David Douglas Pavilion

The David Douglas Pavilion was designed as a tribute to the celebrated botanist and is the centrepiece in the Explorers Garden at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Perthshire, where Douglas was born.

The original design brief conceived by the Scottish Forest Industries Cluster, was for the building to be influenced by organic shapes, most predominantly, as you might expect, the Douglas fir.

The symmetry and shape of a Douglas fir seed is echoed in the shingled, stooped roof line, designed by architect Robin Baker.

Whilst giving the gardens an attractive and eye-catching structure, the building also showcases and promotes the innovative use of home grown timber.

In a fitting tribute to his work, the entire superstructure is made from timber that was grown and milled in Scotland. The structural frame, decking, wall framing and viewing deck are all untreated Douglas fir, the roof shingles larch, windows and doors from laminated oak and ash and elm floor boards.

While the primary internal members are milled into conventional rectangular and square form, the perimeter posts are left in the round.  The round-wood posts are jointed into a complex double curvature top plate with traditional mortise and tenon connections – a departure from conventional Western European scribe rule framing and a nod to the North American origins of the timbers and travels of David Douglas himself.

The Pavilion won a Wood Award in 2003