2024 Timber Framers Guild Conference

Charles Bultman

Chuck Bultman is a practicing architect in Ypsilanti, Michigan. For the last 25 years, Chuck’s practice has included documenting and studying timber framed barns, and other agricultural structures, with an eye toward what their futures might be.

Presentation

Complexity & Contradiction in Adapting Timber Frames
During this session, participants will learn to identify a timber frame that is a good candidate for reuse, both structurally and architecturally, by analyzing example timber frames that have been successfully re-purposed. Participants will be able to diagnose the impacts the Building Code will have on an adaptively reused timber frame, with respect to their client’s desired program, by studying how the code has affected example projects. We will discuss how our Euclidean Zoning Codes do not serve well in rural settings, given certain programming that is desired by our clients, and how one may be able to navigate a path to a successful project looking at how zoning has been traditionally applied in these settings. At the end of the session, participants will be able to recognize the design struggles of working with an old timber frame, and be able to shape a design approach of their own, by reviewing details that have been successfully employed in example projects, in order to keep these historic resources and allow them to be used for years to come.