Community Shelter underway

After years of planning, fundraising and COVID interruptions, the building of Westonbirt’s brand new Community Shelter is now underway. 

The shelter will provide a calm space for members of the community programme who come to the arboretum for an escape. Since its conception, the programme has worked with thousands of people from harder-to-reach audiences, supporting positive mental health and wellbeing through an inclusive programme of inspiring activities.

Westonbirt didn’t want to just build a shelter, they wanted this to be a chance for the community using the shelter, to get involved. Working with Invisible Studio, a local architect, and Xylotek, a Bristol based timber construction company, the arboretum aims to empower the community participants by involving them from the design phase through to building a lasting structure that will be used as a home for further generations of community participants. 

The build programme has been developed by Xylotek to maximise engagement in each element of the construction by working with the community team to consider the groups’ various skill levels. It will present a great chance for individuals to participate in a range of traditional green timber carpentry techniques including steam bending, laminating and shingle making to build a visually stunning structure.

The organically shaped dome timber structure has already been designed in collaboration with our community participants who worked with award winning architect Piers Taylor, Invisible Studios, to develop an iconic structure.

The shelter has been designed to use Westonbirt oak which will create an organic shaped building to showcase what can be achieved with locally grown and sourced timber. All of the timber used for construction of the structure has been or will be extracted from Westonbirt’s own collection as part of the woodland management cycle. Milling will begin later this month at Westonbirt Woodworks and the building is expected to start next month with a target completion date of spring 2022.

This project wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the generous donations from local companies, donations from third parties, trusts and grants plus fund-raising by the Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum charity. The Friends’ also provided their own funds for this project as well as investment from the Forestry England team.

The shelter has been designed by the community and will be built with our community, for our community and will enable the remarkable community programme at Westonbirt Arboretum to flourish and reach more people to feel the benefits of nature.