Architecture firm Hawkins\Brown used two types of engineered timber to build this swimming facility at a school in Surrey, England. Located at the City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead, the swimming pool building boasts an exposed timber frame that incorporates windows looking out onto the surrounding woodland. Hawkins\Brown chose materials and construction methods to complement the building’s natural setting. The primary structure is a portal frame constructed from glue-laminated timber – an engineered wood creating from glueing together several sheets of wood in parallel. This is braced with cross-laminated timber panels – a similar but even stronger form of wood, made with layers positioned at right angles to one another.