20 years a’growing for Cygnum Timber Frame

CONGRATULATIONS and a happy 20th birthday to Cygnum Timber Fame, Macroom. The company, which was established in 1997 initially employing 30 staff, and based in Macroom is one of Ireland’s leading award-winning timber frame processing companies.

It spans 20 years of making timber frames for houses, homes (both one-off and in volume), hotels, apartment blocks, care homes, schools and other public buildings.

The company now employs over 130, mostly local people from Macroom and surrounding areas, and plans to expand the design team and factory staff with the new extension.

Initially, as more homebuyers began to demand higher quality housing, they focused on producing frames for exclusive and technically challenging individual homes.

This enabled Cygnum to develop a technical engineering and design department who are constantly driven to find ways to improve existing products and use cutting-edge solutions to exceed our clients’ requirements where possible, demonstrably setting ourselves apart from our competitors.

By 2000, developers had begun to realise the numerous benefits of timber frame for Irish homes, and they established a new division of the business to supply this growing market.

This led the company, in 2004, to invest in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility equipped with a modern, efficient production line built to our specific requirements in Macroom, Co. Cork. Further expansion and an eye on improving our service to clients in the UK saw the company, in 2007, open an office Stowmarket, Suffolk.

There they focused on the more technically demanding sector of the market, supplying timber frame for apartment blocks and hotels of up to seven storeys in height.

In 2011, Cygnum built one of the UK’s first Passivhaus registered schools in Wolverhampton.

The success of the project and quality of their work achieved widespread recognition to the extent that they are now the main timber frame supplier to other such projects in this market.

In 2013, Cygnum became the first Irish company, and one of only two in the UK and Ireland to have a Passivhaus system certified by Germany’s Passivhaus Institute.

In 2016 Cygnum was presented with no less than five awards at the Structural Timber Awards.

The prestigious award ceremony truly made its mark on the timber industry rewarding outstanding projects, innovative products and dynamic people promoting excellence in structural timber across the industry.

Plans are now afoot to extend the manufacturing plant to accommodate new state of the art machinery to meet the demand of the growing house market.

Photo by John Delea Cygnum celebrating 20 years in business: John Desmond MD, Mark Smith Director of Timber Engineering, Hebert McMahon Director of Irish Sales, Gerrard O’Callaghan, Director, John O’Callaghan Director, Stewart Scott, Director of UK Sales, and Daniel...