, completed in 2003
A pair of current timber engineering design projects are ongoing: the design of a new Gateway Building for the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh and the Welsh Institute of Sustainable Education at the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth in Wales.
But it was Harris’s involvement in the design of two spectacular, landmark timber gridshells – the Workshop for the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum near Chichester, completed in 2002 making it the first double-layer timber gridshell building in the UK, and the Savill building in Windsor Great Park which opened this summer – that helped establish his reputation as a world expert in this field. He was Buro Happold’s Project Leader for the design of both the Downland gridshell and the roof of the Savill Building, which is, at 90m x 25m, by far the largest timber gridshell in the UK.
Harris joined Buro Happold in 1984 and is currently Associate Director. As well as heading his team of 20 engineers on the practice’s major timber projects, he is supervising civil engineer for Buro Happold’s Institution of Civil Engineers-accredited training scheme.
ENDS
Buro Happold
Press office and practice information at www.burohappold.com
Photographs of Richard Harris and the timber projects mentioned above are available. Please contact the press office.
Contact:
Neil Wilks
Press officer
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Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976. It offers civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, health and safety management, infrastructure and traffic engineering, ground engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, computational fluid dynamics analysis, disability design consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
The BRE Centre in Innovative Construction Materials
The BRE Centre in Innovative Construction Materials, launched in July 2006 and based at the University of Bath, is a research and development partnership between the Faculty of Architecture & Civil Engineering and the Building Research Establishment Ltd (BRE), the construction industry’s largest research and consultancy agency.
The centre will look at ways of developing novel, innovative materials and products to improve the sustainability of the UK building industry.
The University of Bath
The University of Bath is one of the UK’s leading universities, with an international reputation for quality research and teaching. In 20 subject areas the University of Bath is rated in the top ten in the country.
View a full list of the University’s press releases: http://www.bath.ac.uk/pr/releases
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Claire Hornshaw
Tel 01225 386319
Email c.v.hornshaw@bath.ac.uk
