James Latham’s depot at Yate has supplied a community project with Accoya – the high performance, modified and long life wood – that has transformed an abandoned, overgrown area in Bristol into a thriving pocket park designed for storytelling.
The Accoya was used to create an eye-catching piece of sculpture in the form of a snaking bench which was designed by architecture students from UWE (University of the West of England) and was made by contemporary furniture makers Ooma Design of Corsham (oomadesign.com)
Through consultation with local residents in Bedminster, it was decided that sharing stories is a group activity that can be enjoyed by all ages and provide a platform for communication.
Dr Rachel Sara, Associate Professor in Architecture at UWE commented, “The team wanted to create a piece of sculpture, that when placed on site, transformed the area into a space tailored for storytelling. The sculpture is expressed as a continuous curved bench containing and sheltering a focused story circle and the seating can accommodate small groups and individuals.
“It has been a really rewarding project and we are extremely grateful to James Latham at Yate for having supplied Accoya wood. Accoya is an extensively proven and high performance wood and because of the modification technique that is used, it is ideal for outdoor use and challenging applications. I know both the students and the team at Ooma Design have been really impressed with it.”
Andy Duffin, Operations Director of Lathams Limited said, “By creating this park, the team has inspired the community to engage with and maintain a unique area of green space within the urban street scape of Bedminster which otherwise would have remained an overgrown, disused space that was being used to store building waste. We were delighted to help and to see how Accoya had been used in such and imaginative and original application.”
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