August Archive

Carpenter Oak & Woodland’s blogs on timber frames, building, design, architecture and timber craftsmanship.

How Buildings Learn

August 15, 2008 · Posted by Scott Fotheringham

I was disturbed by reading Stewart Brand's comments in his book "How Buildings Learn" about construction costs getting "corrupt" when talking about late design modifications, contractors billing "punitively", using words like "its a racket" and "disgraceful". Rightly or wrongly if this is the attitude of the Client or Architect on a construction project, how do we tackle this perception? The answer is, of course, don't change the design half way through a job which then involves a redraw, ordering small quantities of materials, changes to work already built, the disruption to work schedules and the momentum of the design and build process.

I got to thinking about how it applies to our way of working and why we have so few changes and why this is rarely an issue. The answer is early stage design involvement - if we are doing the design, then we do it our way and the Client gets early stage cost certainty and advantage. It is only where a job is "fully designed" by professionals inexperienced in heavy timber framing before going out to competitive tender that the problems start. The competitors have to produce the cheapest price in order to win the job, in other words the person who allows the least, but still in compliance with the contract documents, will win the job, and then has to go back after the contract is let and tell the design team where all the essential bits have been missed out. Where we and our Clients win is they get us on board early in the design stage so everything is included from day 1. Anything we miss out is our problem!

I remembered an example only just the other day where the engineer had allowed a stress value for a specialist designed curved glulam beam using 11mm thick laminations. Because we weren't on board at that stage of the design, he used a stress value that wasn't correct. When we were appointed and became aware of the value used (it wasn't part of the tendering information), we pointed out his mistake and gave him the correct value. He couldn't make the beam design work. He asked us how to reslove the issue and we told him we could regrade the timber to a higher stress level and solve the problem, but there would be an extra cost involved. He couldn't understand why.

The answer is simple and one we constantly preach, get us involved at an early stage of the design process and we will give you early stage cost certainty and avoid late project cost surprises, and these "cost surprises" are not "corrupt" or "disgraceful", but the consequence of poor procurement practices.

More blogs by Scott Fotheringham

Thoughts on the Napier University seminar on building in green timber

August 15, 2008 · Posted by Tim Burrell

Better late than never, I suppose, but being so busy I never quite got round to commenting on the CPD event organised by the Centre for Timber Engineering at Napier University. The theme was on the use of green timber in construction, a subject obviously close to my heart! I always find these events a mixed blessing - while it's great to get updated and to hear from and meet some great people, invariably I end up coming away with a big 'if only....'. In this case, I found myself lamenting the fact that we are great at producing forests of sitka spruce, but very little that we can easily use unprocessed in construction.

Anyway, it was great to see that so many of our projects were being featured and discussed, and that so many architects and engineers so obviously have faith in us not just to manufacture on time and on budget, but perhaps more gratifyingly that the message to get your specialist contractor involved in the design early on was so strongly expressed. I think in a time where so many are wanting to build in timber, but gravitate to the engineered forms (LVLs, glulams etc), the use of unprocessed green timber is so often much more appropriate - a more simple, ecologically sound, attractive, and yes cheaper option.

It's no doubt that the number of enquiries we receive are markedly on the increase. Who knows - a few more buildings of the quality of the Loch Lomond HQ and the Aspire centre in Dumferline, and we could see a huge swing towards this most obvious of building methods.

More blogs by Tim Burrell