Circular Barn Club pt 1: The Huldra Barn – a joint project
Published:
Omtre documents history
At Omtre, we reuse timber in various ways, including preserving materials from various deconstruction projects. However, deconstruction is more than just dismantling buildings; it is an intentional process that reveals layers of material culture. As structures are carefully dismantled, local communities have the opportunity to preserve and document unique architectural features, craftsmanship, design elements, and stories that are rarely captured during traditional architectural surveys. In our team, we have employees passionate about traditions and old building techniques, and we also map these techniques supporting design for reuse in our digital database, so we can use them in new building projects.
We have incorporated this into our Circular Barn Club (Ref. Barn Club – A Tale of Forgotten Elm Trees, Traditional Craft and Community Spirit by Robert Somerville, 2021), where we employ circular strategies.
The Huldra Barn – why this name?
Huldra is a mythical creature from Nordic folklore, who lived in the forest or in the mountains. She was often described as a beautiful woman, but with a cow's tail, and she could, among other things, lure men - and capture them. The idea behind calling this project the Huldra Barn was that we wanted to be rooted in the traditional and in the forest - at the same time as we wanted to encourage a new group of people to think circularly, by learning from the traditional.
The Beginning – Old Building Techniques
It began with a desire to learn more about old building techniques so that one could better understand how they built in the past. By understanding this, one can see what worked well and what could be useful in future circular buildings. The knowledge we gathered would ultimately result in a physical building. Along the way, we were accompanied by none other than Jon Bojer Godal, or Master Jon, as he became known during our Circular Barn Club journey. Jon Bojer Godal is one of our foremost communicators of traditional craft knowledge, and for his work within this field, he has, among other accolades, been appointed a Commander of the Order of St. Olav by the King for his exceptional efforts in traditional crafts. In addition to numerous professional literature on log building, older constructions, goat boats, and other crafts, he is also a beloved lecturer, who at the age of 87, is still often on the move either in the forest or around the country wherever there is a demand for his knowledge. Naturally, we started in the forest.
Experience-based - knowledge from master Jon Bojer Godal
The tree can give you the timber quality you desire—if you only know what to look for. Traditional craftsmen knew this and built their homes accordingly. They selected trees in the forest for specific purposes. This knowledge still lives among some craftsmen, especially with old master Godal. He can look at a tree, or feel the bark, and determine if it is suitable for a horizontal beam or for good cladding.
In the fall of 2023, work began in the forest. The first part of the Huldra Barn started with a study of an older barn to examine the construction used there before we moved to the forest. Previously, we had meetings to decide what type of construction we would have in the Huldra Barn. This is crucial for how further work in the forest should be conducted. By being able to selectively harvest for a specific building, we can choose which trees are needed and of which quality, while also fully utilizing the potential of the forest—thus not cutting more than necessary.
For our building, it was decided that it would be constructed using timber framing, with a sill foundation. Timber framing is a building with raised structures, meaning that it has vertical posts on a horizontal sill with a top sill above. In addition, it has braces. Such a building is constructed entirely without fasteners, such as screws and nails, only using traditional wood joinery. This makes the building inherently designed for disassembly, and it can easily be taken down and reassembled. The roof structure with sill foundation is what might be called a truss, where two trusses rest on a horizontal truss sill. In modern terms, one might call it a roof truss—but a traditional roof truss is something entirely different. That is another story.
Out in the forest, we chose trees based on where in the building they would be used—like the old pine with a lot of heartwood we wanted as a sill, as it is very rot-resistant. It could have had good growth conditions in its youth, with many large branches filled with pinosylvine, for better rot resistance. For the trusses and the horizontal top sill, we wanted slow-grown spruce, which had "shade upbringing" as Godal talked about. This means that it grew up in the shade, developing tight and strong annual rings. We also selected certain root knees, to be used in one of the openings. A root knee is where the root and the tree merge, preferably in a root sticking out at 90 degrees from the tree. This is a very strong point on the tree. Once the trees were cut, they were transported away and later sawn by a skilled sawmaster. To utilize the properties of the wood, it is important to cut the logs correctly.
Contact person
The text and photographs are provided by Christine Jørgensen, contact her for more information.
