This illustrated talk contextualises Tewkesbury’s remarkable collection of timber-framed buildings within a wider history of timber construction in England. Beginning with the medieval craft of carpentry, the talk explains how timber framing shaped towns, streets, and everyday life, linking buildings directly to forests, tools, and local skills.

Using Tewkesbury as a case study, the talk looks closely at how timber-framed buildings were made, adapted, repaired, and reused over centuries, and why so many survive today. These buildings are presented not simply as historic artefacts, but as living structures that reveal how towns grew and changed over time.

The talk then brings this tradition into the present, showing how timber construction is being reinterpreted through experimental contemporary projects at Hooke Park and Westonbirt Arboretum. Through workshops, community buildings, and exploratory student projects, timber is explored as a sustainable, adaptable material rooted in landscape and craft.

By connecting Tewkesbury’s historic buildings with current cutting edge architectural practice, the talk offers a fresh perspective on timber framing as a continuing tradition that still has much to teach us about building, place, and long-term care.

Biography:

Piers Taylor is an Architect, Professor of Knowledge Exchange in Architecture at UWE and the author of ‘Learning from the Local’ which argues that architecture gains meaning, resilience, and relevance not by representing place through style or tradition, but by working relationally with local materials, ecologies, cultures, and communities through processes of care, participation, and ongoing adaptation. He is also founder of Invisible Studio, a multi-award-winning architecture practice that has been published widely and internationally, operating through collaboration, experimentation, research and education. Invisible Studio’s work includes the major cultural centre ‘East Quay’ designed for the social enterprise ‘Onion Collective’ as well as multiple experimental projects for Westonbirt Arboretum and the Architectural Association’s Hooke Park in Dorset. He studied originally in Sydney, and lives between a 100-acre woodland in Somerset and an Olive Grove in Greece.

Date and Time:

Friday 19th Friday

11am

Location:

The George Watson Memorial Hall, 65 Barton St, Tewkesbury GL20 5PX

Tickets:

£20