timber framing – Trad Building

March 16, 2024March 29, 2024

De l’Orme, a search for circular economy in 16th century France

Whenever in history there was a shortage of building materials, creativity was needed and often a circular approach was the answer. In the 16th century, the French Philibert de l’Orme invented a new building method, the so-called “à petit bois”, in which large roof spans were made of small pieces of wood. I was struck by the beauty and the genius who designed it, visiting the barn of the chateau Maurier in France. This method could be one of the first intended circular construction solutions ?

France in the 16th century was a place and a time where big wooden beams were expensive and barely available (*). The classical way of building, with big wooden trusses, was not an option anymore. In his book «Nouvelles Inventions Pour Bien Bastir Et a Petits Fraiz» (Ed.1561), Philibert de l’Orme described an alternative way of building, which is as simple as effective.

With still affordable and available short wooden battens, about 1.30m long, he managed to make huge roof spans, by a very clever “meccano” method of “nailing” them together with dowels. This is a solution which can be seen as the precursor of modern glulam beams. Scarcity of materials as a driver for a circular economy.

Only two types of these battens were needed. Prefabrication of thousand exactly similar wooden pieces could take place in a very cost-efficient way. Modularity as a characteristic of a circular economy.

Illustration : Ph. De l’ Orme, dans «Nouvelles Inventions Pour Bien Bastir Et a Petits Fraiz» (Ed.1561) ; only two types of prefabricated battens are used.

Whenever a piece of wood was infected or broken, it could easily be replaced by a similar one, without the need of breaking down a whole structure. Interchangeability and reversible joints as a characteristic of a circular economy.

Above all, by designing the roof in a form of an arch, or in the form of two arches (like an inverted boat-hull), the material is optimally used. There is no material underperforming its maximal strength. A clever design and a dematerialisation are the first steps in, and the key-factors of a circular economy.

Even though aesthetics were surely not considered to be important in the design of barn roofs in the 16th century, they do play a role in giving a building or building materials multiple lives. And this is what circularity in the design and construction is about.

The barn of Chateau de Maurier, Fontaine-Saint-Martin (F) , architect unknown, inspired by Philibert de l’ Orme, photo : BLIEBERG Architects of a circular economy

Philibert de l’Orme, once a famous architect on the court of Henri II (who designed e.g. the ballroom of the castle of Fontainebleau), fell in disgrace after the death of the monarch. Two years later, he wrote an appendix to his written chef-d’œuvre in which he gave a solution for people who could not afford expensive methods of building.

Kris Blykers, BLIEBERG architects of a circular economy http://www.blieberg.eu

February 10, 2024March 29, 2024

Heavy machines are fascist

Heavy machinery has always been not required. We inherit these legacies from Victorian era industrial engineering.

Woodworking tools are a great example. The benchmark of a “quality” production woodshop have always been planing, and profile shaping. A good shop produces quality with heavy iron backstops and machining. And man hours. Raw power in the axis and feed and heavy mass to resist the “assumed” forces

And to do these at scale and keep the humans safe according to the millwright union you gotta have a lot of industrial infrastructure…. Vacuums system, heavy floor, electrical services, safety and ergonomics.. etc. all these things installed and planned for just to give the millwright a job and keep the crown molding or fancy flooring coming off the line. All of this centered around a high speed axis and small special tooling that the wood is fed into, creating sawdust and noise. All this precision machining and heavy plates intended to produce repeatable quality….

The whole system need not exist.

Consider the trad version of both these activities, hand plane and molding plane. And the downforce that a human body walking can produce…. To drive the plane. You need only two fingers worth of force back n forth, and 120lbs on a feather spring of downforce

Now consider a solid table with clamping and a lightweight track frame system that attaches to the table. You load the board. You load your appropriate plane. You activate the motion control and very low power drill motors run the plane back n forth to save the labor of the millwright and cut or plane the piece. You get the same precision and quality and ease of operation…. You have clean shavings with no dust as your waste product. No noise. No infrastructure needed other than a solid table 16’ long, and frame to hold the motion control. All infrastructure (the table and frame) could be hand assembled by one person on site and packed in the back of a truck in 8’ sections.

The same process goes for sheet metal fabrication: there is no need for a heavy floor break. You need a roller dolly, 10’ track system and back n forth motion control. Combined with profile-specific roller dies that mount to the trolley.

Automate this instead of building 4 ton factory equipment and robotics.

The same can be said for heavy offroad cranes and lifts. For a residential building you can erect a stage/tent truss first, which can handle all lifting and placing with low power electric motors and motion control. We never needed a lull or man lift industry.

April 16, 2019April 16, 2019

Adam Miller on the Tragedy at Notre Dame

In the lore of the traditional French carpenters guild, the compagnon charpentiers, Notre Dame is a sacred structure. For a timber-frame carpenter with a particular interest in historical French carpentry, this is a difficult situation. I have been deep in correspondence with my colleagues in the hours since news of the fire. Here are my initial reactions:

I am glad to have spent some time around the cathedral while visiting Paris last October at the end of a tour of French carpentry museums, and I have good reason to be hopeful about the future of this building. The fire is a catastrophe, but the skills and passion to rebuild this structure are present in the compagnon craftspeople of France like in no other western country. The traditional knowledge that originally built this monument is still alive. The Compagnons du Devoir actively transmit this knowledge to young people through intensive, long-term apprenticeships, setting a high standard against which to measure any vocational training.

There is hardly a more well-documented building anywhere in the world, and traditional craft knowledge can fill the gaps of any architectural survey.

It’s easy to lose sight of history, including architectural history, as an evolving process. While some parts of Notre Dame are over 800 years old, and built upon prior ruins, its famed spire was designed by Viollet le Duc and completed in 1859, over 30 years after Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback. At least one of the massive rose windows was replaced in the 1960’s. Maintenance is a necessary and continuous process tying the past to the present, ensuring a future for history, as the massive scaffold enveloping much of the cathedral recently attests.

Shinto shrines in Japan are entirely rebuilt on a regular schedule, the Ise Grand Shrine every twenty years, 62 times. This is a radically different approach to maintenance than we are accustomed to here in the US or Europe, its critical function to train subsequent generations of craftspeople. The longevity of these shrines rises from the spirit and continuity of their creators and supporters, not from a faith in persistent materiality alone.

A similar spirit brought members of the Timber Framers Guild together with international volunteers to create a replica of the Gwoździec synagogue in 2011. This structure now represents the lost wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto.

French culture, with the compagnons at the ready, is uniquely prepared to deal with the fire at Notre Dame, and to benefit from the audacity of its grand scale. Smaller reconstruction projects are always underway throughout the country, even to the extent of Guédelon, an experimental archaeology project to create a new 13th-century chateau.

One of my greatest worries at the moment is that any efforts to rebuild the lost structure might be hampered by requirements to use modern materials, in a well-meaning but mistaken attempt to improve upon the original. I don’t think the original can be improved upon, and its soul would be lost in the attempt. Additionally, no modern materials have proven as durable as the original stone, wood, and lead, each of which can be maintained and repaired indefinitely. Buildings must inspire care to long persist, something no technology can replace. Far better for any reconstruction to be carried out in the full spirit of the original work, by committed craftspeople setting their efforts in search of the ineffable.

View at Medium.com