Canadian Excellence in Wood Design & Construction!

As a part of Alberta Wood Works of the Canadian Wood Council, the Prairie Wood Design Awards Gala was established to celebrate what Canada has to offer in outstanding wood design. Held on October 26th, the gala showcased 30 projects from around the Prairie provinces and Northern Territories, recognizing designers, architects, and engineers who displayed wood design excellence & innovation.

Winnipeg's own Cibinel Architects was winner of the Municipal/Recreational Wood Design and Jury’s Choice Awards for their design of Centreplace Manitoba. The pavilion was an outstanding display at this years Winter Olympics held in Vancouver. The design also netted the Sustainability Star Award given by the Olympic committee. Cibinel incorporated our reclaimed Elm wood in the form of decking, soffits,  door jambs and benches.

Here are the winners of this year’s Prairie Wood Design Awards:

Atrium Timber Structure - SAIT Parking Garage, Bing Thom Architects/Marshall Tittemore Architects
Winners of the Commercial/Institutional Wood Design Award

Atrium Timber Structure - SAIT Parking Garage, Fast + Epp Structural Engineers

Winner of the Engineer Wood Advocate Award

CentrePlace Manitoba, Cibinel Architects
Winner of the Municipal/Recreational Wood
Design and Jury’s Choice Awards

Holy Names House of Peace Dining Room,
5468796 architecture
Winner of the Interior Beauty Award

Webster Cottage, 5468796 architecture
Winner of the Residential Wood Design Award

Congratulations to all the winners and the rest of the design community who took part in the Gala.
Everyone there is a winner!

Rethink. Reclaim. Reuse - Team Wood Anchor

What's a soffit you ask?

What is a soffit? Not too many people can answer that question with out saying "I have no clue!". Its one of those things that you don't give props to unless they REALLY stand out. Most poeple never look up so a regular soffit is gonna be an oversight with any building or home. As stated in Wikipedia:

Soffit (from French soffite, formed as a ceiling; directly from suffictus for suffixus, Latin suffigere, to fix underneath), in architecture, describes the underside of any construction element. Examples of soffits include:

The pictures you see were sent by a client who is building a new home in rural Manitoba. You can see how the soffit exemplifies the roof line and how it can enhance the design of a home. Beautiful use of wood. Not only is Elm wood beautiful inside, its amazing on the outside!

Rethink. Reclaim. Reuse - Ray

Gotta go with Reclaimed Wood for your Cottage!

Fresh from the inbox, we just received these photos from one of our customers that purchased a reclaimed timber table and a custom reclaimed timber coffee table for their newly renovated cabin in Victoria Beach, Manitoba!

I love conversing with the client with their design ideas and how they intend to fit it in as a part of their humble abode. It really leaves a lot to the imagination because you don't often get to see the intended space from the get go.

So after receiving the photos, I was stoked to see how amazing their cabin looks! We had no part in the wood work for the cabin itself but it turned out amazing and our tables were a perfect fit!

Shown above is their new 8 foot reclaimed timber table and as you can see it seats 8 comfortably.

Here is the finished custom timber coffee table above. Designed to match our timber table with trestle style legs. Nice and chunky! You could dance on that if you wanted!

Here are some photo's of the coffee table in the shop. I snapped these for their approval by email. 

Obviously they approved!!

Its great to see so many people reusing wood for their cottages such as this Victoria Beach one. I'm sure its easier just to buy prefab materials but remember this, reusing a product such as reclaimed wood and or any wood for that matter will stand the test of time! Thanks M****** & M***!

Rethink. Reclaim. Reuse - Ray

What salvaged Maple flooring from and old church can do for a new building!

Earlier this year in April I blogged about the the salvaging of the historical Church of Christ Scientists in Winnipeg. There was a great response for the purchasing of many of the materials that we salvaged! Many doors, and windows have been purchased. And the majority of the flooring that you see in the picture below was salvaged, installed and finished in a current downtown building.

Yes, the pictures that follow do not show much of the flooring but the owners and architect for this project had a unique vision of extending the flooring into this clever and functional table!

The concept was to give the feeling of that the table was resurrected right from the floor. I don't have the exact length but as you can see, it spans over half of the main room!

All the flooring you see finished was salvaged from the Church of Christ Scientists. A beautiful solid Maple wood flooring!

This project is going to be an inspiration for green builders as the owners have implemented the strictest measures to be fully green. And this is a great start thus far!

Rethink. Reclaim. Reuse - Ray