Historic Timber: Preserving Fort Collins’ Timeless Trees

Timber has been one of the most in-demand building materials for centuries. It is used to construct everything from awe-inspiring houses to stunning Chinese temples.

Timber framing is a time-tested building technique. Early artisans carved precise mortise and tenon joints into the hand-hewn posts and beams with their axes, and then secured them together with wooden pegs.

The History of Timber

In ancient times, timber was a popular construction material. It provided a solid building structure and was easy to work with. Wood was also used for things like paper, weapons and furniture.

In modern times, timber has continued to be a key resource for the building industry. It is durable and can be crafted into intricate designs. In addition, it is a sustainable material that can be reused for future projects.

Many historic buildings in Fort Collins have a history of using timber for their structural components. This includes the quaint townhomes in Old Town and the historic homes along College Avenue. One such home was once a drugstore and later became the ACE Hardware store we know today. In the early 1900’s, Mable Rogers owned a hat shop in this same building. At the time, it was a custom of etiquette for women to wear hats in public, and Mable’s business, Flowers Millinery, served this purpose.If you require assistance and related services, feel free to visit our website for support.

Europe’s Neolithic Longhouse

The longhouse is the characteristic feature of Neolithic settlement space. It is considered to structure both profane and sacred aspects of early farmer life. It has also been characterized as the building type that most clearly marks both the Linear Bandkeramick culture (LBK) and succeeding cultures of the Middle Neolithic.

Prior to the advent of digital recording systems large amounts of information were routinely recorded in the form of hand drawn plans and sections. Structural archaeology builds on this heritage, analyzing these diagrams using statistical methods such as geometric morphometrics and redundancy analysis to generate models with meaningful results.

This paper demonstrates how these techniques can be applied to the reconstruction of house plans of longhouses. It demonstrates that the layout of these buildings was designed to compensate for the taper in individual timbers. This resulted in a slightly trapezoidal appearance of longhouse floor plans. It also demonstrates that the deliberate orientation of longhouse entrances was probably driven by the celestial movement of the sun.

The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was one of the largest empires in history. Its frontiers—a series of protective lines of walls, ditches, earthworks, fortlets, and military settlements—are an exceptional relict landscape. They exhibit an ambitious, coherent system of defensive constructions perfected by engineers across the vast reaches of the Empire. Their integrity is demonstrated by visible and buried archaeology on, behind, and even beyond the frontiers themselves.

The Council Tree was a legendary gnarled and twisted tree that once stood in southeast Fort Collins near the Poudre River. After surviving an 1898 flood on the Cache la Poudre, this tree was used by the city to represent the Poudre Native American community in council meetings and as a focal point of the town of Fort Collins.

During the construction of timber-framed buildings, carpenters often marked their work with “carpenter’s marks.” These were marks left on the logs to identify the location of joints and other important structural elements. Once a frame was complete, a special celebration called the topping out ceremony was held. At this event, a bough or small tree was attached to the peak of the structure as a symbol of celebration and good luck.

China’s Temples

Unlike European churches that use their architecture to convey the concept of being separated from heaven and earth, Chinese temples express the concept of integration between humanity and nature. As a result, temple buildings tend to be surrounded by greenery and are often wood carved with symbols that the Chinese consider to be auspicious.

Visiting temples is a great way to get an up close look at vernacular timber framing. TTRAG members frequently meet to share original observations of historic timber structures. TTRAG also offers larger conferences open to all Guild members and the general public that include guided tours of local historic buildings.

One of the most iconic examples is the Lingyin Temple in Shanghai. The unique round structure of this temple reflects China’s rich religious background. The temple is surrounded by the Lingyin Temple Park and features the Feilai Feng grottoes which are full of beautiful rock carvings dating back thousands of years.