Wednesday, December 10, 2025
The shift towards a genuinely sustainable built environment gained substantial momentum in October, as the not-for-profit organisation Built by Nature (BbN) unveiled the winners of its prestigious Built by Nature Prize 2025 at its annual summit in London. Dedicated to accelerating the responsible use of timber and bio-based materials, BbN celebrated six pioneering winning projects and six commended buildings that are setting a new global standard for sustainable design and construction.
These trailblazing projects are not merely architectural achievements; they are tangible blueprints for a regenerative future. Their significance will be elevated on the world stage at the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, where they will be the focus of the new documentary film, ‘Our Future: Built by Nature’. Produced by Open Planet Studios, the film features global voices on sustainability, including Sir David Attenborough and COP30 President Marina Silva, cementing timber construction’s role as a critical climate solution.
The Built by Nature Prize 2025, a global award for responsible timber construction, attracted nearly 400 applications from 39 countries and jurisdictions over its two-month entry period. This substantial global engagement underscores the growing recognition of timber and bio-based materials as vital alternatives to high-carbon conventional construction.
All applicants were rigorously assessed against BbN’s Principles for Responsible Timber Construction—a robust, global framework endorsed by over 260 leading organisations. To score highly, entries had to provide comprehensive details on the project’s construction materials, certified sourcing, embodied carbon reduction, and clear reuse strategies. The five core Principles guiding this assessment are:
This framework ensures that the increasing demand for wood is met with environmental and social responsibility, fostering a thriving, circular, and low-carbon construction value chain from “forest to frame.” The Principles themselves were officially launched at COP30 in November, further highlighting the policy and industry alignment being driven by the Prize.
The judging panel, chaired by Built by Nature CEO Paul King, included renowned industry figures such as architect and host of C4’s Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud.
McCloud commented on the transformative nature of the winners: “These projects challenge outdated assumptions and show that timber is not only safe and sustainable, but also socially transformative. From fire stations to social housing, they prove that wood can be the material of resilience, beauty, and bold innovation.”
The projects showcase the vast and varied potential of mass timber across multiple building typologies and geographies. For instance, winners included a conservation project in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a re-imagined brick factory in Pristina, Kosovo, and a resilient public school in flood-prone Porto Alegre, Brazil. These examples demonstrate that sustainable timber is a viable and powerful material for both new builds and adaptive reuse in any climate or context.
A notable winner from the UK was the Black and White Building in Shoreditch, East London. Designed by Waugh Thistleton Architects, this seven-storey, 4,480 sq m workspace stands as one of the tallest engineered timber office buildings in Central London, completed in 2022.
The project is a powerful case study in low-carbon commercial construction. By using a fully engineered timber superstructure, including the core and staircases, the building dramatically limited its embodied carbon to just 165 kgCO2e/m2, significantly below the industry’s 2030 targets. Its success with structural elements like PEFC-certified cross-laminated timber (CLT) and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) demonstrates that sustainable timber construction can meet the highest demands of the capital’s commercial sector.
Among the commended UK projects was Paradise SE11 in Lambeth, London, another six-storey mass timber office building, and the Durley Chine Environmental Hub located on Bournemouth’s Blue Flag beach, highlighting timber’s versatility from city centres to coastal environments.
In his closing remarks, Paul King encapsulated the overarching mission of the prize and the organisation: “This Prize celebrates the organisations driving real change around the world, transforming construction for a regenerative future. The ambition of this year’s winners and commendations speaks volumes about the progress being made in timber construction globally. These are not just buildings; they are bold, real-world demonstrations of what’s possible when design, material, and purpose align with the Principles for Responsible Timber Construction.”
The collective success of the Built by Nature Prize 2025 winners—from groundbreaking office blocks in London to climate-resilient community structures—provides undeniable evidence that the bio-based construction movement is maturing from niche practice to global necessity. As the spotlight shifts to COP30 in Belém, this new generation of timber architecture is poised to influence policymakers, investors, and developers worldwide, proving that building with nature is the most responsible, resilient, and innovative path forward for the building industry.
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Tags: bio-based materials, Built by Nature Prize, CLT, Embodied Carbon, engineered timber, London Office Building, mass timber, Responsible Timber Construction, sustainable construction
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