The geometry of a 1870's barn

 This Vermont barn was built in the 1870's . It has been used for storage for the last 20 years.

I prepared a report on its history and structure for its owners so they could consider repair and reconstruction with some real knowledge - not just good memories and/or worry about costs.

The barn was well built by a farmer who knew his land and a framer skilled at his trade.
The frame is regular, much of it still sturdy. Its mortises,  tenons, and pegs are still secure.














Its bents use dropped girts and posts to purlins which support  common rafters, a framing system regularly used in the Hudson Valley watershed, not often seen in this area of Vermont.









While I was not asked about the barn's geometry, as I laid out the plan and the frame I could see the geometry clearly - not complex, quite simple, repetitive, and straightforward.


Here is the 3rd bent and the lower level floor plan.
The bent is one of the 4 timber frames across the barn that are then fastened together with plates and girts. Walls and flooring have been left out.
The plan is mainly the post locations. I have not included the exterior wall girts.  The braces which are visible in the photograph to the right are barely noted.

The floor plan could easily have been laid out using circle geometry.

I have added Laurie Smith's diagram for drawing a square beginning with a circle. It is a very clear description.

For his websites see: http://www.thegeometricaldesignworks.com/

and  http://historicbuildinggeometry.uk/

Here is my drawing of the floor plan with its posts laid out using circles. The first  (top) 2 bays are of equal depth and width.  The dashed green line shows the layout determined by the circles.

The lower bay (between bent 3 and 4) is not as deep. Perhaps the land dropped off too steeply, or the lumber available was not as long. The dotted red line in the lower right rectangle shows how the crossing of the arcs of the square determined the depth of the bay. 

The base of bent 3 is vague on purpose. I don't really know the depth of many of the lower level posts. The land slopes west to east. The floor on the east end has been built up over the years with layers of discarded boards.  The right end has been reconfigured for cows; the left end has a false ceiling.
The main  barn level of the bents is divided into thirds. The  posts are the height of a third of the bay's width - the space they outline is a square. I've drawn it in red. The dropped girts are set at the point where the arcs of the square cross. Also drawn in red.
This is similar to how the lower level east bay's depth was determined.
The posts that support the purlins ( the roof beams ) are centered on the squares below. The height of the ridge is also determined by where the arcs of the loft square cross.






Lastly the location of the lower girt which becomes the plate for the wing is determined by the Rule of Thirds.



Such basic practical geometry tools! They are  those described by Serlio, Palladio, and Asher Benjamin - circles, arcs, lines - applied in very simple ways with impressive results.


Well thought out, straightforward without fancy flourish, the space and the frame speak to me. But I am simply the one who documented this, sharing the power, the grace, that I found.

The barn, after 150 years, is no longer essential. It is very possible that it may not survive until a new purpose discovers it.

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St Jerome's Catholic Church, East Dorset, Vermont

St. Jerome's Church in East Dorset, Vermont. was coming down. Only 4 towns away, not very far!  I would be able to see the frame. The weather was beautiful;  I was itchy for a drive.

Add to that my friend from the 2016 PTN Workshops, Lisa Force, was one of the crew.  Of course I went.

This is Lisa striking a pose in her haz-mat suit.

The church was built in 1874 for the Catholic stone masons who had come to Dorset to work in the quarries and shops. By 2010 it had only 6 members and a large, lovingly cared for cemetery. The church was closed. Naturally the roof leaked; mold grew.
Parishioners realized that if church were gone, the cemetery could expand. Enter Deconstruction Works   http://www.deconstructionworks.com/



Here is the church with asbestos siding: sweet, unexceptional.

















Here's what was uncovered: vertical sheathing - classic Gothic Revival siding.  Rustic, rural, right out of the pattern books! *
Able to be built of local lumber cut at local saw mills by local craftsmen, the design fit its pastoral country setting.




A dog house shed for the bulkhead had covered a section of the original siding, leaving it unchanged. The battens which had covered the joints  between the boards were still there. They were fat and curvy , creating strong shadows, beautifully following the lines of the windows.
I admire how those craftsman 140 years ago reinforced the shape and rhythm of the windows as well as the verticality of the church.

The interior had been renovated several times; the floor covering  updated, the ceiling lowered at least three times, the walls painted, most of the stained glass replaced, the alter reconfigured.

The iron tie rods may have been original  - or not. They are visible on the right:  the straight horizontal chords that run right through the curved trusses.

Those trusses simply took off half way up the wall. No base.While they were in front of the posts of the bays and symmetrical around the windows they were built up, not solid timbers.





Way up at the peak, in the gloom above all the framing for the drop ceilings, (and what we thought was the original ceiling) the trusses crossed.

So I came home to draw a hypothetical church with curved trusses.
Lisa critiqued.







This is how I think the church was laid out - a simple and elegant geometric design.

However, the designer, be he master carpenter or fledgling  architect, did not need to know much about Practical Geometry. The elevation  divides the square into halves and quarters The  radii of the 2 arcs is determined by the width of the church . Very simple, not complex,

That the designer understood how the frame could create the sense of the church became clear as the layers of interior improvements were stripped from the frame.

The arches do cross. They are part of all the ribs of the bays from the narthex and the nave to the apse. They are an integral part of the frame, well anchored to the posts and braced by the wall's framing.

We saw that crossings were exposed, visible.
They were carefully joined, their edges chamfered  The trefoils and quatrefoils were inserts. The whole assembly was painted in  subtle shades popular at the time: metallic gold on the trusses, brick on the tracery, and on the inside edge of the patterns: red!

Perhaps the colors have faded; the emphasis has not. They were designed and carved to be seen.

The carving, the tracery matched what we saw on the arches and inserts at the transition from the wall to the roof which we had photographed and discussed.  But we had not know what we were seeing. The parts: the strength of the arches,the delicacy of the tracery, and the shapes they created were invisible when they were painted white.  They had lost their grace, their power.












The church is now stripped to the frame. It was taken down completely in the spring of 2017.

I have not seen a geometric layout like this before. I will make measured drawings; then I look at the frame more carefully.





I own drafting tools from this period. They are drawing instruments, 2 compasses and a divider as well as pens and 2 scales, made for drawing with ink.
A Master Carpenter would have used compasses to draw this layout and design in the 1870's. There were not many craftsmen who called themselves architects in 1874. Possibly this design was developed by the local diocese for small communities like E. Dorset. However, I have seen no record nor another similar church. 



*    The image, "William T. Hanlett, BICKNELL'S WOODEN & BRICK BUILDINGS, 1875", is  from
      Country Patterns 1843 - 1883, edited by Donald J. Berg, Revised 2nd edition, The Main Street           Press,  Pittstown, NJ, 1986.

Folk Victorian, circa 1872

A contractor bought this 2 family in-town house and asked for my help. Because of the deep lot we were able to return to its original single family status and add a 'barn' as the second living unit.

This massing was similar to other homes in the neighborhood. The back of the barn looks out over town owned wetlands.

The house was renovated on a strict budget.

The 2 units sold as condominiums immediately.

Some highlights:

The living room fireplace mantle had disappeared. The contractor

found a new one at a discount warehouse, Building 19: Victorian style interpreted by Thai craftsmen. We laughed, but it fit the budget and in place, painted, looked great.

The basement had about 6 ft. head room. We found out why when we dug the foundation for the barn addition - a high water table. That required the wing be set higher on the site. Then the roof lines didn't meet properly, necessitating on-the-spot redesign.

The original 1872 house used only one profile for all the moldings. It ran sideways up the windows, upside down as an apron, right side up on the baseboard. The visual variety came from how the light stuck the curves in the different positions. So simple, so effective.

The windows in the faux barn door are over the kitchen sink. The current owners have continued the visual joke by landscaping a faux barn entrance ramp below the 'door'.

The project made a real impact on the neighborhood and received

a local Historic Prservation Award.