The Dutch House at Bucksteep Manor by Laurie Smith

 Laurie Smith's book, The Dutch House at Bucksteep Manor, A Geometric Design and 18th Century Hand Tool Workshop covers the workshop he gave in Massachusetts in 2009 for the Timber Framers Guild.  Laurie Smith is a timber framer, historian, and researcher of the use of geometric design in medieval England.
His workshop with Jack Sobon brought together "geometrical design methods and the use of 18th century hand tool techniques for the major timbers". (quote from the foreword of his book, p.iv)

Laurie Smith begins with analysis of the geometry used to design and frame 6 colonial Dutch houses in the Hudson River valley of New York. That understanding, based on measured drawings, became the basis for the frame built at the workshop.

Following the workshop Laurie Smith spoke at TFG's Eastern Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. The frame of the Dutch house had been erected in the hotel auditorium, but Laurie did not refer directly to it, the course, or the research he had done to prepare. Instead he spoke about his work in England and Wales. It was fascinating.

I attended the conference specifically for his talk as I had read his articles in Timber Framing, the TFG  journal. Later we began to correspond by e-mail. Our latest conversations have been about the Old First Church and the Luykas Van Alen House, both of which I have written about in this blog.

The drawings in the book of the regulating lines, the circle geometry of the 6 houses are clear and beautiful. For me they are a tutorial.
The measured drawings are also a gift. I am very familiar with colonial houses in eastern New England where I spent most of my life. I do not know as well the Dutch framing used in these 6 houses. It is similar to what I see in the part of the Hudson River watershed where I live today. Drawings such as these are not easy to come by, so I am reading them carefully. My thanks to Jack Sobon for the documentation.

For more information, and some pictures, about Laurie Smith and his work see:
http://www.timberframersguild.org/confs/confeast2011/GEOMETRICAL%20DESIGN%20WEEKEND%202011-A4.pdf

Geometry of the Old First Church, Bennington, VT, part 1 of 2

The Old First Church in the Old Center of Bennington, Vermont, was built in 1805. The congregation, needing a new building, hired the master builder/architect Lavius Fillmore of Connecticut. He had already constructed several churches in Connecticut. He built 2 more in Vermont. 

The church as been in use since it was built. It has an active congregation.

I am one of the docents (tour guides) for the church. We open the church during the week for visitors. We answer tourists' questions about church customs in 1805, theology, local and New England history, and sometimes even its architecture. We encourage people to walk around the church and the cemetery.

When there are no visitors I am just in the space. It has wonderful proportions, light, and curves.





One part of the building I have been studying is the window sash pattern. The upper windows are arched:  double hung windows with half circle tops. There are also Palladian windows. Where did the shapes of the curves in the arches come from?



Fillmore had a design in mind. How did he show the carpenter/joiner making the sash how those pointy pieces of glass and the muntins, the wood that holds them in place, were to be fashioned?





The use of circle geometry to determine the regulating architectural lines of buildings was common knowledge in 1800. So I began my exploration with circles.

Here is what I have found:
The top diagram shows the 5 panes of the Palladian windows with their arch. The lower diagram is the simpler 4 pane wide window.


The circle which determines the shape of the half circle arch, also determines the shape of the 'pointy' panes within the arch. The circles come and go in both directions. It is the center half circle which contains the expansion, 'centering' it.
Once I saw that, it was so obvious! I felt as if I had not played with my compass enough when I was little!

I thought I'd try the pattern in the arch over the main front door....

This pattern is more complex. The circle is surrounded by its 6 circles, starting with points on the left and right sides of the circle. The crossing points of the outer circles are centers for the curved segments in the center half circle. The pattern is then repeated starting at the top and the bottom points of the circle, or a 30* shift from the first pattern. The 2 patterns are combined to make the scalloped edge.



Well, what about that 3 leafed  'flower' - 'crown' -  in the center?

 

 

I am not sure. Here is what I can draw in -  the lines are determined by  little circles inside the others. If the circle were full, not a half, there would 6 little circles would fit, so the pattern still comes from a base of 6. But what determines the size of those circles?
I don't know. I do think the answer will be obvious when I find it.

 

 

9/15/2021: See the next post for the geometry as laid out by Laurie Smith.

 

An addition to a modular home

My first job after MIT was with a company which built modular homes. So I was quite interested and curious when a family called about 8 years ago, asking for help expanding their modular home.

The house was set on a hill with a garage under the kitchen wing. It was sturdy, as I expected: frames which have to travel to their destination are usually built to withstand jars and jolts. However, the garage had no space left for the cars, and the house did not adapt well to company, or have good access to the backyard.

Could I help design a wing?

This was one of those times when the owners knew quite a lot about what they wanted in a wing: how big it needed to be, what spaces were required, where it should go, but not how to make it look "right". They had some sketches - which they didn't like.

The first picture shows the existing house as the framing of the wing commences. The second shows the completed wing.

The right look was an addition which did not overwhelm the house, a roof line which made the wing subservient, a style that complimented the traditional cape with its center entrance and balanced dormers.
In eastern New England houses were (and are today) often expanded in a rhythm: main house block, a smaller wing or two, a barn. Here the family room wing with garage and mud room below are detailed as a barn - at least from the street - lots of blank wall, only one window, simple lines. The slope of the roof - the same slope as the main house roof - brings the eye down to the land, in this case the driveway. The roof running above the garage doors cuts the height of the 2 story space, making the 2nd floor family room appear as a dormer. As the house sits quietly on the land, so does the wing, not above it. The wing is in scale with the original modest house.

The expansion rhythm is often quoted as " Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn" an old jump rope rhyme as well as the title to an excellent book.

"Before the Big House"

That was the title of the talk I gave for the Bennington Historical Society at the Bennington Museum  on July 16th.
The "Big House" is the Park-McCullough mansion, built in 1864. It is set on a hill: 50 ft tall, with 3 stories and an observatory, a bellevedere that looks over the countryside. The House, when built, was about 20 ft taller than anything else in North Bennington, except the church steeple. It had hot and cold running water, a furnace, and gas lighting.

Really, however, the talk was about North Bennington in 1856, 4 years after the 1852 flood that destroyed the center of the village. A title about that didn't make much sense as hardly anyone remembers that flood today or knows the 1856 map of the village. I wanted to show the resilience of the townspeople as shown by the reconstruction of the mills and houses within 4 years of the flood. And I wanted to present the village - 60 houses, 8 mills - just before the Industrial Revolution takes off.

The Society doesn't usually have summer lectures, so we were experimenting. Would anyone come?

I had power point presentation of 70 slides, a hand out and some books to share. I planned to get everyone to measure their own 'cubit'. If we got 10 people, we would have a discussion, 20 (because the museum has a/c and it was hot!) would be a seminar. With 30 I would give a  lecture.We put out 40 chairs since no one sits in the front row.

50 people came, sat in the front row, stayed to the end, asked questions and looked at the books, took the handout - a copy of the 1856 map - home. None were left behind.

People tell me it was a good talk. In the next year I hope for some comments about what people see now when they are in North Bennington. For me, that would mean success.

How I work with clients #3 of 5 Existing Conditions

Existing Conditions

This list gives you, the owner, and me a overview of your house. It helps us set priorities and gives us a record


An example:


You want a new wing that will open out to your back yard. You also want another bedroom and bath,

Your septic system's placement will determine where you can add on.You will not want large trucks driving over it during construction.
If the field should be expanded, now is the time to consider that.
If you have the opportunity to connect to a town system, now may be the time. That work and expense should be included in the job.

Despite this list when we renovate existing houses we find things. I  remember the excavation of unknown septic systems at two different jobs. Both were disconnected - we checked to be sure! - but one needed to pumped.

Building to the weather, Bennington, VT, #2

This picture was taken on July 5th.
The date is important. Here you see how the roof extends, creating eaves that shade the windows of this house from the hot July sun.
In the summer, the sun here in New England is high in the sky. A 16" eave will shade about 5' of the wall below it. Here you can see that the roof over the first floor extend the farthest, casting a longer shadow than the main roof whose shadow covers little more than half the second floor windows. The roof over the sun porch on the right side is also shallow.
Later in the summer, the sun will be lower in the sky. The eaves will not cast as deep a shadow. But the tree will. Its shade will include the front of the house.
In the winter months, when the sun is at a much lower angle, the eaves will not block the welcome sunshine and heat. I will take another picture then and add it to this post.

The porch was probably all screens when it was built - set on the northeast side of the house, held back from the front corner to allow it to be shaded by the house from the sun in the afternoon. These porches have often been glassed in by later owners as they are beautifully sited to be delightful places on sunny late fall and then late winter mornings.

a note on the style: The house is Colonial Revival with a nod toward Cotswold cottages with the deep roof overhangs reminiscent of thatch, the small windows over the entrance, and especially the clipped roof on the gable end, sometimes referred to as a 'jerkin head' after a monk's cowl.

Building to the weather - Bennington, VT, #1

in this case, PLANTING to the weather
a post for the summer solstice

Here are 2 pictures of the same house. The first was taken in April, the second in June.
Note the absence of shade in April, its presence in June.
The house was build around 1765 in southern Vermont. The trees were planted around the same time.

In the spring, when the warmth of the sun shining through the windows into the house is so welcome, the trees are just beginning to bud. By June, the trees have leafed out shielding the house from the hot sun. They will protect the house though October. Late fall and through winter, the sun will once again be able to warm the house.
Not only do the trees keep the sun off the house, they create a micro-climate. In their shade the air temperature will be about 10* cooler than out in the sun. This temperature change also creates a breeze, always welcome on a hot day.

In lower latitudes, the path of the sun across the sky is different. The east and west elevations are the ones which need trees for shade, while a roof overhang is enough to shade the south facade.

Each climate has its own ways to shelter from the sun. For me one of the pleasures of traveling is watching how a particular part of the world builds, and plants, to its particular climate.

When I wrote- on this blog - about the Park-McCullough House Carriage Barn, I hoped to explain to a modern audience this basic knowledge about climate that our ancestors took for granted. I thought using a building everyone could visit (as it was open to the public) would make the ideas more accessible: you could go look for yourself. I found instead that readers thought only rich people who hired architects built to the weather. 

This time my illustrations are ordinary, vernacular buildings.