There are many ways to use timber in landscape timber projects for residential and commercial designs. We’ve assembled some of our favorite landscape timber ideas for consideration below:

1. Decking, Bridges, and Walkways

It is still the most popular choice for decking, generally the focal point for the yard and extending the outdoor living areas. Timber can also be used for commercial boardwalks and larger marina projects. For instance, Accoya was chosen for a 1,300-foot-long boardwalk in Australia, home to some of the harshest weather conditions in the world.

Timber offers homeowners and commercial designers flexible and creative options regarding outdoor furniture and structures. It also provides warmth that can’t be matched with other materials like metal, plastic, and concrete. It is also a natural insulator, absorbing sound rather than bouncing off. In the middle of a city, where noise is a constant, the city of New Plymouth in New Zealand created an outdoor respite area showcasing seating and planters made of Accoya.

Add ambiance or blend into any outdoor space with wood-lighting structures. Timber lighting structures can soften and diffuse light or make an area bold and dramatic. The Pike, located along the shoreline in Long Beach, features timber light poles along the shoreline strip.

The unpredictability of Fall and Winter weather is coming. Yet it tends to sneak up on us every year. Depending on where you live, fall and winter brings hard rains, heavy snow, winds, or brutally cold temperatures—all that can wreak havoc on your wood decking. Now is the time to prepare, including weatherproofing your wood deck.

While some wood decks (like Accoya) are more durable than others, it’s still prudent to ensure that any wood deck performs year after year. Here are some simple steps to weatherproof decking so you can enjoy it for years.

More preventive steps that are easy to do

Besides an annual cleaning, board replacement, and other maintenance, there are other complementary ways you can weatherproof and keep your wood deck lasting for years. Is water pooling anywhere on your deck? Consider adding gutter systems or downspouts to carry water off the deck and away from your foundation. To help shield your deck against your local environment from wind or rain, or snow, consider adding a retractable deck awning or a pergola with a waterproof cover. Try to rotate plant pots or furniture. Over time, leaving these items on your wood deck is a breeding ground for wet, moldy patches and can stain or discolor your wood deck.

Accoya provides a 25-year residential warranty, giving homeowners peace of mind that their decking is worth the investment. Decking boards made from Accoya wood are very durable and rarely need repairs. That said, take the time each summer to do a proper weatherproof decking inspection to keep ahead of any repairs, and always clean your Accoya decking regularly with just water and a brush.

To read more about our decking options, visit our website.

The deck, an extension of your home, is an essential space for homeowners to relax and entertain. As such, the house deck designs deserve the same attention to detail as the rest of your exterior. And that includes color combinations, finishes — natural or coated — and material choices.

Today, savvy homeowners are discovering new ways to mix materials on their home’s exterior, including color combinations. Contrasting your home’s colors with your decking can add visual interest, texture, and personality to a home’s exterior and create a unique, dynamic look that reflects your style.

Combining your home’s color with your new or existing deck offers cautionary advice. Here are some ‘how to choose deck color’ considerations and tips to think about.

Still trying to figure out what colors will work best to mix and match? We recommend getting paint samples and testing them in different lighting conditions. Your porch light can do good and bad wonders for a home’s color, as can the time of day. This will ensure how the color matches—or doesn’t—against your home’s exterior in various lighting situations to ensure a cohesive match before painting.

It’s not as arduous as you’d think, either. And, after you’re done, your home’s exterior is ready for the fall and beyond to perform better and keep its beautiful curb appeal.

As an Accoya customer, you know that the siding on your home is resistant to rotting, is likely to stay free of any visible distortion over its lifetime, and is a cost-effective choice for lasting performance. That’s a solid foundation for keeping your siding clean. However, dirt and debris can still accumulate over the years. Here are our six tips on how to clean wood siding and how to care for wood siding and maintain it for years to come.

Tip 2: Take a walk around your home (while enjoying that summer sunshine).

Inspect your Accoya siding and look for damaged, missing, or loose boards. Now is the time to repair any siding if needed.

Tip 3: Prep your siding and rinse.

Think of this step as painting a room. Once you’ve gathered your tools and inspected your siding, prepare your siding by removing any dirt or debris, or obstacles nearby. If you have landscaping, consider covering it with a light plastic sheet. Now it’s time to gently rinse your siding with your hose’s spray nozzle to remove dirt and any debris. (Note: never use a pressure washer for this step.

Tip 4: Scrub, clean, and rinse (again).

Fill your bucket with water with mild detergent, mix, and always test a small area to ensure your solution doesn’t damage or discolor your siding. After determining the solution is okay, gently scrub your wood siding and apply deep scrubs where dirt appears. Once your siding is cleaned, rinse it again with your garden hose.

Tip 5: Grab a beverage and allow the siding to dry.

Allow your wood siding to dry naturally with the summer sun, and enjoy your clean and maintained siding for another season.

For this ultra-modern home, Shou Sugi Ban is aesthetically beautiful, and the dark finish also achieves a striking, standout appeal. Utilizing charring as a surface treatment is a natural, sustainable, non-toxic alternative to treated wood that harms people and the environment.

This simple two-story home in Chicago used two shades of charred Accoya wood. The base is concrete, while the upper levels used an Accoya wood façade system in two different shades – grey and black. The façade mirrors the internal arrangement of the two floors. Not so simple anymore!

Accoya’s MATSU (from the Japanese term ‘pine tree’), by reSAWN Timber Co., provided a burnt look on the outer facing side of the tongue and groove cladding but also extreme durability, exterior weathering capabilities, FSC®-certification, exterior warranty, and the hardiness of Accoya for those brutal coastal conditions.

A deep gray, slatted Accoya wood covers the exterior, while charred, stained, sealed, and deep gray, slatted Accoya wood siding by reSAWN Timber Co. enhances the roofscape’s dynamic edges and arcs. Accoya was chosen for its durability, low maintenance, and distinctly contemporary appearance.

Who says fire stations have to be drab, concrete affairs?

This fire station in Aspen used Accoya Smooth Coastline by Delta Millworks, which provides splashes and accents to break up the fire station’s exteriors.

For this ultra-modern home, Shou Sugi Ban is aesthetically beautiful, and the dark finish also achieves a striking, standout appeal. Utilizing charring as a surface treatment is a natural, sustainable, non-toxic alternative to treated wood that harms people and the environment.

This simple two-story home in Chicago used two shades of charred Accoya wood. The base is concrete, while the upper levels used an Accoya wood façade system in two different shades – grey and black. The façade mirrors the internal arrangement of the two floors. Not so simple anymore!

The groundbreaking comes on the heels of the completion of the fourth acetylation reactor at Arnhem, the Netherlands plant in September. View this video to learn more about Reactor 4. The fourth reactor increases Arnhem’s Accoya production capacity by 33% and the Kingsport facility will be an additional 67% increase in capacity from 2022 volumes.

The groundbreaking comes on the heels of the completion of the fourth acetylation reactor at Arnhem, the Netherlands plant in September. View this video to learn more about Reactor 4. The fourth reactor increases Arnhem’s Accoya production capacity by 33% and the Kingsport facility will be an additional 67% increase in capacity from 2022 volumes.

When it comes to enhancing your outdoor space, it’s hard to beat a beautiful deck. If you’re considering one, you’ve got some decisions to make since decks come in all sizes, shapes and materials. Whether you’re looking to extend your living space with a back deck, enhance the lounge area around your pool, add a roof deck for relaxing or install a durable dock, here are four compelling reasons to opt for real wood as your decking material.

Whether you’re building a pool deck, a rooftop deck or a dock, real wood can be a durable choice, effective against rot and decay even when in contact with water. But it’s important to select the right type of wood: Pine and western red cedar are popular choices for wet areas like poolside areas and hot tubs. However, untreated wood can splinter (not ideal for those barefoot summer days by the water) and require regular upkeep to maintain its appearance.

Acetylated wood, on the other hand, is an extremely hard-wearing and easy-care alternative. It doesn’t require any coating and it resists rot, splintering and insect attacks, even in water. And unlike many other types of wood, it offers exceptional dimensional stability, which means the boards won’t visibly shrink or swell when subjected to rain, sun, heat and cold, so they’ll retain their smooth, tailored appearance for decades. Acetylated wood outlasts many other types of wood by decades, with manufacturers providing a 25-year in-ground or freshwater warranty and a 50-year above-ground warranty.

Responsibly sourced and manufactured wood decking is an environmentally friendly material so it’s better for the health of your family and Earth. If you’re interested in going green, look for real wood with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification for proof of sustainability. You’ll also want to check that it has been manufactured cleanly, without the use of toxic chemicals. One indication? Cradle to Cradle Gold (C2C Gold) certification, a globally recognized measure of a safer, more sustainable product.

There’s a good reason that real wood decks are popular in this country and elsewhere, it’s a combination of beauty and touch and feel. A real wooden deck is both lovely to look at (especially in the rain, where the water highlights colors and grain) and gorgeous to walk on. There are many millions of decks in this country with the majority of them being made of natural wood. One of the most popular wood species used in the US for decking has been, until recently, Ipe and the use of this wood forms the basis of this blog, in particular when compared to the new revolutionary wooden decking material, Accoya Color®

Ipe, Latin name Tabebuia serratifolia, is a large deciduous tree that is native to lowland rainforests in Central and South America. It’s a hardwood that resembles mahogany in appearance and is commonly found in Bolivia and in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil – it’s also located in Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay among other countries.

Of course, it’s almost too good to be true. No wood from the rainforest can be sustained for ever and there are plenty of reasons why Ipe is now becoming harder to source and is simply not sustainable. According to lumber website greenworldlumber.com, 18 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to deforestation and one of the victims is Ipe hardwood.

The tragedy here is that these beautiful trees, which can grow up to 150 feet in height, take between 80 to 100 years to grow before being felled, often illegally. Much of the documentation that accompanies imports of Ipe is forged and American consumers unwillingly and unknowingly buy this wood in a trade that is ruining natural rainforests.

Another major downside on the environmental side is the fact that Ipe trees grow very sparsely. It is said that in their natural rainforest habitats one Ipe tree is found in every 300,000 to 1,000,000 square feet. To get to this precious tree illegal loggers often cut down huge areas of rainforest that they have no interest in just to harvest one tree.

Because it’s so scarce these days it is a very expensive wood for both consumers and the installers too, it’s more expensive than redwood and cedar for example. Linked to the scarcity cost is the cost of installation. As it’s so incredibly tough it’s a difficult wood to work with, very unforgiving on tooling with some issues in getting fasteners to fix. All of these issues mean increased costs to consumers.

Accoya Color is the latest development in Accoya’s market offering, it’s the same hard-working and durable modified timber that is now colored a beautiful shade of grey throughout the wood. This means no additional treatments or coatings are needed, it’s ready to use straight out of the box. A great advantage for installers is that it’s a safe and reliable lumber to work with, tooling is protected which means lower costs for consumers and there’s less waste which is always good! It’s also quicker to install and holds fasteners better than Ipe.

It’s fair to say that a beautiful wood like Ipe has been overharvested for decades and this has made it unsustainable and very scarce. Accoya Color is the beautiful alternative that’s kinder to the environment. Now is the time for Accoya Color.

For more information and see projects made with Accoya Color go to www.accoya.com/products/decking/color-grey-decking/

There’s a good reason that real wood decks are popular in this country and elsewhere, it’s a combination of beauty and touch and feel. A real wooden deck is both lovely to look at (especially in the rain, where the water highlights colors and grain) and gorgeous to walk on. There are many millions of decks in this country with the majority of them being made of natural wood. One of the most popular wood species used in the US for decking has been, until recently, Ipe and the use of this wood forms the basis of this blog, in particular when compared to the new revolutionary wooden decking material, Accoya Color®

Ipe, Latin name Tabebuia serratifolia, is a large deciduous tree that is native to lowland rainforests in Central and South America. It’s a hardwood that resembles mahogany in appearance and is commonly found in Bolivia and in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil – it’s also located in Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay among other countries.

Of course, it’s almost too good to be true. No wood from the rainforest can be sustained for ever and there are plenty of reasons why Ipe is now becoming harder to source and is simply not sustainable. According to lumber website greenworldlumber.com, 18 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been lost to deforestation and one of the victims is Ipe hardwood.

The tragedy here is that these beautiful trees, which can grow up to 150 feet in height, take between 80 to 100 years to grow before being felled, often illegally. Much of the documentation that accompanies imports of Ipe is forged and American consumers unwillingly and unknowingly buy this wood in a trade that is ruining natural rainforests.

Another major downside on the environmental side is the fact that Ipe trees grow very sparsely. It is said that in their natural rainforest habitats one Ipe tree is found in every 300,000 to 1,000,000 square feet. To get to this precious tree illegal loggers often cut down huge areas of rainforest that they have no interest in just to harvest one tree.

Because it’s so scarce these days it is a very expensive wood for both consumers and the installers too, it’s more expensive than redwood and cedar for example. Linked to the scarcity cost is the cost of installation. As it’s so incredibly tough it’s a difficult wood to work with, very unforgiving on tooling with some issues in getting fasteners to fix. All of these issues mean increased costs to consumers.

Accoya Color is the latest development in Accoya’s market offering, it’s the same hard-working and durable modified timber that is now colored a beautiful shade of grey throughout the wood. This means no additional treatments or coatings are needed, it’s ready to use straight out of the box. A great advantage for installers is that it’s a safe and reliable lumber to work with, tooling is protected which means lower costs for consumers and there’s less waste which is always good! It’s also quicker to install and holds fasteners better than Ipe.

It’s fair to say that a beautiful wood like Ipe has been overharvested for decades and this has made it unsustainable and very scarce. Accoya Color is the beautiful alternative that’s kinder to the environment. Now is the time for Accoya Color.

For more information and see projects made with Accoya Color go to www.accoya.com/products/decking/color-grey-decking/

Once upon a time…

Decks throughout the US come in many forms, backyard, front porch, docks leading down to the river and so on. Redwood, Cedar and Ipe have been the traditional woods used in deck construction for hundreds of years. But, the first two require periodic treatment to seal and protect against moisture and of course the use of Ipe is now frowned upon due to potential illegal logging practices.  Until recently, there was little thought given as to what we now call the ‘provenance’ or source of the timber and also the long-term sustainability of this precious decking material.

The devastation of deforestation

Without getting too pessimistic, it’s worth noting that the clearing of tropical rainforests is still happening at an alarming rate, despite the best endeavors of governments around the world. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimates that the world has lost a billion acres of forest since 1990, mostly in Africa and South America. The Amazon Conservation group reports that destruction rose by 21 percent in 2020.  Much of this unregulated illegal activity may find its way into the back yards of innocent consumers.

Read more here on deforestation.

Accoya Color is ideal for timber decking projects in the US. Unlike slow-grown hardwoods it is sourced from sustainably sourced softwood that is FSC® certified with 100% proof of provenance. This natural softwood is then modified using our famous patented acetylation process that results in Accoya wood – in this decking product it is also now colored a beautiful grey through to the core…Accoya® Color. To achieve this, after acetylation, the newly modified timber goes through an extra dyeing process in a purpose-built facility using organic non-toxic color pigment.

Important elements for wooden decking are the durability of the material and the degree of maintenance required after installation, most of which involve chemical treatments of some kind or other. Accoya Color is just like its traditional Accoya stablemate in that it’s very low maintenance. There is no need for additional coatings (although it coats very well) and its grey color anticipates the natural silvering of wood when exposed to weathering over the years.

As Accoya Color comes with a warranty against rot and decay, even when installed in ground (a unique feature), it results in an eco-friendly timber that lasts for decades and consequently locks away carbon too. These wooden decks are 100% recyclable too after their decking life, further increasing their sustainable street-cred.

Accoya Color is available to buy in the US from a range of our official lumberyard partners that can be found on the link below.

When laying down or replacing a deck there are many options for the professional builder or homeowner to consider such as the deck board material to use, color, coatings, weathering, plus of course safety concerns such as possible slips and splinters. This is a big endeavor and likely to cost money and effort, so it pays to do your homework.

Sometimes there are too many choices in life, and this is especially true when you are looking to create or replace your deck. What material to choose, what color stain, if any, and perhaps considering other types of coatings too. So let’s narrow down the choices straight away by taking out the composite ‘wood’ decks that usually feature a mix of wood and plastic materials. These may last a long time, but nothing beats a natural real wood deck. So, in relation to wood decking, one of the major choice factors is durability, how long your chosen wood will last out in the open before rotting or decaying.

Accoya boards have been used for wood decking for years to great acclaim – let’s face it, thousands of architects, builders and landscape designers around the world can’t all be wrong! The boards combine the beauty of real wood with scientifically-proven durability that will last for years. Due to its incredible ability to withstand rot and decay, even in water, Accoya has become the standout choice for decking timber projects.

There is now a new addition to the Accoya family, Accoya Color, which has all the advantages of our traditional modified timber but with a beautiful and consistent grey color all the way through to the core. Accoya Color has gone through a patented color impregnation and fixation process at the dedicated Accsys Accoya Color plant.

Considering the return of wood to nature leads us on to the next key prediction, lifelong wellbeing. We must now be mindful of the entire lifecycle of the materials and building process and, beyond this, the health and wellbeing of those that work on and live in the buildings we erect. The World Green Building Council’s Six Principles for a Healthy, Sustainable Built Environment underlines the importance of the relationship between sustainable development and human wellbeing, detailing how harmony with nature and climate change action is linked to social values, including the health of construction workers.  Buildings made of wood have seen not only construction time, effort, and waste reduced by as much as 90%, but have had a positive impact on construction workers, whose exposure to the dust and toxic fumes of a regular building site is drastically lowered. Furthermore, wood buildings continue to have a positive impact on people throughout their lives as wood surfaces have been found to lower stress levels, improve attention and focus, and increase creativity. With the difficulty of the preceding two years, a movement towards design that benefits wellbeing is likely to be at the forefront of many minds.

Our final prediction is that net zero emission targets will no longer cut the mustard. With several governments and large companies committing to net zero targets, reducing emissions is a global target. However, with increasing pressure from those who recognize this may no longer be enough, we believe there will be a push towards climate positivity: removing more greenhouses gases from the atmosphere than are released. In an industry that is responsible for a large portion of global emissions, we think companies have started to notice the scale of the positive impact we could have if we pushed for these more ambitious targets.

When it comes to boosting your home’s curb appeal, great-looking siding is hard to beat. Wood is one of the most popular options, and for good reason. It adds warmth and natural appeal to your exterior and sits beautifully alongside other materials such as concrete and steel. While regular wood siding typically requires regular upkeep to maintain its appearance, acetylated wood offers an easy-care, highly durable alternative.

Read on to discover more about this siding material that’s gaining traction among architects, designers and homeowners alike.

“Accoya is a modified wood that aims to overcome the shortcomings of standard timber,” says Jocelyn Mahan, marketing manager at reSAWN Timber. “The modification process enhances the performance of the wood, resulting in improved longevity. Accoya is modified by a process called acetylation, a cutting-edge, patented technology that enables it to resist rot, defy the elements and stay strong for decades.”

This residence (Six Square House) in Bridgehampton, New York, features charred Accoya Ikigai wood siding, burnt in the ancient Japanese style of shou sugi ban, which gives the exterior a uniquely textured, charcoal-like appearance while enhancing its performance and minimizing upkeep.

Siding is a major, long-term investment in your home, so the material you choose needs to be able to stand up to whatever your environment throws at it — now and for decades to come. Accoya siding is resistant to rot, decay and insect damage (including termites). It’s a cost-effective choice for lasting performance. “It’s guaranteed for 50 years above ground and 25 years in ground or fresh water — its performance and properties are remarkable,” Mahan says.

Exposed to heat, humidity and rain, this waterfront home in White Stone, Virginia, is subject to more weather extremes than most, so a high-performance siding material was a must. The material also needed to create a warm, organic feel that complemented the home’s natural setting. Accoya Nigiri wood siding was chosen (alongside charred cypress) for its superior durability and earthy, coastal feel.

Siding presents a unique opportunity to get creative with the look of your exterior and wow visitors from the moment they pull up to your home. To achieve this, you’ll need a siding material that offers plenty of design flexibility.

Accoya comes in different board widths and finishes so you can easily mix up the look — and you can install them vertically, horizontally or even in patterns. It’s dimensionally stable so joints stay smooth for a tailored look. Add a colored coating, leave your Accoya wood untreated so it weathers naturally, or opt for the designer favorite seen in the home here: charred shou sugi ban. You can also combine it with other materials such as brick, steel, concrete or stone to create an eye-catching, layered look that you’ll appreciate every time you come home.

More: Learn more about Accoya’s range of long-life acetylated wood products by visiting our homepage here.

This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team.

When it comes to enhancing your outdoor space, it’s hard to beat a beautiful deck. If you’re considering one, you’ve got some decisions to make since decks come in all sizes, shapes and materials. Whether you’re looking to extend your living space with a back deck, enhance the lounge area around your pool, add a roof deck for relaxing or install a durable dock, here are four compelling reasons to opt for real wood as your decking material.

Whether you’re building a pool deck, a rooftop deck or a dock, real wood can be a durable choice, effective against rot and decay even when in contact with water. But it’s important to select the right type of wood: Pine and western red cedar are popular choices for wet areas like poolside areas and hot tubs. However, untreated wood can splinter (not ideal for those barefoot summer days by the water) and require regular upkeep to maintain its appearance.

Acetylated wood, on the other hand, is an extremely hard-wearing and easy-care alternative. It doesn’t require any coating and it resists rot, splintering and insect attacks, even in water. And unlike many other types of wood, it offers exceptional dimensional stability, which means the boards won’t visibly shrink or swell when subjected to rain, sun, heat and cold, so they’ll retain their smooth, tailored appearance for decades. Acetylated wood outlasts many other types of wood by decades, with manufacturers providing a 25-year in-ground or freshwater warranty and a 50-year above-ground warranty.

Responsibly sourced and manufactured wood decking is an environmentally friendly material so it’s better for the health of your family and Earth. If you’re interested in going green, look for real wood with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification for proof of sustainability. You’ll also want to check that it has been manufactured cleanly, without the use of toxic chemicals. One indication? Cradle to Cradle Gold (C2C Gold) certification, a globally recognized measure of a safer, more sustainable product.

Natural appeal aside, wood cladding gives you endlessly creative ways to express your personal style. Take this three-story office building designed and occupied by architectural firm Dillon Kyle Architects in Houston, for example. It’s clad in 2,500 Accoya boards that have an abstract leaf-like pattern carved into the wood. The pattern references the oak trees that line the neighborhood, and it adds not just texture and softness to the modern structure but a unique personal touch.

“The Accoya wood boards are unsealed and allowed to weather over time,” says Peter Klein, associate principal architect at Dillon Kyle Architects. “The idea was to use a material where you couldn’t tell where the patterns started and stopped — just one big continuous object.”

As the wood siding would play a pivotal role in the look and performance of the building, the firm took their time choosing the right one. “Even left untreated, it didn’t warp or mildew or mold, and that let us know we were on the right path,” Klein says. “The neutral gray tones coupled with its long-term durability, resistance to rot and insects made Accoya wood the ideal material for this project.”

Running slender boards vertically, as the architect has done here, is a clever design technique for making a low roof or ceiling appear higher. You can use this strategy both outside your home with wood siding and inside with wood wall lining.

If room height is not a concern, consider mixing vertical and horizontal patterns for added texture and interest inside or outside your home.

More: Learn more about Accoya’s range of sustainable, acetylated wood products by visiting our homepage here.

This story was written by the Houzz Sponsored Content team.

If you’re looking for sustainable home architecture, Australia is not a bad place to start looking. This beautiful family beach house in Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, uses Accoya wood not only for its cladding, but for the decking, windows, and doors frames, too. The visual effect of this is a seamless example of indoor-outdoor living, that merges the house and the garden in an effortless show of simplicity, practicality, and elegance.  

Accoya naturally weathers to the silver-grey shade seen here, but the wood used on Portsea Beach House was coated with a bespoke stain to give the appearance of weathered Accoya from the off. Not only does this enhance the natural beauty of the materials, but their stability means that the coating will stay looking pristine for longer, extending the life of one of the most striking eco sustainable homes Australia has seen. 

You would be hard pressed to find many eco-friendly sustainable homes with a better view than this. Built for German professional surfer Flo Jung, he wanted an eco-home that would be resilient to the constant exposure to the sun and sea air of the South African coast. Built by Jung himself, he chose Accoya to fulfil these requirements, safe in the knowledge that he could return worry-free to his crack- and splinter-resistant decking from many a barefoot surfing outing. Accoya decking is guaranteed to last for 25 years, and timber siding above ground for 50, so this surfer’s paradise will continue contributing to the beauty and sustainability of this landscape for years to come. 

Grand designs are not only so because of their stature, but some through their integration of new technologies and conformation with cutting edge science. These two Passive Houses in Belgium are one such example of grandeur without the dimensions, proving that sustainable tiny homes are great in significance, if not in size. 

Accoya is used here for the windows and façade, offering enhanced insulation to fully satisfy the energy conservation requirements of the specification. Furthermore, recent carbon footprint research has shown that our windows are carbon negative over their full life cycle, contributing considerably to the fulfilment of Passive House standards and ensuring that these houses are significantly more environmentally friendly than those have uPVC, aluminium, or unsustainably sourced hardwood windows. 

Much like the Cabin by the Sea, this private residence is a striking example of how the outstanding durability and stability of Accoya can support exciting architecture. The large windows and doors here are raking in places and often meet at obtuse angles, build requirements made possible by the unique qualities of Accoya wood. Tested and trusted not to visibly swell, shrink, or distort, these eye-catching shapes will continue to be both remarkable and functional for lifetimes to come. 

This ominous backdrop is a stark reminder of the drastic weather conditions Accoya can withstand. It performs so highly in these circumstances, in fact, that both the owner and architect of this property chose to use Accoya not only for the windows and terrace, as originally planned, but additionally for all applications throughout the home, including the façade, interior doors, indoor and outdoor furniture, terrace, garage door and railings. The result is a wonder in Accoya, a construction that persists through whatever Romania’s extreme climate can throw at it, meshing unparalleled structural integrity with sustainable natural beauty. 

This lake house in Okoboji, Iowa was designed to preserve the existing mature trees in its grounds whilst illuminating expansive views of the lake from the road. The natural look of Accoya allowed for these views to be brought to life, as if they were painted on the side of the house itself, whilst blending effortlessly into the surrounding nature. The NIGIRI Shou Sugi Ban charred Accoya used here is designed and manufactured by reSAWN TIMBER co. and can be used for both interior and exterior wall cladding and, as each and every Accoya cladding panel is made from FSC® certified timber that’s fully sustainable, this house not only blends into the natural aesthetic of the area but also into the ethos of eco-living.  

A week earlier, the company was also listed as a runner up on the shortlist for the IR Society Best Practice Award for Best ESG Communication. This marks a year of substantial progress in Accsys’ development of its Environmental, Social and Governance strategy and reporting: making sure the growing positive environmental impact of increasing its supply of products is matched with increasingly improved performance and transparency as a responsible and ethical business.

Rob Harris, CEO, said:
“I’m delighted to see the hard work of our talented and committed colleagues recognized and rewarded by the people and organizations leading our industry. I want to say ‘congratulations and thank you’ to everyone who helps make this possible – every single person and role in our business contributes to and deserves credit for these achievements. Our fantastic customers, distributors, and architects, specifiers, joiners and builders who make great use of our products every day are a big part of our success too. Thank you all!”

In London on 25th November 2021, the Wood Awards winners were announced.

Held at the Building Centre, 8 projects were awarded after successfully being chosen during the rigorous judging process.

The prestigious awards celebrate excellence in architecture and product design in wood.

Accoya wood was used in two winning projects and in one highly commended project, details below.

See more details and the full list of 2021 winners here.

Accoya used for internal joinery and interior at this property in London.