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Scandinavian Raising 1999 |
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Denmark's Habitat Foundation
We're all invited by Danish Guild member Mikkel Johansen to participate in a project in Denmark similar to Project Horizon. BackgroundThe owner of the building is the Habitat Foundation, a non-profit organization that manages some 50 apartments and a crisis center for abused families. Some years ago the foundation bought a small farm outside Copenhagen, to give the children in their care a chance to get out of town to get some fresh air, play in the forest and be around farm animals. The children arrive in the morning by bus and get picked up again in the evening. The children use the existing barn as a kindergarten, but the building is decrepit and deserves no better than total demolition. The Foundation hired a manager and let him and his family live on the farm if they would take care of the facilities. The manager, Bjorn Engtorp, is also a teacher at the Danish Institute of Forestry. He and I have worked together on several log building and log framing workshops in the past and he attended my timber frame workshop in the summer of 1997. He decided that now was the time and the chance to build a new and better barn/kindergarten and to make it a timber frame. I wasn't hard to convince. Time frameWe have now finally received a building permit for the barn. We expect to start building the timber frame Monday, July 5. The foundation will be in place by then and quite a lot of the braces will be cut. The first two weeks will be a workshop with about 25 participants, most of them staying on the site. We are targeting professional carpenters and forest workers as workshop participants. A drawing of one of the bents is at right, via Ed Levin. The teachers for the workshop will be Dave Dauerty, Ed Levin and likely Steve Amstutz (I just have to convince him that coming to Denmark will be more vacation than work). After the workshop, John Palmer will take Ed Levin's place. Dave, John, Steve and I will complete the frame. I expect to be done by August 13, followed by a proper raising party Saturday August 14. The workshop will be open to everybody, and it will be free for all non-Scandinavian Guild members! You are all welcome to drop by some time in July or August. I have heard that Guild member Mark Olson will show up, John Palmer might bring his uncle and I certainly expect David Crocco to be here.
Media I am negotiating with a local TV station about making a feature about the workshop and the building process. Making an actual house as a workshop is quite unusual here in Denmark. The top figurehead for the Habitat Foundation is the sister of our Queen Margrete II. Most likely the Queen's sister will be there on August 14 to cut the red ribbon. That is about as high profile as it can get in this country! I hope that this workshop will be a breakthrough for American timber framing in Denmark. There is loose talk about introducing American timber framing of some sort into the regular apprentice curriculum if the workshop is successful. -- Mikkel Johansen (Email: mj-timber@mail.tele.dk |
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