Fire Tower

Dirty Little Secrets

2009-12-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

There are, actually, quite a few DLS's involved in timber framed homes. Many of them are revealed while trimming and outfitting the building. Others, during the timber seasoning phase. A few only crop up with usage. One of my favorites, though, is The Huge Budget Bump for Christmas Trees. Timber framed homes, of course, are not the only homes with tall great rooms. But a tall great room with celebrated timbers seems somehow to accentuate the primordial lust for a wicked big tree. This example was sent by a favorite client, John McRae, showing the 2009 edition installed in his beloved NH home - The Beeches.

Based on my own decades of installing significant trees in a lovely timber framed great room, I offer the following advice and tips:

I have had luck, going to funky cut-em-yourself places and offering to harvest one of their left over monsters. Some tree growers are happy to have a tree removed that has already outgrown their more standard market. Make em an offer, see what they say.
I love hanging trees from their upper limbs or trunk, rather than relying on nearly inevitably overwhelmed tree stands on the floor. You can use a noose or a pair of sticks, wired together under convenient branches. The sticks, then, bridged between two handy timbers in the frame (and I would carve the date, height, and price of each tree in the reused sticks) This also allows for bigger green-sustaining water buckets. Speaking of which, look for those siphon fed buckets - much tidier than crawling under low hanging branches with a ewer.
I have enjoyed plugging lights into a specifically wired outlet, one with a rheostat on it. This can tie the tree lights into the same plugs that handle the rope lights backlighting timbers. This makes for easy ambiance adjusting.
I cannot overstate the convenience of having an extra wide, even double, door into the great room. I had to protect my soft redwood door jambs with cardboard, during insertion. Taking a dried and stiffened tree out is even harder, and done without the festive attitude that accompanied the prior passage. I usually limb the tree out, prior to removal. I have, even, used a chain saw to do this; fun. I often killed two birds by having the tree leave the room as smoke and tinsel enhanced ashes.

Happy Holidays

Franklin Pierce College Pavilion (now gone)

2009-02-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

The pavilion at Franklin Pierce College; built by The Timber Framers Guild, as part of their annual conference. This structure has as rich as reflected ceiling plan as any I have ever built; heavy rafters, slender purlins, light rafters, and strapping for the cedar shingles – all overlaid and visible from within. Chains hold the open structure down at the post feet. My fine friend, the amazingly nimble Dave Carter, and I ended up shingling the 4:12 roof by full moon and with full tummies. He was determined to keep shingling, but concerned about falling off, so he had me nail his shirt to the roof. When I retrieved him in the morning, we peeled off the circular pattern of shingles he had installed. Among the many tales I might tell of the inaugural party, I will only mention that our beloved Mark Witter played blues and my toe was crushed by a tipping beer keg, but I danced on. I loved this building.

Delaminating Beams

2009-02-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

Ben has been known to contend that: “The worst clients are desperate friends – you can’t even, really, take advantage of them on the fee.” So, what to say about a job that has “hit a glitch” and involves good friends on three sides? I got a call from one old friend one evening, and was on a ferry two days later. These spectacular curved beams were intended for some lovely trusses, designed by another friend, for inclusion in a home being built by yet a third friend. All parties agreed something was awry, but were unclear on what best to do about this. I showed up with a bag of tricks that included a bunch of sophisticated, new lag bolts. We were able to salvage the beams, the schedule, and a variety of friendships; through application of nimble engineering and good site help.

Spline and block floor support

2009-02-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

Peter came to me with a design challenge/opportunity for the joist end connections that would point in toward the huge tree in the middle of the octagonal room. We needed to support some circumferential floor boards, inside the innermost ring of floor beams. A likely method was some form of joinery for the radial joists that would extend beyond the inner surface of the joist. We could make a horizontal spline with a clunky block atop it, or? We came up with a yoke spline into which a dadoed block slides against the inner face. The floor boards sit on this block. The block is, in turn, held in place by horizontal pegs through the spline. We drew a version that had vertical keys on either side that pulled the block along the spline into the joist, but calmer heads prevailed.

Chain Shopping

2009-02-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

One thing led to another, and the projector balcony in this Nantucket "Home Performing Arts Center" ended up looking like a scallop shell from below. The radial joists penetrate the curved rim band and are wedged. When it came time to hang the entire thing from the arches above, we wanted something special. Randall and I ended up in the back room of a local machine supply store, sizing chains for the job. Even their lightest one would have carried the design load. We went by feel and look. This was such a fun mission that we celebrated by buying donuts for the entire shop and office. A great morning, in detailing timber and design/build construction. And in shopping.

Random/Whimsical Timbers

2009-01-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

A timber framer’s wedding can be a lot of fun, in my experience. One of the treats lies in watching the assembled, during the service. The attending framers will spend much of their time looking up, studying the timbers supporting the roof overhead, occasionally looking down to check on the service and gauge the remaining time until the reception. One consistent aspect of all the great church roof framing is regularity and consistency – until we framed the new Madison Church.

Duo Dickinson was, again, the architect behind this opportunity to have fun with timbers. We were adding a larger chapel to an existing church along the Connecticut coast. The room is, basically, supported by fairly standard rigid frames of heavy timbers. In a quest, however, for a “forest feeling,” we shifted many of the secondary timbers so that they are not identical. We even added some timbers that are simply there “because we could,” running from random timber to random timber, and contributing virtually nothing to the structural performance. These are, strictly, sculptural timbers – ones likely to rock the world of any student of timber structure who happens to have a few moments to spare during some lull in the proceedings for the duration of this chapel’s function.

Installing this frame was not without incident. In fact, it may have included the sole occurrence of a timber being installed that proved to be one inch too LONG – ever. That timber being a main post, however, meant we had to lift a very large hunk of timber over our heads, in order to perform that too rare inchectomy. As fun as this project was, we only barely missed making it truly spectacular with a ceiling of deliberately, particularly, and efficiently randomized roof boards. Another sweet project; thank you, Duo.

Built in Mantles with Hidden Hooks

2009-01-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

Two major plates, running the length of a great room and supporting light common rafters is a classic framing scheme. Among the advantages of this layout is the framing celebrating and cooperating with masonry at one end of the room. The posts that support the heavy plates can frame the masonry; and, if they are brought to the inner masonry face, can also support a mantle across the masonry. The great room on my Keene, NH home is an example (built in 1994, but carved with 1991 for the palindromic symmetry and being “close enough”). I also added backlighting and my favored “recessed stocking hooks,” The simple cup hooks, set into rounded shallow holes drilled into the mantle underside, provide convenient and discreet stocking support, while subtly celebrating Christmas morning year-round.

Window in new tree house at Longwood Gardens

2009-01-22T15:38:00.000-08:00

A great old friend, Jake Jacob, builds some of the loveliest tree houses in North America with TreeHouse Workshop, Inc. He built a beauty for the lovely public Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. At the last minute (well, actually, well after that moment) he realized the huge window needed some engineering attention, if it was to resist the heavy design wind loading. Ben was thrilled, to get involved with helping a friend, while visiting a breathtaking site and helping to build a remarkable example of the fenestration craft.

Hall Winery with Gehry

2009-01-22T15:17:00.000-08:00

What can we say, about this wild project? Frank Gehry has to top many lists of “greatest living American architects,” with his entirely personal style and remarkable portfolio of notable structures. The Hall Winery, in the Napa Valley, will be a jewel, even in that box of fabulous buildings. Nearly an acre of crumpled trellis is supported on a grid of well and truly tortured glue-laminated beams. Ben has visited the LA office several times, and offered on-site guidance twice to the team involved in bringing this particular vision to reality. He oversaw the creation of two samples illustrating how that trellis might be built - one exquisitely laminated by G.R. Plume [link] and the other using the remarkable COMPWOOD product. Without question (and as Ben has told the rest of the building team), this building would be “one of the most amazing wooden objects on our continent.” Ben is largely proud of his efforts in behalf of what promises to be a famous piece of our architecture – and a great place to visit and sip classy adult beverages.

Green Barn Kit on Maine Island

2009-01-22T15:11:00.000-08:00

We designed and managed the construction of a lovely barn, on a sweet little island off the Maine coast, for Steve Thomas. Steve is hosting a new show on the Discovery Channel, called Renovation Nation. His series focuses on green building, including his own new barn/shop/guest house. We did a lot of preparatory work, so that the site work could happen in an admittedly frenetic week. The walls are open heavy stud walls, prefabbed by a local stick framer. The timbers were cut locally, by Connolly Timber Frames. The prefabbed floor system and stairs were done by Benson Woodworking. The roof panels were precut, pre-boarded, and installed by Panel Pros [link]. We are very pleased with the product and now offer versions of the same very flexible building to anyone interested in predictable and delightful timber frame buildings. In the course of the site work, we withstood many challenges specific to small islands with slimy tidal landing ramps. I also learned how a summer neighbor, our own Chief Justice Roberts, likes his burgers – which I could tell you, but only at the cost of both our lives.

The Harmonica Pavilion

2009-01-22T15:07:00.000-08:00

If you are lucky enough to both live long enough and have enough wonderful friends; you will also – if only eventually - be unlucky enough to know the loss of a Special Person. Mark Witter was one of our Special People - a fine man and treasured coworker. His sudden death stunned our industry. With all manner of support (most notably from Cascade Joinery) Mark’s love of the blues in general, and blues harmonica in particular, is being honored with a new band shell in Bellingham, Washington. The lovely winged-roof shelter incorporates a subtle allusion to harmonicae. The elaborate cedar posts are a subtle allusion to Mark -- large and all-heart. We are proud, to have contributed to this sweet project; with some lucre, but even more with some heartfelt design input.

Sugarbush Hula Hoop

2009-01-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

How DO you connect eighteen rafter peaks together? Thankfully, we did not have even have to try at the Sugarbush Base Lodge - the architects had asked for a lighting cupola at the peak, leaving us with some sort of hoop to catch the rafter tops. Which is what we built – a wooden hoop. Twenty eight alternating layers of engineered panel strips, glued and screwed to one another made for a sturdy landing spot for the rafters from below and the cupola from above. Each rafter is connected to the hoop with a horizontal bolt which pulls the rafter into a housing in the outer faces of the hoop. A key, at the top of that housing, allowed us to lower rafters into the hoop, when it was hanging in place. This hoop generated its share of discussions. I was unable to sell my vision of nine wiggling rafter tops pointing into space, while two men are lowered into position suspended in the hoop. I envisioned our looking like the basket hung from a hot air balloon, as in Around the World in Eighty Days. This would have made a photo op to die for. Instead, I spent a wonderful afternoon in the life raft-sized hoop, grabbing and connecting rafters as they flew into place. The engineered timber pieces had been inspected and “signed” by the responsible party. So, I spent those great hours with “Brian” embossed on the uppermost piece, a poignant and nearly eerie reminder of my great late friend, Brian Smeltz. I could go on about cutting the number of facets in half, as we passed the mid-diameter ring, too…..

The Case of the Missing Post

2009-01-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

The client had bought the small local airport in Tewksbury, MA, but realized he really wanted a golf course [link to TCC]. After unpaving and sodding the runways, he needed a clubhouse. The same planning techniques led to our all-but-too-late adding a bumpout for the bridal party to The Big Room. That seventy two foot square space has four large posts with “limb struts” up to the large, shear-keyed purlins and hips. The most desirable spot for the bridal bump was at the corner of the room with a view of both the course outside and the huge fireplace inside. The corner which already had a good sized post intended to carry significant loads. After recovering from our initial dismay, an analysis showed that only minor tweaking would transfer the corner post load back into the interior “tree post.” Not without some nervousness, we cut the post off and left its upside down stump hanging over the bridal bump.

Timber Rocket Science

2009-01-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

Jack Morway first came showed up in my career with fully drawn plans, which he had prepared (and he had written code that helped NASA get folks aboard the moon), for a house he wanted to build right on both the beach and the main street in downtown Provincetown. He was only stumped by one joint; which is why he sought out professionals. He wanted to cantilever joists out into his first and second story bay windows overlooking – and overhanging - the beach. And he wanted both the supported and the supporting timbers to be flush on their tops. We designed this joint and named it after him. The supporting girder is two inches deeper than it needs to be. There is a two inch deep notch across the top of the supporting timber at each place where a joist appears to pass through it. This allows two inches of the joist to pass over the supporting timber and to serve as the tension component of the cantilevered portion. Then, at each joist, we punched a hole through the supporting girder for the compression strut at the bottom of the joist. We got a tight fit with some wedges at the inner end of the struts. Driving the wedges in would lift the cantilevered joist end; easing the wedge out would allow it to settle.

In subsequent versions of The Morway, we refined the wedge detail. Specifically, we wanted the wedge to fit in from above, so that gravity would hold it in place, rather than constantly trying to pull it out to fall (embarrassingly) on the floor. There is a way to do this, but it would take too long to explain and I would have to kill you.

Bizarre Mating

2009-01-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

I collect examples of the cast iron hardware that could be bought from catalogs by industrial building designers in the late nineteenth century. But one of my favorite examples involves only incidental ferrous fasteners. The builders of a railroad roundhouse in Quincy, Massachusetts had big and beautiful heart pine for their posts, but wanted to use the newly available and very efficient rolled steel S-beams. The fabricators punched hundreds of these 18 inch tall “I mortises” into the faces of the posts. Light steel angles and lags held the connections together. You can still see the drill and chisel tracks of what must have been a very bored crew.

Favorite Project

2009-01-22T08:42:00.000-08:00

The very phrase “My Favorite Project” seems a loaded issue. I have been blessed to spend nearly forty years building many things - most of them I am still proud to recall, and many of which thrilled me at the time. But what is a career, if one will not take a stand on its best bit? For me, The Parker Room simply Had It All: fabulous site and raising weather, fine/fun design, great timbers, spectacular client (two great generations of them), a TV crew recording much of the fun for posterity - and kilts.

Hank Parker was my principal Ph.D. advisor at Stanford. Truly, I only got their Exxon Fellowship because of The Most Amazing Phone Call of My Life, which I shared with Hank on my thirtieth birthday (another story, entirely). Hank was born, reared, and educated in New Hampshire. He still owns the “family farm” atop a rugged hill/mountain in the White Mountains. My family and I have been lucky enough to visit “The Berry Farm,” for: show shoeing, maple sugaring, wood stove hot tubbing, pond swimming, jolly meals and moose bashing.

I have, to some extent, become a Parker Family Member. So it was only with some trepidation that I even agreed to undertake building a home for one of Hank’s sons, David. That lovely home, at the base of Aspen Highlands, went so well (though I still wonder if David and his son, Witt, were actually trying to kill me that day in those hiking-only access bowls) that I was prepared to pursue with enthusiasm Hank’s suggestion that we add a great room to the view side of the wonderful farmhouse that serves as the heart of the Berry Farm.

We designed a timber framed room, with a spiral stair in the corner, as Hank had envisioned and requested. Well along in the process, we were contacted by Back to the Blueprints, a TV program looking for photogenic projects that involved a design/build process. The Parker Room was the perfect candidate. Autumn weather in the White Mountains can be unpredictable, and in the extreme. Our raising week, though, enjoyed its most sublime version. The foliage colors were at their utmost, the skies cloudless, the temperatures Delawareic.

David showed up for the raising event and proved as helpful as expected. Hank and Polly were pillars; as clients, hosts, and TV personalities. For one beautiful afternoon, Hank, David, and I donned kilts and cavorted about the building site, filming set, and hilltop farm preparing meals and otherwise encouraging the assembled crews. I could go on, at some length, about this project and that site exertion. I could, also, refer you to the broadcast version, should you be so very interested.

Bonderson Big Beamed Baby

2009-01-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

We thoroughly enjoyed working with The Cascade Joinery in building this lodge in California. The client is larger than life, the builder is way larger than we, and the site is larger than large; inspiring us to craft some larger than humongous key-laminated beams to support the roof. These must be the largest key-laminate beams built in North America for a century. The large seismic loads are absorbed in a series of significant steel moment frames that we detailed to be largely concealed within the walls. All in all, a very large amount of fun was had by all.

Publish Post

The Ten (Or So) Best Things About Losing Your Hair

2009-01-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

1. It is a solid start on your “grown up disguise;” for those occasions when you need to fool people.

2. It can be a great costume accessory -- Wil Wilkins’ instant-impromptu classic “BAN Roll-On in a T-Shirt” comes to mind.

3. The range of body temperature modulating strategies is extended.

4. The deck of your life is finally cleared of the groupies, allowing you to focus your boarding party energies on those who are actually worth the effort.

5. The change can provide some genetic confirmations of fatherhood -- if you need them.

6. Establishes a comforting contrast and perspective when you hang out with your children.

7. Provides a daily reminder of your aging and mortality; and the attendant spur to get/keep moving.

8. Shampoo is over-rated.

9. The Brotherhood of It All: Many women give birth, but few go through this. Many good men have and will. Cancer fighters can always use the support of others comfortable with their naked pates.

10. It is easy to appear young and vigorous -- when you are young. Only the intriguing do so after this.

11. It really is consoling and sensuous to rub a nerve-laden and bare scalp.

12. Who really needed it, in the first place? Starts to look like a vestigial organ, harking back to obsolete lifestyles and species.

Ben generated this list during the final throes of an epic run up from the Carolinas. Top down, laughing to himself, deciding against exploring Rogain. On that trip, Ben also noted that it is impossible to buy dental floss in southern convenience stores. He wonders if that factoid is related to the fact that he saw more Volvo trucks (one) than Volvo cars during his entire stay in the Carolinas.

Mistakes

2009-01-21T10:43:00.000-08:00

A coworker ONCE handed me a timber list, pointing out significant "discrepancies" with the drawings of the frame supposedly to be built with those timbers. In response to a fairly polite demand for clarification, I had to explain that those were not discrepancies; but mistakes -- and quite a few of them. I took credit for my fair share of those mistakes and then, in admiring the pervasive flaws, I had to concede that I must have had some help in achieving this particular level of mistakenness.

I have thought about this incident since. It has occurred to me that my unfortunate comrade was either unfamiliar with mistakes, or unprepared to accept them for what they are – inevitable and interesting. I have given this topic sufficient consideration that I can offer the following:

My "Top Ten List of Things To Like About Mistakes"

1. The best and biggest mistakes are usually team efforts.

2. There is little question that alert people learn far more from mistakes than from correct decisions/actions.

3. It is possible to learn from others’ mistakes – some of the educating perpetrators can even be long dead.

4. Mistakes are many things, including a sure indicator that somebody is at least trying.

5. The converse is true – a mistake free person or community can be neither trying nor risking much.

6. It is a lot easier, more fun, and classier to tell tales about one’s past mistakes than past successes.

7. To err is human. We are far more fun, and a whole lot easier, to live with than are angels (plenty of time for that later, anyway).

8. Mistakes are empowering. At any point of our lives, most of us can commit mistakes which are far more costly than are profitable the coups we can arrange.

9. You can learn more about a person in the presence of their mistakes, and their mitigating efforts, than almost anywhere else (Watergate comes to mind).

10. The happiest mistakes felt like really great ideas at the time. The saddest ones you really recognized at the time.

So here’s my list of "Things Not To Like About Mistakes"

1. The worst mistakes are often subtle, challenging to recognize, and easy to ignore, because they are mistakes of inaction leading to lost opportunity. Some more egregious examples include: unexplored childhoods, uncelebrated events, unhugged parents, unnoticed sunsets, unread books, unused World Series tickets, and unemployed minds.

Note Bene: I am an aficionado of mistakes. They should not, however, be mistaken for screw-ups. These equally inevitable human works are caused exclusively by acts of stupidity. Most crimes fall in the screw-up genre, for instance. Nor is this intended as an apologia for sloppiness, which deserves our every effort at eradicating from our lives.

Derevyagin Beams

2009-01-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

This clever and fairly mechanized scheme is an example of industrialized keyed beams. They are pre-cambered, and make highly efficient use of smaller and square timbers to assemble deeper beams. We would love to build a couple of these to fill your long span timber beam challenges. If you actually arrived at this page through a search for Derevygian Beams? You and I really ought to talk (my cell number is 603-381-3810); and you ought to understand that you may well be a very troubled individual. The illustration is from one of my Very Favorite timber tomes - Wooden Structures - a 1960's work translated from Russian and long out of print.

"Cheap Beer" and my “Beer Value Chart”

2009-01-21T09:09:00.000-08:00

Those who have known me for a week know of my enthusiasm for “plebian beers, ” especially canned American pilsners; particularly Old Milwaukee and Pabst Blue Ribbon. I have adopted my sons’ practice of adding a lime slice, on the theories that: if this can render Corona potable, think what it can do for a Good Beer, and one cannot be too careful with scurvy. In the summer of 1996, for whatever reason, I found myself with Consumer Reports in my lap, including an article on available. The web version of the article put a numeric value on the perceived quality of each beer tested, as well as a cost per six-pack. The engineer in me found the resulting two variable data so graphable as to be irresistible. I offer this chart to those seeking guidance in their beer buying decisions. It includes various iso-value lines, as well baseline price and quality lines – for those unwilling to spend less than a given amount or to serve swill worse than a certain brand. Please feel free to spread this tool as you see fit.

Treehouse Design Thoughts

2009-01-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

(Based on observations and World Treehouse Conference 08)

Most of Our First Treehouses were built in open forests where we could pick those trees that were readily fitted with platforms. Our Next Treehouses were often built into trees that simply BEGged to be platformed – often within sight of a buddy’s backyard drinking deck. The recent surge in treehouse building, though, has been driven by folks wanting their treehouse to be built Right There, in THOSE trees – whether or not those trees are at all predisposed to platforming. The basic design issue, then, has become fashioning a flat spot among tree(s) that are not intrinsically candidates for this.

Unlike dead wood timber connection designing; you do NOT want multiple and light connectors – in order to minimize damage to the tree, we use minimal (necessarily heavier) connectors.

Unlike with most any other structural connection, connectors to trees CAN get stronger and stiffer with time. The trees DO envelope the connectors, so long as they continue to grow at all.

Wind driven deflections can cause fatigue failures in the steel components far sooner than most designers anticipate – treehouse design can feel a bit like designing airplanes, in fact.

Over framing (vs. flush framing with hangers) the platform is crucial, in permitting the main carrying members to be slid outward (or even replaced) as the trees grow. Generally, the headroom is available – the challenge is mostly in preventing joist rolling.

Struts vs cables (or struts AND cables). Struts are connected to the lower and therefore stiffer part of trunk. Cables indicate tension easily and (with some effort) precision. The combined use of struts and cables can (and has) prevented a collapse that could have happened with a single connector failure.

Revised Artificial Limb Design – nested heavy pipes with smaller lag at bottom/inner end. The first one installs as open ended can with a lag centered in closed/inner end holding it into trunk. Varied fittings for eventual extensions, cables, sliding seats are quite feasible.

Redundancy is - unusually for structural design - not always great in treehouse design. It IS possible for instance, for redundant supports to struggle against one another – specifically through trunk movement between supports, both in tall single-tree structures and any multiple-tree platforms.

Multiple connectors, aligned with the trunk, may not share load as evenly as expected, because of differential thermal movement between the trunk and any long, interconnecting steel fittings that run vertically, parallel to the trunk. This is true for the connectors and for framing that runs parallel vs. perpendicular.

Smoother trunk connectors seem as thought they would require less work for the enveloping tree. Saporrhoids seem a likely indicator cause of tree distress.

An adjustable and flexible compression strut might be sweet: could tune the length to carry desired load, internal shock absorbers could work with wind deflections to ease point loading to structure and tree. This component would be based in some combination/version of auto suspension technology and/or bicycle seatpost techniques.

I could go on, at some length, with a free body diagram analysis of the varying forces and connector designed in the classic/simple ladder/cleat we all nailed up the trunk.

Skyscraper Floor Lamps of Heavy Timber

2009-01-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

Blocks of wood cut to look like highrises, can serve as floor lamps. These lamps can be made to look like any number of classic skyscraper forms: Chrysler, Empire State Building – this one is the CitiCorp from midtown. This is the building that Bill LeMessurier immortalized by having to retrofit it against quartering winds – and then writing about it in a famous New Yorker series of articles. An entire skyline of the most recognizable skyscrapers would make a fine wall of light. These blocks of wood, so lightened by numerically controlled cutters, could also be really handy for cribbing buildings. I also think that this treatment would make for a stunning post in a home. We can write versions of this into the machine language used to cut your timber frame.

Maybeck / Hearst Great Room and Gymnasium Frames

2009-01-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

Bernard Maybeck designed a Great Room for William Randolph Hearst – how could that combination team up to do ANYthing less than fabulous? The innovative scheme (detailed by Maybeck’s partner and brother-in-law, engineer Mark White) relied on a three-pinned arch made of stacked planks, nailed and through-bolted to keep them in one piece. Basically, the arches look like two big wooden truck leaf springs, used in the ancient cruck framing form. At least two versions of this framing scheme were built in California about a hundred years ago. The first served as the great room in Hearst’s city home until it was dismantled and moved to be Cal Berkeley’s first gymnasium. The second was an incredibly cost effective gym for a Boy’s Club in Oakland. Perhaps so cheap, in fact, that it proved not worth saving for longer than twenty years. A building style that was both wonderful enough for Hearst’s great room -- at the same time that another example could be built for $1/sf -- would still make a fabulous great room, industrial facility, or gym. While copyright laws prevent our simple reproduction of the plans (we have copies of the originals), we are planning to build an updated rendition as our own wood bending shop. One simple, yet elegant, upgrade would involve shuffling the cruck laminae widths and edge detailing. We would love to help you to craft your own rendition.

Keyed and Key-Laminated Beams

2009-01-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

Builders have been making larger timber members from interconnected smaller timbers for thousands of years. Their goal is to simulate Mother Nature’s innate fiber connections, but with man-crafted interconnections. Glue laminating pretty much achieves our Mom’s high standard – but with some significant aesthetic and construction compromises. Key-laminated beams can be much better looking, maybe occasionally lovelier than Mom's.

The individual layers in any built-up beams want to slip by one another under applied bending loads. To the extent that we can prevent this slip with mechanical connectors (or "keys"), we can generate composite action among the various layers. The analysis, design, and detailing required to do a good job of key-laminating beams is not trivial. A good friend, Joe Miller, is pursuing his Ph.D. in the topic, for instance. But the resulting beams can support remarkable loads, while contributing all sorts of opportunities for joinery celebration. We have included these lovely beams in many of our designs. Call us, to get help with your own lovely composite, mechanically-laminated, keyed beam.