I had a topic for this project once upon a time, but it got heavily sidelined into other areas and so here is a new topic.

For those of you who do not know, I am building a timber framed shop for myself. It is to be mostly a small woodworking shop, with office space as well. Right now the floor plan is 100% open, on two levels, so I can do whatever I want with the inside.

This shop is being built largely as a grand experiment. I want to explore traditional tools and methods, and put into practice all I have learned about the German tradition of timber framing. The building will be a typically German style infilled timber frame. The timbers will be exposed, at least on the outside and likely on the inside as well.

The infill technique used is going to be another experiment, trying out my own adaptation of a very old Swiss infill technique. See the infill topic in the enclosure forums for more details about this.

I want to have some practice on both of these techniques, and on the latter especially work out any potential problems before I ever do them for someone else.

The design is that of a traditional Bernese Swiss timber frame. Specifically, it would be classified as a small Stöckli. A Stöckli is one of three buildings on the traditional Bernese farm, where it was the smaller house where the grandparents would live after handing over the family farm to one of their sons (which is traditionally the youngest son, the older sons having all established their own farms or businesses with the help of the father) The other building are the great Bauernhaus, which is a massive structure that serves as the main house, the stables for the livestock at the other end, and storage for hay and equipment above. And there is the Spycher, which is a small granary and storage building.

Now enough of that, back to specifics of the project...

The project, as stated earlier, is also an exploration of traditional methods. To that end, everything but the rafters are going to be hand hewn. The rafters are just going to be 2x6 or 2x8, and relatively close spaced (as is part of the style) and so are not worth hand hewing.
Joints are going to be hand cut using traditional German tools, like the goosewing axe, Zimmeraxt (for which I am using a Gransfors broad axe which is more or less the same in the bit) and Stichaxt. Part of my hope here is to better cultivate my skill with the axe -the Germans historically did not use saws much at all on their joints, but rather used axes. I would like to be able to do this!

Now here is where I would like some contributions. I have 2 designs for the front elevation that I have come up with (the plan will be devised empirically from the front elevation) and I need to choose between them. They are basically the same, and to the casual observer they may appear identical. I won't explain the differences other than that they are designed using two different modes of Geometry. Whichever one you think looks better, let me know and if there are any specific reasons please let me know.
Here they are:

This first one is designed using the geometric mode of Ad Triangulum. the geometry is based on equilateral triangles, hexagons, and hexagrams. the daisy wheel is a form of ad triangulum. http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff345/HiddenOrder/Riegelhaus%20Project/IMG_0033.jpg for a larger image for those of you not using firefox

The second is designed with Ad Quadratum, which is geometry derived from squares, octagons, and octagrams. http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff345/HiddenOrder/Riegelhaus%20Project/IMG_0035.jpg

Note that for the geometries here I tried something new. I made the roof framing the primary focus of my geometry, and then derived the geometry of the walls from that. It proved to be a much easier technique than designing the geometry of the whole elevation at once.

The building here is 2 stories high, but the ceilings are low at around 7 feet. This keeps the building from looking overly tall. There is a balcony running along each long wall.

I have no idea what the roof pitches are, they do not come out to even numbers or anything remotely similar to an even number.

I am debating what to use for building timbers. The rafters will be dimensioned pine lumber, but everything else I have to make myself. At this point, I do not know whether or not I will use native lumber or get some pine logs to use, or both.

I intend to thoroughly record every step of this project for educational purposes, and for reviewing the techniques I am experimenting with. I would also like to make it open for anyone who would like to contribute in any way

DLB

Wow! I really look forward to seeing your progress!

Tim

Thanks Tim! By the way, do you have a design preference?

I realize I should explain a couple of other things on the design, as it is unclear...

There is a line near the top of the roof, this represents 2 things:
1. The location of a collar beam which ties the rafter pairs together, and is supported by purlins.
2: the location of the bottom of a snub hip.

Also, the roof includes both the framing of the gable walls and the interior roof framing.

And for comparison, here is a picture of a somewhat larger Stöckli from the Emmental. This gives you something to use to better interpret all of the lines on the two plans.


In the next week I plan on making some detailed frame drawings.

I don't see how it would be possible to create accurate computer models of this building. So I am looking forward to the fun job of creating some hand drawn perspective views!

The walls on this are going to be 7 inches thick, and each cavity will have a 4" deep space for insulation. There will be 3/4" of plaster and clay on the outside, supported by 3/4" (1x4) boards, and on the inside there will be a 1 1/2 inch board that sits flush with the inside face of the timbers.

alternately the posts might be 6 inches deep with the inside boarded over, which would leave a 4 1/2" insulation gap.

The timbers are going to be sealed off with paint and plaster on the outside, and will either be left natural or whitewashed on the inside.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm.............I am going to go with the second design. After much studying of the pictures the Ad Quadratum design sits better with me. I think it has to do with the lower slope roof maybe? something about it feels more friendly.

I agree with Tim. the Ad Quadratum is more appealing to me. I t appears to have a better symmatry, which I like better in buildings. I have German heritage, so this projects is of an interest to me. I look forword to seeing the progress.

What effects do your local building codes have on the design/construction?

Is there any examples of this style of framing in the US? I know Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have a good stock of Germanic buildings, but I think those are more Northern German.

I like it when you go by gut feeling here. That's what I'm looking for! I already know all the differences between the two, their advantages over each other, etc.

They are both very good choices -they are the 2 finalists from a long process of design. It is very hard to choose between 2 equally good things!

The Ad Quadratum design does have the advantage of being Ad Quadratum. Let me explain. Almost everybody today who knows about geometric design knows about the daisy wheel, and that's it. There's nothing wrong with the daisy wheel, but in reality it is only a very small part of medieval geometry. The daisy wheel is Ad Triangulum, but Ad Triangulum can be so much more than just the daisy wheel. Examine my triangulum design -you won't find the arcs of the daisy wheel, but you will see the hexagram. (I actually intentionally made my drawing without showing the circles and arcs) If youy look closer, you will see there is more to it than the daisy wheel, such as the doubled hexagram, and the system of extending lines to create new points off in space rather than only using the points available on the original diagram.
I would term my method here as extensible geometry rather than plotted geometry. Allow me to explain. Plotted geometry is where you take a figure like the daisy wheel or some circular system, and you use only those points within the plotted diagram to get your design. To 'extend' the geometry you just surround your original daisy wheel with more daisy wheel. Extensible geometry is really a much more simplified system, but perhaps more difficult to use. You have to have a pretty keen understanding of geometric relationships to make it work, and have the knowledge of how to create relationships and divide spaces if the figures you want aren't there. My form of extensible geometry is to use the core Hexagram and its divisions to design a certain aspect of the building. This should generally be the part that is the most complex and most in need of sound geometry, so it is almost always going to be the roof. So here my roof is centered on the core diagram. After I make a suitable roof, I derive the rest of my building from a combination of the roof's geometry and the points of the core diagram.

This system has the notable disadvantage of being much harder to use and requiring a lot of knowledge of geometry. It has the notable advantage, however, of being a lot more free and flexible.

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dbaily, I am not aware of any Swiss type buildings in the US. There are certainly buildings built in the German style, but Swiss house architecture doesn't seem to have made it here. Actually I should back up a little bit, The house architecture of Appenzell and Saint Gallen may have had a significant influence on the design of the common American house, but this is far different from the Bernese style.

Most of the Germans, and by extension their buildings, in this country are not low German. Most of the Germans who came here are from the regions now encompassed by the states of Rheinland-Pfalz, Baden-Württemburg, Bayern, (in other words South Germany) as well as Switzerland, and Austria. Take for example the Penssylvania Dutch language, once the common language of Pennsylvania and not limited to Amish and Mennonites. It is nearly identical in many ways to the current dialect spoken in the Pfalz region of Germany, but with a lot of influence in Grammar and vocab from Swiss. That's because most Germans in America are palatinate German. O hei, Ich kann au Deitsch schwetze..

The framing style exists in such places as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana (In the wonderful city of Berne), Minnesota, Chicago, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, and Texas. In all of these regions, however, it was eventually overtaken by the surrounding building styles.

Is it just me?
I'm sitting here scratching my head trying to see the difference in those two sketches and for the life of me, other than some unrelated pencil lines in the background, I can't.
I'm just having a hard time seeing the relationship between the concept and the pencil lines.
Also, just a note...if this is a work shop you may want to reconsider your ceiling height of only 7 ft. Light fixtures will hang down even lower.
On a positive note you will likely have the most interesting shop in the neighborhood. Can't wait to see your progress as you start cutting joinery.

About the 7 foot height, here's the deal:

The final layout will be done at full scale, derived from the original drawings. What I will do is scale up the drawings.

The method I will likely use is to use my compass to make a line several times the original on the drawing, then use that line as the basis for the final dimension of the building. I can adjust the scale of enlargements to make things a little bigger or a little smaller.

The drawings were made with a general scale of 1:24, but when I enlarge the lines to make the full scale, I may use instead a factor of 26 or 27. I didn't make the ceilings higher because it made the building look odd, I instead just decided that I would scale it up a little further. This is OK, because I don't mind having a slightly larger floor plan.

About the 2 drawings, they are very similar. The best way to see the differences is perhaps to put your eyes out of focus a little bit when looking at them. They are both the same design, just with different geometries.

There is 1 problem with the AQ design, however. The braces in the gable for the wall brace against the posts. With long braces such as these that is bad. It can potentially pry the posts out of joint. I will have to account for that or alter it in the final design.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/ff345/HiddenOrder/Riegelhaus%20Project/scan0004.jpg
This is a conceptual drawing I had in my notes, it's the basic design of the building but not an exact design based on either of the geometries. This in fact is the sketch I used to make my final designs, so its proportions may vary a wee little bit but it should give you a general idea of the building.
Sorry not the highest quality scan in the world, but I didn't feel like waiting the amount of time it takes for my scanner to take a good image... But this should be adequate for you to better understand the lines on the elevation plans shown

A few notes:

Notice the windows, 1 on each level of the gable walls and 2 on the side wall shown. The side shown has a double door since it is intended to be a workshop. The other side in stead will have a single door located opposite one of the windows, with 3 windows all in a row for lots of interior light.

I will have to make the windows myself I am afraid, which means they won't be energy efficient. To somewhat alleviate this problem they will likely have operable wooden shutters.

There is framing around the windows, but in addition to this there will be substantial wooden trim that will largely cover up the actual structural parts to protect them from water. It is easier to replace trim than structural timbers!

This drawing shows the balcony extending around the end walls, but I won't do that. Instead there will be a window box under the second story window to serve as a flower box, adding to the typically Swiss character of the buildings. (the flowers therefore have to be red)

I've got some new help in my venture here, I will be guided and taught the techniques by a very experienced and very skilled Swiss Master Carpenter. Can't say I'm not excited about that.

This man has generously agreed to teach me as much has he is able about the traditional techniques of Swiss carpentry, in no small part because he too would love to see these techniques put into use on this continent.