I started building and restoring timberframes full time more ten years ago. I specialize in timberframed buildings because they are strong, durable, beautiful, use local materials, and belong to a thousand-year tradition that has demonstrated their worth as shelter beyond any question. In short, they are the modern expression of a vernacular that has extended across the forested regions of the eastern United States and northern Europe for centuries. Innovation is fine where necessary, but joiners and carpenters long ago worked out the fundamentals of building durable shelters from trees. Improvements are possible, but the basic technology is not only sound, but has not been matched for durability or beauty in buildings framed from wood.
Although some timberframed buildings are in fact museums, the tradition itself is no museum piece. It is alive, vibrant, and continues to evolve in response to changes in economic circumstances and our growing awareness of the important relationship between buildings and local ecologies. In my own work I have attempted to build a reciprocal relationship between a home and our native ecology. I insist on using local, natural, nontoxic materials; minimizing energy needs and costs over the life of the building; and doing everything possible to create a building that can last for centuries. I think this combination is the formula for a genuine “green” building.
At the same time I strive to create buildings that nurture our human bodies and engage our senses. In my mind that’s what the word shelter means. Too many modern building are designed to satisfy the bottom line of an industrial economy and mass production. They are designed and manufactured to be quickly assembled from factory-produced components. Too often the materials are lifeless, inhospitable to human bodies and human needs, and in some cases even toxic. I build with wood, stone, earth, and fiber; for finishes I use natural oils or paints made from clay or lime. The stuff the world around us is made of. The stuff our bodies and senses evolved with. The results are buildings that feel different. The pictures throughout this website offer a glimpse, but they can’t really capture the fullness of that experience. To get that you have to feel the warmth and strength of an earthen floor. Watch sunlight gleam on a natural plaster wall. Run your hand along a timber where the curve of the tree it once was is still apparent. To really feel the difference deeply, you have to live for a year in one of these houses.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss a building project, please contact us by phone at 207/460-7599 or email at bannons@villagegreentimberframes.com.
A building, like any other work of fiction, should have magic in it.
