Conference Schedule
The Main Event
The main Conference Friday morning, March 27 and runs until 11 AM on Sunday, March 29. The following speakers are tentatively slated to present, with
details on some of the talks. Please check back for updates and
revisions to the schedule.
Friday, March 27
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Saturday, March 28
- Engineering Concepts for Designers
Andrea Warchaizer
- Wood Finishes
Autumn Bauman
- The Evolution of a Timber Framer into a Complete Design/Build Firm
Collin Beggs
- Compound Joinery with SketchUp
Clark Bremer
- Sharpening Japanese Tools
Toshio Odate
- Guild Projects Through the Ages
Joel McCarty & Friends
- Principles of Building Biology
Paula Baker-Laporte
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Sunday, March 29
- Closing Speaker: Toshio Odate
The Morality of the Craftsman
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Other presenters tentatively include Japanese craftsman Makoto Imai and more speakers in the Business Track. Check back for future updates.
Details of some of the presentations listed above follow.
SunRay will focus on the dynamic process of working with nature in building: finding the shapes and forms to create one's desired architectural result while allowing what nature is presenting to inspire one's design. Working with unmilled timber allows naturally occurring branches and crotches to be utilized for wood-to-wood joinery and bracing. Unmilled timber, selectively harvested from the building site, also ensures the benefit of using bioregional, low-cost materials that have a low carbon footprint and architecture that is in harmony with the surrounding environment.
Structural, three-dimensional wood bending provides designers and architects with a new material to employ for creating curved elements in timber frame construction. Timber framers will find areas where they can substitute straight elements with curved enhancements. Products of structural wood bending include extreme curved beams, solid bent braces, unique I-beam configurations, and inlays in green beams that prevent their checking and cracking while adding both a structural and a decorative component. On display will be examples of bent beams, columns, inlays and bent, twisted, braces that incorporate the 3-dimensional bending capability along with sculptural examples of extreme wood bending.
Presented in a workshop setting, the session will begin with a 10-minute demonstration of extreme wood bending that will stun and capture the imagination of the audience. Each attendee will then be given a compressed solid White Oak plank to bend into a 3-dimensional shape of their own. While the wood bending commences, a 20-minute pictorial discussion will be presented on Extreme, Structural Wood Bending, including a short technical description on the process of wood compression. Usually at this time, there are a lot of excited questions, which will be addressed both as they come up and as the process is further outlined. An open discussion will commence and last approximately 15 minutes, allowing the conversation to move to areas of greatest interest to the audience.
The second half of the session will bring most of the attendees into the process of creating bent braces and a large S-curved beam. Project teams will form to work on the large curved beam or the smaller braces depending on their own interests. Each project team will have 3 to 5 members. There will be between 4 and 10 teams working on braces, and between 2 and 8 teams working on the S-shaped beam. A maximum of 90 members can be accommodated in this hands-on exercise, and some may choose to sit out and watch. The workshop may be accomplished in a standard conference room, but some robust benches will be supplied to assist the project teams.
At the completion of the workshop, each team will select one member to take home their bent brace or bent beam component. In addition, each attendee will have one smaller wood bending to take away that they made earlier in the initial demonstration portion of the session.
All wood bending will be done with solid Oregon White Oak plants, a salute to the host state for the conference.
Chris Mroz (BS, MS, MBA) owns Fluted Beams LLC, an architectural fabrication company, in Gig Harbor, Washington. Mroz is Canadian, but has been a permanent resident of the USA since 1994. With a background in Arts, Sciences and Business, Mroz invented the Fluted Beam while developing a lightweight but strong rail for a marine project. The idea was scaled up to architectural sized projects and is now being utilized for grid shell buildings, interior landscape designs, trellis, canopies, curved walls, curved surfaces, curved beams, bent braces and other architectural fabrications in bent, solid hardwood. Mroz also consults with architects and designers regarding his specialized field of architectural extreme bent wood fabrication, and guest lectures on the subject at colleges, universities, industry seminars and trade shows.
This multimedia presentation will involve lively discussion, great photos and fascinating stories relating to sustainable and regenerative building. Jack is Executive director of the Natural Building Network (/www.naturalbuildingnetwork.org) and will share from the resources of this global network of builders, architects, designers, owner-builders, inventors, tinkerers and visionaries. Explore buildings from every corner of the globe with a focus on climate appropriate building and the cycle of traditional building into technological building and back again.
While natural building enclosure systems have been in use for hundreds of years across the planet, they are just beginning to find their way into the U.S. In this presentation Jack Stephens, executive director of the Natural Building Network, will discuss these traditional methods as well as new and progressive ways of incorporating natural materials in timber frame structures. Materials covered will include straw bale, wattle and daub, straw light/clay, wood chip/light clay, adobe, reed matting, bamboo, cellulose fibers, cob, clay plasters and lime finishes.
It is rare to be able to study a timber frame house that was built in New York City on or before 1660. It is even rarer for a house to serve as shelter for the same family from 1660 until 1953, which is when the Bowne House became a museum. It is considered the birth place of religious freedom in the United States. Come learn how the house John Bowne built in Flushing, New York, in 1660 grew and changed over a period of 350 years. Follow the process used to plan for the restoration and continued preservation of this important part of American history.
During this presentation, we will look at examples of old building technologies that are proving to be very useful to designers and trades people today. We will discuss how modern improvements like SIP enclosure systems make the centuries-old Rumford fireplace a useful part of a home heating system. We will look at a design for a constructed wetlands waste water treatment system, first developed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which can be incorporated as part of a home design and which has a near zero impact on ground water resources. We will discuss how incorporating old technologies in new designs compares with using new technologies in old buildings, and the impact it may have on the communities we work in.
We will also look at the issues of embodied energy and embodied knowledge and how these can influence how we approach new build, conservation and adaptive reuse projects. We will discuss how developing a conservation philosophy has just as much to do with designing a new building as it does conserving an old one. By realizing that as designers and trades people we are an important part of the communities in which we practice our trade, we can understand the responsibility we have to build and conserve in ways that contribute to making the world a place we can not only enjoy being part of, but one we can believe is sustainable.
Saddle up with Laporte for a ride that takes Natural Building out of the wilderness and into the future! Employing the Law of Least Action, the EcoNest method does less to accomplish more.
"There's only one thing higher on my list of thrills at work than crafting a home and that is experiencing the tangible thrill of my students as they complete a clay/straw shell as a team effort. For many of them this will mark a first time they've driven a nail, first time ever used a power tool, first time they've played in the mud."
In this talk Robert will illustrate his systems approach to natural building. He will explain how he transforms 20 previously unacquainted workshop attendees with skills ranging from complete novice to seasoned builder, into a unified team, who in 5 days complete the clay/straw shell for a 2,500 sq ft home, a task that once took 5 weeks!
The hallmarks of this system are:
- applying the laws of physics for moving heavy materials
- applying the lessons of industrialization for production carpentry tasks
- applying psychology to make labor-intensive work, and brain-taxing theory, fun for one and all
Leading a workshop is not every builder's passion but imagine what you can accomplish with your well-oiled crew by applying these universal techniques that Robert has developed with more than 1,500 students over a period of 20 years.
Robert Laporte is the founder of the Econest Building Company in Tesuque, New Mexico. He is a recognized natural building pioneer, teacher and author. He served on the original board of directors for the Timber Framers Guild from 1985-1987. A leading expert in earth, clay/straw and timber frame construction, Robert has been designing and building natural homes for the past 30 years in Canada and the United States and has lead more than 1,500 students in more than 100 workshops in 6 countries. Since researching natural building in Europe in 1990, he has become a leading proponent of light clay construction in North America. His innovative development of an energy-efficient straw clay enclosure system has set the standard for light clay construction in North America.
Robert is the author of Mooseprints, and is co-author with Paula Baker-Laporte of EcoNest Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw, and Timber. Robert and Paula's EcoNest projects have been featured on HGTV, in many books and in several magazines including Natural Home, Fine Homebuilding, Residential Architect, Organic Style Magazine, Yoga Journal, and The Inspired House.
A look at the traditions around the topping out parties and the various ways
people in the Guild host and promote them. We will provide insight on how
to schedule, how to improve customer satisfaction, how to build brand
loyalty, how to increase sales, how to reward your crew and do all this
while the client pays for it.
Have you ever worked on a job where the foreman and the crew didn't see eye to eye, everything was a struggle, and nothing was as easy or as fun as it could have been? Contrast that with the memory of a job where respect was rampant, the foreman knew what was needed and gave clear directions, the crew became a stellar team, the work just flowed and a beautiful home was built.
Do you have the same experience in other areas of your life? Are there times when you know you are in the flow, and great results come effortlessly - and other times when you just can't seem to make anything work? When you know where you want to to be, but just can't seem to get there? Does all this just seem too random?
It's actually not random at all. The relationship between your inner mind, or crew, and your conscious mind - the foreman - is the basis for all your results, whether you like them or not. And it is well within your power to improve the quality of that relationship dramatically.
This seminar will present some basic facts about how people filter information and hold beliefs and memories. Then we will use these facts in very simple ways to change how you see yourself and your future. You can become the true foreman of your life. You can learn to direct your life toward your dreams, achieving great results fluidly and effortlessly.
This seminar isn't about worklists or time management or self-discipline. This is about focusing your beliefs and harnessing your own inner power. In almost every situation, far more is possible than we believe to be so.
The techniques are simple, and the results can be profound. Come and see.
After the session my audience will:
- Understand the physics and physiology behind the idea that we create and are responsible for our own reality;
- Have a greater understanding of and respect for the power of internal representations - pictures, self talk, etc. - and be prepared to use those with greater volition;
- Understand the power of, and have greater access to, their unconscious thoughts and intuitions;
- Recognize limiting beliefs that are holding them back from achieving their goals, and have tools in hand to change them;
- Have a simple, proven method for creating incredibly compelling goals, and installing them as "memories of their future," creating an unconscious drive to achieve them.
As time allows, there will be a discussion of how these tools, once mastered in an individual level, can be used in a company to achieve greater alignment in movement toward organizational goals.
Scout Wilkins is a charter member of the TFG, and has served as a board member and VP; she has coordinated multiple conferences; and attended and organized TFG projects across the U.S. and Canada. She and Wil Wilkins founded and ran Timberhouse Post and Beam in Montana for ten years, before selling it to pursue other interests. Scout was the Executive Director of the TFBC for four years, leaving that position to study the mind and human potential. She loves her current work, helping people create lives of passion and peace and achieve their dreams, by stepping past internal barriers and opening up to the possibilities that lie beyond.
There are multiple "green" certification programs that are gaining popularity in mainstream building markets. Our panelists will provide overviews of ENERGY STAR, LEED and the National Home Builder's Association certification programs. They will also explain how timber framers can use these programs to grow their customer base with little added cost.
The presentation will open with a demonstration: the creation of a set complex shop drawings from an existing model, to show how easy it is if you've laid the proper groundwork beforehand. We will then learn the basics of SketchUp while building a simple timber frame model from scratch. This model will not include joinery, but will be suitable for getting feedback on the design from the client. We will then discuss how to customize SketchUp for timber framing using Ruby plugins (developed by the instructor).
Finally, we will go through a detailed example of how to create a timber frame model that can be used for creating shop drawings. The following broad points will be covered:
- Timber Component Libraries. Discuss and demonstrate the use of component libraries to quickly assemble a frame from pre-defined timber components.
- Joinery Libraries. Discuss and demonstrate how to create new timber components using pre-defined joinery components, which are used to expand the timber component library.
- Joinery Creation. Discuss and demonstrate how to create new joinery components for expanding the joinery library.
- Shop Drawings. Discuss and demonstrate how to create precise, four-sided shop drawings automatically. We will then polish them off with dimensions, and shop notes.
Participants will leave the seminar with a list of resources, including:
- Where to find general tutorials for using SketchUp
- Where to get the timber frame ruby scripts
- Where to get joinery and timber libraries
- Where to share their timber and joinery components with the rest of us
This is a follow-on presentation to another workshop, Timber Frame Joinery Design and Shop Drawings with Google SketchUp. We will further explore the capabilities of Google SketchUp for joinery design to include compound joinery. Compound joinery can be designed in situ, without using trigonometry. Participants will be able to create dimensioned shop drawings of compound timbers using the TF Rubies, which are custom extensions to SketchUp developed by the presenter.
We will begin the session by reviewing several examples of compound joinery designed using this system. We will then step through a detailed example of how to create a compound timber and its joinery in an existing model. The existing model will be a simple common purlin design, to which we will add a third gable bumpout. This will involve adding valleys and jack purlins. If time permits, we will look at some other examples. Due to the limited amount of time, this will not be a hands-on workshop.
Clark Bremer is the owner of Northern Lights Timber Framing in Minneapolis. He also teaches timber framing at North House Folk School, in Grand Marais, MN. His former career was as a computer designer and researcher for Bell Labs. He enjoys inventing new tools for timber framing, both hardware and software.
Up until the 20th century, and stretching back for thousands of years, mankind has built shelter, with varying degrees of comfort and sophistication, in harmony with nature, with the materials at hand…sustainably.
The craft of timber framing, once all but forgotten in North America, has seen a powerful revival due in great part to the craftsmen and woman who make up the Timber Framer's Guild. Historically, these structures were intrinsically linked to the biological homes that they supported, and those homes supported the health and comfort of those who sought shelter within them sustainably.
Our current petrochemical-based building industry is neither sustainable or health enhancing and everyone realizes that we must find more ecological ways to build.
Without ever pausing to look back at what we once did so well, industry has jumped on the green bandwagon with a plethora of questionable systems and products to make our homes better and certifications to score them. This is business as usual, slightly improved and most likely not improved enough to make a significant difference in an impending collision with ecological disaster. It has been said that we cannot solve a problem from within the paradigm in which it was created but the basic parameters of what we build, and what we build it of remains essentially unchallenged in the world of green conventional building.
In contrast, building biology is a science that originated in Germany in the 1960's that studies the relationship between the built environments, human health and planetary ecology. Paula's presentation summarizes the unique principles of building biology and from that perspective challenges some of the basic premises or myths of green building in North America.
Paula Baker-Laporte is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a certified Building Biologist. Her life's work is focused on the creation of environmentally sound and health enhancing architecture, teaching and writing.
She heads up the design department of the EcoNest Company which she founded with husband and timber framer, Robert Laporte. She is the primary author of Prescriptions or a Healthy House, now in its third edition and co-author with Robert Laporte of EcoNest: Creating Sustainable Sanctuaries of Clay, Straw and Timber.
A look at the pros, cons, and potholes to avoid on the road to using the
Hundegger™ as another tool in your arsenal. Many small handcraft shops are
reluctant to get involved with CNC machinery. However, there are ways to
maintain the integrity of your small operation, the look and feel of custom
handcrafting and still garner the benefits of CNC production. In a nutshell the "Dinger" can be used like a circular saw, the difference being that you take the beam to the tool vs. taking the tool to the beam. The process and outcome are still dependent on human relationships, and human skills.
Come prepared to roll up your sleeves and share your concerns about today's economic crisis. Jerry Rouleau will lead participants in a discussion about the issues affecting your timber frame business. Topics discussed include:
- what steps to take in a downturn
- where to invest capital
- how to maintain a workforce
- how to find clients
- how to re-tool your business and expand (or decrease) services offered
Through sharing, the audience will learn what other timber frame companies are facing and come up with potential solutions for one another. This is not a session where someone will lecture about tips and techniques - instead it is a focused conversation to steer participants to find their own secrets of success in a down market and to learn what your colleagues are facing as we gear up for the 2009 building season.
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