Pemberton Downtown Barn

In the Village of Pemberton, British Columbia, the Guild built a massive 50 x 150-ft. open-air barn pavilion to shelter community events. These include farmers' markets for this largely agricultural community as well as dances, concerts, meetings, and so on. 

Starting with a concept from Mike Beganyi, then refined by engineer Robin Zirnhelt, the frame of 650 pieces (66,000 bd.ft.) is of Douglas fir and had lots of large-dimension sticks to test the accuracy of layout and cutting. Also included are eight round logs 20 in. x 45 ft. as top and bottom chords in the longitudinal trusses. Large snow loads and the possibility of earthquakes pushed the design to large timbers, long diagonal struts and tension rods, and quite a bit of hardware.

Local Partner
Village of Pemberton, British Columbia

Local Partner Hero
Suzanne Bélanger

Local TFG hero
Randy Churchill

Notable aspects
Exceptional collaboration with the village--they were very well managed and they set the pace. Very large project. Participant education ranged from 100-level introductory topics like sharpening and how to properly hold a circular saw, to advanced topics like raising plans and project management. Schoolchildren, local workers took part.  Multi-crane raising with a little hand raising thrown in.

TFG leaders
Randy Churchill, Collin Stotts, Rob Geoghan-Morphet, Leon Buckwalter, Steve Lawrence, Alicia Spence, Lon Tyler, Fred Provost. Design Mike Beganyi and Robin Zirnhelt.

Blog
Timber Framers Guild in-process blog

News

• facebook: Pemberton Downtown Barn
• Community Barn to be built in spring / Pique News Magazine
• The barn springs to life in Pemberton's downtown / Pique News Magazine

Tube

• Pemberton Calendar
• Shaw TV Sea To Sky
• Dave Steers Time Lapse

Photographer
Mack Magee, Randy Churchill

Narrative

Scantlings 184, 185, 186