Barbados National Performing Arts Centre, Phase 1
Timber Design-Build
Four Months to Design and Build an All-wood Performing Arts Pavilion
The first phase of the Barbados National Performing Arts Pavilion opened on 29 August with a full performance of Mansa Musa at Carifesta XV. Designed by Adjaye Associates, the pavilion is a temporary venue built directly onto the permanent foundations of the future Barbados National Performing Arts Centre, Phase II. This strategy provides Barbadians with an immediate cultural space while advancing the long-term vision for a national performing arts hub and promoting low-carbon architecture in the Caribbean.
As the Centre’s structural engineer and timber contractor, StructureCraft conceptualized an all-wood solution for the pavilion - showing how architecture can both be sustainable and civically ambitious. Built on the foundations of the permanent building, the ‘meanwhile use’ structure minimizes waste, extends material life, and sets a new benchmark for environmentally responsible design by effectively creating two buildings out of the same material. The sloped perimeter canopies are designed to be reconfigured as roof structure for the project’s Phase II. Slender cables tension the sloped columns to the foundations, creating a lateral bracing system designed for hurricane-force wind loads.
The pavilion marks the first step toward the permanent Barbados Performing Arts Centre, set to open in 2026 and also engineered by StructureCraft. The existing timber frame and foundations will remain in place, forming the core of the 85,000-square-foot performance centre, which will feature a 1,500-seat auditorium, rehearsal studios, public terraces, and cultural amenities.
Photography credit Peter Maier.
World-first All Wood Truss With Japanese Joinery
Amidst a constrained 4-month concept to completion window, our team took on another challenge: achieving an 80-foot clear-span with an all-wood truss, no metal, no screws. Structural optimization transformed the typical arrangement of tension/compression webs in a truss into a geometry which promoted pure compression - a truss reimagined as an arch. Using ancient and modern timber joinery, each connection is carefully engineered and detailed for bending, compression, and tension. The single bottom chord splice transfers 160,000lb of tension using pure wood tenons. The top chord is spliced with 3-foot deep okkake-daisen-tsugi joints scaled beyond historical precedent, transferring both bending and shear.
The truss was required to be 20 ft deep architecturally, and it is the visual barrier between the seating area in the theater and the stage. The truss conceals all the stage equipment while providing a surface on which to mount speakers. It also suspends a fire curtain from behind it (for Phase II). Given the architectural constraints, we sought to optimize a structure which made use of the structural depth available, and thus enabled an exploration in materiality which may not have been possible with a shallower truss.
Why this truss:
To demonstrate structural efficiency when optimizing for use of timber joinery. The arrangement of webs prioritizes compression (easiest to transfer with wood), and uses secondary inner webs for low tensions under hurricane net uplift.
To help preserve and extend traditional joinery techniques to today's mass timber structures. Wood-wood joinery is often both the most cost effective and efficient way to transfer loads, removing expensive steel pre-engineered hangars. We have invented timber joints for millennia, but often forget past innovations.
To inspire engineers to look beyond the heavy steel connection solutions we often see in timber structures. Steel is often required of course, and provides ductility, but should not be used reflexively.
Having been tasked to engineer and deliver a national landmark on a near-impossible 4 month design and construction schedule, the result is a tribute to the mindset engrained in master builders of times past.
Diagrams by StructureCraft