James Jones & Sons sponsored the ‘Private Housing Project of the Year’ category at the Structural Timber Awards earlier this week.

The award ceremony took place at the National Conference Centre, Birmingham and featured compelling examples of what can be achieved using the most natural and sustainable of materials. This year, the Structural Timber Awards was a celebration of not only outstanding projects and inspiring individuals, but the coming together of an industry after many months in isolation. Construction professionals were once again able to congregate at this prestigious awards ceremony to celebrate architectural achievements and engineering ingenuity in timber construction.

The ‘Private Housing Project of the Year’ category was awarded to Innovaré Systems for its ‘Little Kelham’ project, which celebrated double award success, having also been awarded the ‘SIPs Project of the Year’. Completed over five years, Little Kelham was designed to be a catalyst for change and utilises Innovaré’s acclaimed offsite technology.

This mixed development of houses, apartment blocks, shops, cafés and social spaces had to meet challenging design criteria. In addition to being exceptionally sustainable and energy efficient ensuring they were in line with Passivhaus guidelines, the development on the site of a former steelworks needed to preserve reminders of Sheffield’s industrial heritage. An innovative construction method and highly integrated design and build capability were essential to offer the architects the flexibility they needed

Little Kelham has been named in the Sunday Times’ ‘Best Places to Live in the UK’ guide, and appeared in a list of the '20 Hippest Places in the UK' in The Times as well as being crowned residential winner of the RICS Yorkshire & Humber Awards.

The awards were hosted by Mark Durden-Smith, who ensured that the celebrations were not only inspirational, but also highly entertaining. With 16 categories, nearly 250 entrants and over 60 companies shortlisted, the Structural Timber Award judges had an unenviable task.

A huge well done and congratulations to everyone involved!