Tim Burrell

Tim is Carpenter Oak & Woodland’s managing director. Tim has extensive experience of managing companies of all sizes, in many business sectors, including construction and building. Tim’s no-nonsense hands-on approach, coupled with his outstanding management experience and commercial acumen, make him the ideal complement to the craft-based skills of the rest of the team.

---

Previous posts

• Musings on Arts and Crafts
• Environmentally responsible building
• Why oak?
• Wood Awards
• Interbuild 2007

---

|

Subscribe to this feed

---

By Tim Burrell

I’ve been taking the time over the Easter holiday to do a bit of reading, and this time round it was about the Arts and Crafts movement. I love the whole ethos about this period – the teachings of John Ruskin and the architecture of Lethaby, Voysey, Webb and my particular favourite, Lutyens. (By the way, I never have understood why William Morris has become synonymous with Arts and Crafts, when probably best known for the output of Morris & Co – products mass manufactured in a factory, and anything but simple designs, but hey, what do I know?). The Arts and Crafts view that a building should be good, simple and honest, celebrating and being in harmony with nature, and built by skilled local craftspeople, is I guess why people are today attracted to building with heavy timber framed buildings. Many of their messages of environmental concern, open plan living, and celebrating the skills of our craftsmen are as true today as they were 100 years ago.

Does this, I wonder mean that this resurgence in oak framed building is heralding in a 21st Century Arts and Crafts renaissance? Well I hope not. In some quarters, oak framed buildings are seen as only very traditional – all close studded, and desperate to be painted black! – and we have been banging on for quite some time about how post and beam frames are infinitely flexible, not just as structures, but as the facilitators of every conceivable style of dwelling. It would be a shame to pigeon-hole our frames into just one style.

So, like the Arts and Crafts movement, let’s not get into a design rut and insist on a certain style, but get imaginative, and celebrate the skill and craftsmanship that goes into our bespoke frames.