Sustainable Staffordshire Youth Forum July 05

Sustainable construction methods

The Sustainable Staffordshire Youth Forum for 2005 was held at the Forest of Mercia Innovation Centre, Chasewater Country Park, Brownhills on Friday 8 July 2005. The Innovation Centre demonstrates sustainable construction techniques within its constituent buildings and teams of Year 10 pupils (i.e. young people of around 15 years of age) from 8 secondary schools across the County of Staffordshire learnt and saw how this was done from the centre’s manager, Graham Hunt, the architect of the Centre’s main buildings, Richard Paynter and from a team of skilled demonstrators – who helped the young people experiment with some of the techniques – which was led by Simon Winder of South Birmingham College. The pictures below give a small flavour of what there was to see and what happened. There is more to see on the Sustainable Staffordshire website.

The curved wood panelled front of the Forest of Mercia Innovation Centre	Modern workshop units built using traditional wooden frame construction methods
Part of the Innovation Centre’s wood burning heating system, using fuel produced by sustainable forestry	An interior view of the type of unit illustrated above. The panels are a modern version of wattle and daub.
The ‘Green Roof’, which features sedum plants, seen from inside the Innovation Centre	The ‘Green Roof’ viewed from the rear of the Innovation Centre
Young people attending Sustainable Staffordshire’s Youth Forum 2005 learning some of the construction skills at first hand	The Chair of Sustainable Staffordshire doing the introduction (photo courtesy of Staffordshire County Council)

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