Introduction

The Timber Framers Guild is dedicated to promoting the centuries-old craft of timber framing. The reason for its increasing popularity is clear: Timber framing is a building style that unites sound construction techniques with handsome materials to produce a natural, yet beautiful, result. Timber frames offer a feeling of strength, durability, and spaciousness.

What is timber framing?

Timber framing has been practiced for centuries everywhere in the northern hemisphere. In North America, we still build most of our houses and many of our larger buildings of wood, but there are different ways of making the frame or skeleton of the structure.

Whereas typical light frame construction today involves many slender sticks of wood simply cut to length and nailed together, a typical timber frame structure requires a much smaller number of stout posts and beams, shaped at their connections to lock together. Light frame construction, even when carefully done, is considered rough carpentry, and in dwellings it is always concealed by finished walls and ceilings. Modern timber frame work, on the other hand, is generally exposed, and timbers can be as finely prepared as the skill and care of the craftsman allow.

Revival of timber framing

For a variety of reasons, timber framing in North America declined in the latter part of the 19th century, and mixed framing methods evolved to satisfy the economic and stylistic requirements of the changing times. In the 1970s, under the considerable influence of a back-to-the-land movement, a resurgence of interest in exposed structure has led to the modern timber frame revival.

Benefits of timber framing

Today's timber-framed house combines the best of the old, time-tested techniques with the improvements of the new:

structural integrity that’s as visible as the decorative possibilities
fully integrated mechanical systems
energy efficiency

With the general revival of craftsmanship in North America, the popularity of timber framing grows each year.

What is the Guild?

The Timber Framers Guild was born in 1984 as a nonprofit, educational organization. A core group met in their houses and workshops and called a charter conference in June 1985. Some 200 enthusiastic people met in a spirit of discovery and fellowship that remains very much alive today. The Guild is dedicated to establishing training programs for dedicated timber framers, disseminating information about timber framing and timber frame building design, displaying the art of timber framing to the public, and generally serving as a center of timber framing information for the professional and general public alike.

Since 1985, the Guild has grown fourfold, maintaining a regular program of international and regional conferences, sponsoring project workshops, and publishing a monthly newsletter, Scantlings, and a quarterly journal, Timber Framing.

Ever mindful of its role in the world, the Guild's members donate their time and effort to good works. Among the many projects are the donation of two timber frames to Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing affordable housing, a 120' covered bridge for the city of Guelph, Ontario, and an educational gazebo in Nacogdoches, Texas.