Timber-first, climate-friendly, and affordable, this housing project in East London – designed by Al-Jawad Pike with engineers Momentum – has been declared Great Britain’s best new homes at the Wood Awards 2025.
Chowdhury Walk is deliberately climate conscious, right from the foundations – where stone columns minimise the amount of concrete required throughout the walls – where you find cross laminated timber (CLT) – to the roof – which is affixed with solar panels.
Part of a programme by Hackney Council to develop small, underused sites and address the housing crisis, Chowdhury Walk transforms a plot once occupied by garages and ad-hoc car parking into homes which add to the fabric of the local community.
As an infill development of 11 houses, seven made for social rent and four for private sale, Chowdhury Walk stands between two existing terraces and their gardens as a powerful showcase of a new standard for terraced housing.
Each home is rotated slightly to create a varied streetscape and privacy for residents, while red-brick cladding together with timber structural elements – exposed at points within the interiors – demonstrate the beauty inherent to both materials.
Panelised cross-laminated timber (CLT) from Egoin, carefully assembled on site by Neilcott Construction together with triple glazed windows and solar panels, has allowed the project team to create affordable homes which are great for people and planet.
“Chowdhury Walk is a good model for social housing. It is a carefully thought through scheme that has created a new street with elegant contemporary facades. The high level of design is carried through indoors, where the houses are well organized, providing generous light and living space with good sized hallways and storage,” said Jim Greaves, lead judge of the Wood Awards and Principal of Hopkins Architects.
“The architects chose timber for the structure and have delivered a showcase for the use of CLT in high-quality social housing in London. The project sets a precedent for future sustainable, council-led schemes.”
The Wood Awards building judges, a team of world-leading professionals, visited all 20 buildings shortlisted before deciding the winners, in one of the UK’s most rigorous assessments for any architecture competition.
You can find out more about all of the 2025 Wood Award winners by visiting www.woodawards.com.
As a not-for-profit competition, the Wood Awards can only happen with collaborative industry sponsorship. A huge thank you for continued support from The Carpenters’ Company, American Hardwood Export Council and Timber Development UK.