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Scott is our Timber Engineering Manger. He joined Carpenter Oak & Woodland in 2004 primarily because of his love of working with wood, and having managed both our framing yards, he took up the challenge of developing our rapidly growing Timber Engineering business in 2006. Scott, (being much older than he actualy looks!) has many years experience in the construction industry as a Quantity Surveyor and Contracts Manager, and brings us a great depth of knowledge from having managed a number of different construction businesses.
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The Roman Architect Vitruvus in his Ten Books of Architecture (circa 25BC), the oldest known text on the subject, defines the essence of architecture as a synthesis of “utilas, firmistas and venustas”, variously translated as firmness, commodity and delight (Sir Henry Wotton 1624) and strength, function and beauty. For Vitruvius, architecture requires balance between intellectual and manual, between theoretical and practical, between design and construction. John Da Silva of Polhemius Savery DaSilva Architects Builders makes the point about traditional Architect and Contractor relationships where one can profit by proving the other wrong are rife with mistrust and contentiousness. Designing and making allows the integration of theory and craft providing the best chance at approaching Vitrivius’s balance.*
I liken John’s words to the business practices of our own organisation. We are passionate about serving our Clients through the understanding of their needs, with integration into the design team at the earliest stage of the project concept. This approach to construction removes entirely the potential opportunity to profit from the errors or omissions conveyed by a set of rushed incomplete drawings, further exacerbated by a rather pathetic attempt at descriptive text made up by inexperienced college graduates. When the specialist contractor knows more about the construction than the project procurement team, that knowledge is the power to profit.
I recently was advised by a dishonest procurement practitioner that if our company provided the information from which he could put together a meaningful contractual document, we would be “nominated” to carry out the works. Alarm bells rung, as we had no knowledge of this practitioner and he had no experience of working with us and, by complete chance, we learned that he had made the same promise to two other specialists. How did he ever think that this dishonest approach would ever produce a successful project?
* Architecture of the Cape Cod Summer by Michael J Crosbie
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