hard work, camaraderie, and passion for a craft
The need to build sustainably requires us all to challenge the status quo. Planning for an efficient structural system will conserve materials, labor, and $$$ while adding to the overall quality of any project.
Many builders, architects, and engineers have wrestled with the question of how to create a good pattern of efficient structure. The question is so fundamental and challenging that it begs fresh debate on every new project. There are as many answers, it seems, as there are problem-solvers. For Calatrava, the structure becomes the building. For Buckminster Fuller, structural efficiency is a triangle that culminates in a faceted dome. Gaudi's experiments in compression, Roebling's resolution of tension, and Gehry's experiments in avoiding the issue altogether have produced stunning, remarkable, and compelling structures.
I'm no Calatrava, and experimentation with new ideas often happens at a client's expense. At it's worst, it can lead to folly for folly's sake, eventually ending up as trash. That, I predict, will be a problem for Gehry's progeny.
Re-inventing efficient structure on every new project isn't necessary. But, a critical enquiry responsive to a project's needs and sustainability issues, I think, compels builders to return to simpler, older, and more sustainable methods of construction.
"But a home," you might say, "is a home. It doesn't need to be some architectural or engineering masterpiece. And the most efficient structure for a home is stick framing - everybody does it that way." The truth is, not everybody does it that way; and if you're building a home to endure, inspire, and comfort you and your family, the issue deserves more thought.
Hilliard Residence, Kearney, NE
A home, in particular, ought to be a place that inspires and comforts its owners.
In A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander, pattern #206 - efficient structure - lays out the methods by which a builder can build the most structurally efficient building, if that's to be a goal. The fundamental question asked is...
"What is the best way to distribute materials throughout a building, so as to enclose space, strongly and well, with the least amount of material?"
Alexander rightly points out that compression is a much simpler force to resolve efficiently in a building. Tension requires the use of scarce and expensive materials to resolve its forces. Following his logic to its conclusion, he argues that when the pattern of efficient structure is desired and practically implemented, buildings very much like Fonthill are the result.
The principles for the pattern of efficient structure, for Alexander, are inherently tied, and precedent, to the layout of social spaces within the building. The structure follows the social spaces. Efficiency compels the use of good materialsand specifically those good in compression. Continuity of the structure "depends on its connections". To be the most efficient, a building's structure would be made of a homogeneous, compressive material, have vaulted ceilings, load bearing walls, and thickened frames around openings.
Stick-built homes, then, according to Alexander, are not examples of efficient structures. These types of homes are not efficient at all. They're expedient. We've all seen the derivative problems of tract construction. If we were to draw conclusions strictly from our built environment, we would be led to believe that stick-framing must be the most efficient structural system with which to build a home. After all, everybody does it that way, right?
Stick-built homes are a remnant of the Industrial Revolution; older and more inefficient than the internal combustion engine. Building a stick-framed home today with 2 x 4's, laminated or pressed sheet goods, and thousands upon thousands of small clips and fasteners is a miserable affair. I've done it. It's inglorious, wasteful, and uninspiring; and that's the perspective of many of us who have built them.
Framing stick-built homes in 1993-94, I worked with a great crew. The homes we built were very nice by most any accepted standards. Even today, whenever I drive by one of them, my mind recalls the great tradespeople I worked with, the fun we had, and the hard work expended. But I never think, "Wow, that's a great home!"
It was fast, easy, and cheap. "The way we've always done it" could be the stick-building industry's motto.
As we struggle to change our buildings, we find that change is made more difficult by the codification of our current, inefficient methods. Building codes have become massive prescriptions for perpetuating the status quo. The IRC (International Residential Code) in particular, is a vast attempt to fix known problems of our stick-built, de facto standards of residential construction.
The code writers' folly is also their job security - to be ever-chasing the next problem in this broken system.
Life is short. To labor hard every day at a job in exchange for a check is just that; a check for hard labor. People need and deserve more than that in exchange for their labor. When we have a choice we often choose the longer, more scenic path, the more invigorating ski trail, a well-presented meal, the better-built automobile, the hand-made rug, the more difficult assignment, a better way. We thrive on challenge, desire, competition, and passion. Such is the motivation of any craftsman.
When the process and products of labor neither require nor inspire passion, we become hopeless creatures doing jobs for money at the expense of craft and life.
Inspired to find a better way, I made my way to Benson Woodworking in 1995 and studied timber framing with people who were committed to a bigger picture. What drove me there was the quest for another learning curve and efficient structure.
Timber framing is far more efficient and sustainable than stick construction. I'll forever be a fan. It's structure behaves with much more continuity because of its connections. Timber frames aren't perfectly efficient structures, either, but even for Alexander they're a step in a much better direction. The connections require forethought, skill, and attentiveness to detail which are lacking in stick-built buildings. The fact that much of the structure is left exposed to view is educational, comforting, and celebratory.
good joinery connects eastern white pine, southern yellow pine, and douglas fir
I think structural efficiency as a goal itself is worth exploring. The benefits are creative and inspiring spaces, enduring quality, and evidence of craft by the hands of the craftsmen. Alexander alludes to this latter aspect in the question...
"what is the best way to distribute materials..."
The word distribute considers the issue of labor. It's not merely a question of materials. Materials are distributed and installed only with labor. Many times in our lives we find ourselves focusing on the materials of our craft and take our labor for granted. At least in my timber framed work, I never felt that my labor was lost.
Hilliard's arch in the old shop of Benson Woodworking, Alstead, NH
Lastly, Alexander is looking for "the best way to distribute materials". Indeed, that may be his life's quest. In The Nature of Order, and The Timeless Way of Building he clearly argues that the way in which we do things may matter most.
So, my experience has been that only when we efficiently combine labor and materials with some higher goal do we succeed in building something wonderful. And when the way itself is an objective, efficiencies of many sorts are happy consequences.
Kim and Dr. Rusty Hilliard, 1997
