Our very own marketing manager, Timea Cooper, discusses how she discovered a little about what makes an architect tick!

The day when I sat on the judging panel of the popular, annual West Fraser RIBA competition dawned and I travelled to London to sit and ponder entries alongside an impressive and inspiring group of journalists and architects. As you may know, we have sponsored this competition for eight years; and I took my seat as a judge for the first time. It is rare that I sit in front of a group and chew the cud with them about so many different ideas! And I learnt a lot!

I learnt that architects are full of ideas; they think big and come up with wild, fantastic creations which I would have never thought of. As the Marketing Manager here at West Fraser (trading as Norbord), I work with a lively team of colleagues and agencies and we are always on the lookout for new ideas. This year we received many and making a decision was extremely difficult.

The ping pong of our discussions was great! The very essence of the competition is to encourage imaginative schemes and buildings – this year, it’s called The Retreat where architects are asked to imagine a modern-day escape from the world.

I found myself, initially, thinking “that won’t work”, “I’d love to visit a place like that one day”, “how will they do that in real life?”.  Architects are creative, thought-provoking and, for a project like this, do not need to worry too much about the fact it may never be built!  Fantastic minds create amazing structures, and I loved experiencing the talent and imagination oozing from them.

And the juxtaposition interested me greatly.

In the real world, when an architect is designing a building which will stand for years and be inhabited by many, the considerations are different. It has to work and products, such as ours, have to be on the radar (my job!).

In a nutshell, I widened my mind and now have more of an idea how to address the brilliant men and women who design our world! Equally, I am stronger now in my technical knowledge and questioning so am looking forward to working with our team and looking at how we can inspire the architects now!