The Spiral Staircase Workshop is an immersive workshop tailored for architects, designers, and woodworking enthusiasts seeking to deepen their understanding of curved staircase design, stereotomy principles, and practical construction techniques. This workshop combines theoretical knowledge with hands-on experience, providing participants with the necessary tools and skills to confidently design, layout, and construct various types of curved staircases.

This course focuses on timber frames. Students will learn about material science of wood, what makes a timber frame appealing, and why timber frames are more environmentally friendly, sustainable, and energy-efficient than traditional stick frame structures.

Starting with an overview on how to determine the forces and loads a traditional timber frame structure (or really any structure) will see over the course of its lifetime, the course focus will transition into sizing of beams, as well as a primer on basic joinery and connection design. In order to break up the class room portion, we will design a basic timber frame joint, calculate its allowable design strength, and then fabricate it out of timber. After the joints are fabricated, we will “bust” them by pulling them apart using a hydraulic load frame, with friendly bragging rights awarded for the best prediction of strength and best capacity.

This course focuses on timber frames. Students will learn about material science of wood, what makes a timber frame appealing, and why timber frames are more environmentally friendly, sustainable, and energy-efficient than traditional stick frame structures.