THE LAST THREE-FOUR YEARS AT NICOLA LOGWORKS! - October 22nd 2013
Our last article (2011) covered a really exciting building for us; the Thompson Rivers University "House of Learning". It was a landmark project for us in many ways - as the largest commercial project we had been involved with at the time. (We also launched our first you tube video - a time lapse of that project). The slowdown in the US economy saw us completing our last full blown US contract since 2008! But John - economist that he almost became, had been turning his attention to the commercial arena- mostly public structures, which due to the Wood First Initiative and government incentive spending were abounding. We did several of these - happily we won the bid for "Spirit Square", the Legacy Project here in Merritt. (It is always good to be the log builder whose work is in their own backyard). Spirit Square features glue-lam timber frame, with curved gluelams that John, and our colleague Dai Ona undertook to develop a procedure for. You can see that project on u-tube, as well as an event being held at the venue:We have a lot to udate on - another colloboration with Dai of Daizen Joinery was the Chase "Joyce Dunn" Theatre. A lovely expression of round meeting square - our round log work connecting with the lovely timber frame and metal connections that Dai developed. Yet another case for 3D modeling. We shipped our pre-cut to fit components to Dai - it was his contract - and he assembled all, with no site cutting or fitting needed. Here is his u-tube of the work: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RmQff6qak During that time period we were doing a lot of work with Dai - he and John have a big respect for each other and together they were really inspired. When they colloborated they called themselves the "Zen-Boys" and there is so much to say about that epoch, I think it may have to appear in Johns blog - yes - that is news too. As of today - it has 2 posts! You can get there by clicking here: http://logsdogsandgod.blogspot.ca/ For the rest briefly - from 2010 through 2012 we enjoyed building some very interesting and lovely local dovetail homes - for some very interesting and lovely people! 2011 was another major turning point for us - as we were invited (actually - we were begged) to rescue the massive wood Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) and Gluelam install at the Earth Sciences Building at UBC in Vancouver. Turns out that log builders and timber framers have highly transferable skills! Big Wood. Heavy Lifts. Connections. We are still on that adventure - and we are still building dovetail, post and beam and timber frame for residential customers. Oh - the last big news for the moment - Ingrid quit her job as bookkeeper, and that is why there is a posting on our web page - the first since 2011!
