Revolutionary timber product Accoya® is to be featured in the first ever ‘Sustainable Small Gardens’ category at this year’s RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show in July.
Because of Accoya’s credentials for sustainability, durability and dimensional stability, it is the natural choice for cladding and decking in ‘The Rain Chain’ garden, which features a house and urban front garden set in a flood risk zone.
The house wall backdrop to the garden has been constructed & detailed by Sussex-based timber and joinery manufacturing business Westgate Joinery, and has been designed to be fully recycled after the show. It will be re-built as a Summerhouse with a green roof, incorporating the company’s Accoya® casement window which carries an ‘A’ rating under the BFRC (British Fenestration Rating Council) Energy Rating Scheme.
The Summerhouse will be sold by online auction to the highest bidder, with 50% of the proceeds donated to Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres. Prospective bidders can obtain full details and place their offer at www.westgatejoinery.co.uk/summerhouse.htm from 12 June 2009. The closing date for bids is 12th July 2009.
The Rain Chain garden is co-sponsored by Hadlow College, one of the UK’s leading land-based colleges and the holder of numerous medals and awards and is designed by ex-student Wendy Allen. “Accoya® was the clear winner when choosing a timber product for this garden”, Wendy explains. “It is FSC approved, has a Class 1 durability rating with a 60 year life expectancy, is non-toxic, fully recyclable, does not warp or swell – and looks great. Westgate Joinery have provided us with a unique feature built to a superb standard.”
David Pattenden, Managing Director of Westgate Joinery, says that “Accoya® is the culmination of years of extensive engineering, product testing, field testing and market review by leading scientists whose aim was to create a more robust and sustainable material’’. He adds: "The reaction of users and specifiers to this exceptional material has been very positive and an appearance at Hampton Court will raise awareness of this revolutionary modified wood. With its impeccable environmental and performance credentials, we firmly believe Accoya® is set to become the industry standard for exterior applications, and was an obvious choice for this project."
Hadlow College’s director of finance and resources, Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, comments “We are delighted to be co-sponsors of a garden that is featuring in the new ‘Sustainable Small Gardens’ category – especially as the designer is an ex-student. We are proud to be a leader in ‘sustainable development’ and passionately advocate the importance of fulfilling the widely used definition of sustainability: ‘development to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ ”.
To see Accoya® in action, tickets for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (7th – 12th July 2009) can be purchased from www.rhs.org.uk.
EXTRA INFORMATION FOR EDITORS:
About Accoya®:
The house wall and green roof are manufactured by sponsor Westgate Joinery using Accoya® timber. This revolutionary solid-wood ‘specie’ is sourced from fast-growing sustainable forests, has zero toxicity and the dimensional stability and durability provided exceeds even that of the best tropical hardwoods. Imagine a wood that can replace increasingly scarce tropical hardwoods, toxic-treated woods and less sustainable materials for use in a variety of both new and existing outdoor applications. Imagine wood that will act as a better carbon sink during its extended lifespan and, at the end, can be safely recycled. Such a wood does exist: it is Accoya® – a remarkable ‘new wood species’ that can be used without compromise See http://www.accoya.com and http://www.westgatejoinery.co.uk/Accoya.htm for more information.
About the garden:
- The green roof can absorb considerable rainfall (up to 70%) and delay the time it takes for rainwater to reach the main storm drains.
- Excess rainwater from the roof flows down a rain chain feature (used in place of a downpipe) then to a ‘rain garden’ where it gradually soaks away.
- A water butt affords storage of water for garden use.
- The green roof features drought tolerant plants that will benefit butterflies, bees and other forms of wildlife thus increasing the biodiversity needed to secure a sustainable future for threatened species.
- Plants in the rain garden have been specifically selected for their ability to tolerate short periods of both waterlogging and drought.
- Much of the construction involves reclaimed materials which include the railway lines and rusted steel used for the planters and water butt.
- The practical parking space within the garden is occupied by an environmentally friendly small electric car
-
About Wendy Allen (Designer):
Wendy studied Garden Design at Hadlow College. Her company, Wendy Allen Designs based in NW London, specialises in the design of sustainable gardens, green roofs and straw-bale buildings. The Rain Chain is Wendy’s second garden design at an RHS show. Last year she co-designed the ‘Breathing Space.....Thinking Space’ garden for the charity Samaritans which achieved a Bronze Medal. Wendy’s background includes work in Theatre Stage Management, Graphic Design & Interactive Media – a combination which provides creative and practical inspiration for her innovative gardens.
Quote 1: “Green roofs have so many benefits in urban areas and are just one example of how individual homeowners making small changes can make a big difference: greening a city; reducing pollution, increasing biodiversity and reducing the risk of flash flooding.”
About Westgate Joinery:
Westgate Joinery is a trading division of East Sussex based joinery and timber group Specialist Joinery (South) Ltd (http://specialistjoinery-south.co.uk). They design, manufacture and install high quality joinery and timber products including windows, doors, cladding, decking, conservatories, sliding and folding door systems in a range of timber species and are the first company to be able to offer a casement window manufactured in Accoya® with a 50 year guarantee against rot which has an ‘A’ rating under the BFRC Energy Rating Scheme (http://www.bfrc.org)
Westgate Joinery, one of the first companies in the UK to use the revolutionary Accoya®, has been involved in a number of high profile projects using this material including the Channel 4 programme ‘The House that Kevin Built’ in conjunction with Kevin McCloud and the Grand Designs team.
About Hadlow College:
Hadlow College’s Garden Design Department has produced numerous students who have gone on to win medals at RHS shows as well as significant design competitions on the Continent. The college exhibited gardens at RHS Hampton Court in 2006 (CaCO3) and 2007 (Full Frontal). Winners of Silver and Gold Medals respectively, both gardens were designed by ex-Hadlow students Heidi Harvey and Fern Alder. The inspiration for the gardens was ‘sustainability’. ‘CaCO3’ featured the regeneration of a once derelict chalk quarry – an important factor because the chalk downs in Kent, where the college is located, are seriously threatened by development thus endangering numerous species of wildlife. ‘Full Frontal’ illustrated that it is possible to have plants and flowers in a front garden - as well as parking space - without need for any concrete or other impermeable materials.
Hadlow College is proud to be a leader in ‘sustainable development’ and is a passionate advocate for the need to fulfil the widely used definition of the term - ‘development to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. Sustainable development, a guiding principle at Hadlow, is built into the teaching in every faculty and is practised and managed as a priority in the day-to-day running of the college. Hadlow liaises with numerous public and private enterprises to provide information and advice on subjects associated with sustainable development. The college offers one of the few degree programmes in Sustainable Land Management so far available on the UK.
Contact details.
WENDY ALLEN: Wendy Allen Designs Limited – info@wendyallendesigns.co.uk Telephone: 07970 674615
HADLOW COLLEGE: Hadlow, Tonbridge, Kent TN11 OAL. www.hadlow.ac.uk Telephone: 01732 850551.
WESTGATE JOINERY: www.westgatejoinery.co.uk dave@westgatejoinery.co.uk
Telephone: 07802 264729.
PRESS INFORMATION, IMAGES, ARRANGEMENTS FOR INTERVIEWS:
David Pattenden 07802 264729 dave@westgatejoinery.co.uk.
OR
Pat Crawford: 01622 817319 – 07771 635684 patjournalist@waitrose.com or pat.crawford@hadlow.ac.uk or via Hadlow College: 01732 850551.
