OXFORD Brookes University has secured £5 million of funding to document endangered wooden buildings across the world.

The university’s School of Architecture will host the programme, which aims to provide funding to researchers, while raising awareness of wooden architecture around the world.

Funding for the project, which is due to start in January, will allow researchers to create an open-access digital resource, to document endangered wooden building traditions and preserve records.

The project is being spearheaded by Marcel Vellinga, professor of Anthropology of Architecture, and Aylin Orbasli, reader in Architectural Regeneration.

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Mr Vellinga said: “We are delighted to have been selected to oversee this project, which will be transformative in documenting and raising the profile of endangered wooden buildings worldwide.

“Throughout time, wood has been an important building material.

“However, extensive and rapid global deforestation, combined with competition from industrially manufactured materials, threatens the continuity and survival of many wooden buildings.

“As a knock-on effect, the carpentry traditions and ways of life associated with them have diminished.

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“There is an urgent need to document the endangered wooden architectural heritage, before much of it disappears.

“I hope the results of the programme will provide a tangible legacy which can be accessed by all.

“It will hopefully also provide inspiration to a new generation of architects and engineers who are rediscovering timber as an environmentally sustainable and low-carbon building material.”

Funding for the Endangered Wooden Architecture Programme (EWAP) has come from the Arcadia Fund, a charitable organisation which makes grants to preserve endangered culture and nature, and will be delivered in collaboration with CyArk, which digitally records and archives cultural heritage.

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A panel of experts, consisting of leading scholars and practitioners in the fields of wooden architecture, architectural conservation and digital heritage documentation, will decide on how to allocate funds.

Projects that focus on documenting wooden architecture that is endangered because of neglect, conflict or environmental effects will be financially supported.

Meanwhile, if a strong case can be made for the documentation of at-risk bamboo, palm, reed or grass traditions, those will also be backed.

EWAP will pay special attention to projects in parts of the world where documentation is less developed and funding support is more difficult to obtain.

Projects that do receive funding will produce a range of data, including 3D models, drawings, plans, maps, oral histories, and other forms of written documentation.