UMass 2008 Wood Structures Symposium
and 2008 ACSA Northeast Fall Conference

September 25 - 27, 2008 · UMass Campus Center, Amherst, MA

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Welcome to the annual symposium on wood architecture, engineering and construction. Visit us at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst for this exciting three-day seminar.

Authors: You can find paper submission guidelines at the bottom of this page.

Keynotes:

Five Houses: Sustainability Redefined

Stephen Kieran, FAIA, Architect and Author
Kieran Timberlake Associates LLP, Philadelphia, PA

Stephen Kieran is a founding partner of the firm. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University, magna cum laude, and his Master of Architecture, with honors, from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a recipient of the Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome, 1980-81. Both Kieran and Timberlake were inaugural recipients of the prestigious Benjamin Latrobe Fellowship for architectural design research from the AIA College of Fellows in 2001. Recently, KieranTimberlake Associates received the 2008 Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor bestowed on a firm by the American Institute of Architects.

Mr. Kieran is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, and Endowed Professor in Sustainability at the University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He has served as Eero Saarinen Distinguished Professor of Design at Yale University, Max Fisher Chair at the University of Michigan, and has taught at Princeton University. He has co-authored two books: Manual, The Architecture of KieranTimberlake, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2002, and refabricating Architecture, published by McGraw Hill in 2004, which examines how manufacturing methodologies are poised to transform building construction. The partners’ forthcoming book, Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture, is a case study of a single building which shows a way forward to quality, productivity and sustainability.

Mr. Kieran served as the Design Partner for the Middle School at Sidwell Friends, the Loblolly House, Berkeley, Pierson, Davenport and Silliman residential college renovations and the Sculpture Building and Gallery at Yale University. He is currently the Design Partner for the Morse and Stiles Colleges Addition and Renovation at Yale, a new Meeting House and Arts Center at Sidwell Friends School and the new Northwest Campus Student Housing complex at UCLA in collaboration with Pfeiffer Partners.

Adventures in Prefabrication

Tedd Benson, Builder and Author
Benson Woodworking Company, Walpole, NH

With four books and well over 500 timberframe structures to his credit, Tedd Benson has played an important role in the resurgence of this centuries-old form of construction in modern America. For nearly three decades, timberframers throughout the country have relied on shopworn, dog-eared copies of his practical how-to manual Building the Timber Frame House (Charles Scribner and Sons, 1980 and Simon and Schuster, 1995) to hone their craft and solve the sometimes complex issues inherent in building with heavy timbers. Since then, he wrote two editions of his second book,: The Timber-Frame Home: Design, Construction, Finishing (1988 and 1997) and Timberframe: The Art and Craft of the Post and Beam Home (1999), which have also become classic references.

Since 1974, when he founded Benson Woodworking Company (BWC), Tedd has been both a student and teacher of timber home construction. As a founder of the Timber Framers Guild of North America, he has spoken at numerous conferences, conducted hands-on classes, and penned many articles extolling the virtues of this venerable building technique. His reverence for the traditions of timberframing has been coupled with a conviction that these buildings are well-suited to meet the challenges and ever-changing technologies of modern homebuilding.

As an active proponent of Open-Building ideas, Tedd continues to champion durability and adaptability in homebuilding. From the disentangled wiring, HVAC, and plumbing systems running through dedicated chases to the pre-engineered assemblies that seamlessly come together as finished custom structures, his houses embody efficiency while anticipating the inevitable changes that a 500-year home will undergo. With the BWC homebuilding division, Bensonwood Homes, he has brought these ideas from the drawing-board to the proving-ground of the construction site through a design-build system called Open-Built®. He has also spearheaded a partnership with the MIT Open Source Building Alliance to build a slate of demonstration building projects called the Open Prototype Initiative. The first building is currently in use as a two-family home at the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, NH; the second is in the planning process and will be the President’s home for Unity College in Unity, Maine.

Of all the things Tedd has been involved with building over the years, he is proudest of BWC. It is an organization—an adventurous experiment in itself—dedicated to creating an atmosphere in which fun and excellence can thrive side by side.

When he’s not working on another book or riding a bike, Tedd lives with his wife and partner Christine in an Open-Built home in Alstead, NH.

Process and Product

Kathleen Lugosch, Architect
Lugosch Architect, Amherst, MA