Killarney Woman’s Project Commended At Future Timber Design Awards

A KILLARNEY woman was announced a TU Dublin winner at the Future Timber Design Awards ─ a new initiative by Forest Industries Ireland (FII).

The Future Timber Design Awards have been developed by FII to encourage sustainable and innovative timber design and construction.

Carlise Caffrey from Killarney, together with Anna Frawley and Henry Sexton from Co Dublin, who are architecture students at TU Dublin, received an Honourable Mention for their joint project which focused on designing a small shelter from an assigned timber offcut found in the university’s workshop.

Continued below…

Titled ‘Afterlife’, the shelter repurposed timber offcuts and salvaged fabric to create a movable and foldable structure that has multiple uses and functions.

The students were tasked with creatively exploring the potential of timber as a primary structural and architectural material. Their projects needed to focus on using homegrown timber as the main structural element, while responding to real-world constraints and design challenges.

Commending the Kerry awardee, Dr Sameer Mehra, Programme Coordinator of the BSc Sustainable Timber Technology and a Lecturer in Timber Technologies and Wood Manufacturing at the School of Architecture, Building and Environment at TU Dublin, said: “We’re extremely proud of Carlise Caffrey and all the winners of the very first year of these exciting awards. Their projects are powerful examples of how the next generation of architects, architectural technologists, and timber technologists are rethinking sustainability through timber design. By using homegrown Irish timber in creative and expressive ways, the overall winners have demonstrated how locally sourced materials can reduce environmental impact while helping to create a built environment that is both sustainable and deeply connected to place.”