Heavy Timber Structures

This stunning book of photos is from the Lancaster Co. Timber Frames Inc. It is a small compilation of some of their projects over the years. The Lancaster Co Timber Farms build amazing wooden buildings from churches to historical reconstructions. The pictures in the books show the different buildings they have had a hand in. Along with the finished pictures you get what I will call a blueprint of the wood they placed or used in building the structures. There are also pictures of the construction. It is a very interesting book to look at and read. The reading part is very short, so it only takes a couple of hours to get through the book.

I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

Heavy Timber Structures by Anthony F. Zaya and Tim Diener is a beautiful, detailed book of churches, home, businesses, etc that have all used timber as the focal point of their design. The book was beautiful and the photos were amazing. This seems like a very specific book for people who are planning on utilizing similar designs.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

In the triumvirate of dominant structural building materials—wood, metal, and masonry—each has its advantages, but none are as intertwined with the human spirit as wood. Thirty-five public buildings illustrate how heavy timber framing can address familiar programmatic issues such as structure, economics, aesthetics, and sustainability. Timber framing can also have a positive effect on human emotions and physiology. In addition to being warm to the touch, wood building interiors have been widely proven to reduce blood pressure and heart rate and to speed convalescence in health care facilities. More than 450 photos, plans, and diagrams show how wood framing components from solid timbers to glulams and peeled logs are designed for durability and expressiveness. The finished projects aptly demonstrate what it means not only to shape buildings, but how they shape us.

What a stunningly presented book - one of the nicest books I have seen in a while. From Lancaster Co. Timber Frames, this book presents projects the company has been involved in - from reconstructions to new buildings, we learn about not just the buildings themselves, but how they impact on the land around them, the economic and health benefits of building with wood, and how we feel about them ourselves.

With hundreds of photos, diagrams and plans of the buildings, this book is primarily a "picture book" - however, the authors have put a great deal of effort into the text as well, to convey their challenges as well as successes, to show the reader why these buildings can be important to us all.

Highly recommended!


Paul
ARH

This is a stunningly beautiful book! It showcases the beauty of wood as structure, and now I desperately want to live in one of them!