Yestermorrow Design/Build School - Think with your hands.

'Socks' dress up a table leg.

Walking through the wood shop during Week 5 of the Woodworking Certificate program, there is a palpable excitement as the students focus on assembling the components of their traditional shaker-style end tables. This is the moment where every joint they’ve learned to this point will come together in a single piece of furniture. Though the tables emanate from the same design, everyone has pursued their own aesthetic touches. The table sitting in front of me is strikingly different, with ‘socks’ at the base of each leg, and through-mortises— a more modern aesthetic on a traditional piece. In the back of the shop, Adam Riggin, who is the youngest of the group, is busy sanding his end pieces.

Adam has come to the program after finishing his third semester at UVM, where he is studying Community Development & Economics. When asked about taking time off, Adam smiles and explains, “Time off? That’s framing it as if school was the thing to do and everything else was a deviation from that. School is always going to be there. I love school, but I am interested in other things as well. James Michener has a book called The Drifters, and there’s a guy in it who says that you don’t waste a day in your life before you are thirty-five – the idea being that every experience shapes you as a person and [helps you] get some insight.”

Adam explains that his program at UVM is very theoretical and he found himself longing for something more hands-on. Hailing from East Montpelier, Adam had grown up knowing about Yestermorrow. His boss during his summer work doing construction was even a Yestermorrow instructor. It was during a conversation with his father last summer that he decided to take a break from college and enroll in the Woodworking Certificate program.

“I spent a couple summers building and that was really fun, but it’s hard to be working and learning at the same time for me because when you’re getting paid to do something, there’s pressure to not make mistakes or to fix things as fast as possible. Being in an educational setting just allows you to, for one thing, take your time, and also, not be afraid to make mistakes and to ask as many questions as you want and get lengthy explanations. It’s a really supportive environment and you couldn’t ask for a better group of people.”

He looks at the end pieces for his shaker table before him and speaks of how satisfying it was to prepare the

wood and get it to its current state. “The assembly has been a challenge for me because I made a couple of mistakes in my layout, so hopefully I will have this all glued-up and ready to install the drawers by the end of the day.”

So what’s next for Adam? He is in no hurry to get back to school. He will be taking another semester off to tour the East Coast and Europe with Village Harmony, a renowned Vermont-based group that teaches world folk music. Peering into the shop later in the day, Adam is smiling at the table before him, now glued and clamped. “This work is so satisfying,” he beams.

By Nic Tuff

Visionary architect, permaculturist, and community-renewal advocate Mark Lakeman will present a public lecture at Yestermorrow on Tuesday, March 25. Lakeman is the principal of the community architecture and planning firm Communitecture, Inc., as well as the co-founder of the Portland, Oregon-based non-profit place-making organization City Repair Project, and its affiliate programs, The Village Building Convergence and the Planet Repair Institute.

Lakeman’s presentation, entitled “City Repair & Planet Repair: Transforming Space into Place,” will describe a chronological set of strategies and creative interventions that are being used to retrofit American communities and cities. Beginning with the gathering places and cultural dynamic that are characteristically weak or absent in many communities, the models and strategies he will present have been shown to replicate and spread to neighborhoods across the continent, taking on new forms that compound their impact and begin to transform political leadership and bureaucratic cultures, town by town and city by city.

With an exhaustive list of socially and ecologically innovative projects under his belt -- including numerous ecovillage designs, infill co-housing examples, projects involving low income and homeless people, and an assortment of culturally restorative initiatives driven by the patterns of broad participation, local ownership, and social capital – Lakeman’s dedicated focus on the nexus of sustainable landscapes and cultural solutions has won him admirers worldwide.

His projects have been featured in Dwell Magazine, Architecture Magazine, New Village Journal, Yes Magazine, the Utne Reader, and many others. He was awarded the National Lewis Mumford Award by the international organization Architects & Planners for Social Responsibility for his work with Dignity Village, one of the United States’ first self-developed, permanent communities by and for previously homeless people.

Lakeman’s lecture will begin at 7pm at the Yestermorrow campus on Route 100 in Waitsfield. It is free and open to the general public.

During the lunch break, the sounds of machinery in the woodshop are distant as a student pulls out his banjo and starts to pick.This is a very busy week for the Woodworking Certificate crew: Now in Week 6 of their program, they are constructing two elegant cabinetry units for a client. But things are going well. They are ahead of schedule and under budget. According to Program Director, Justin Kramer, this is partially due to

the effectiveness of the project management, a responsibility the instructors are sharing with two of the students. One of those students is Jude Connelly.

Jude came to Yestermorrow from a Cambridge, MA, biotech science lab, Metabolics, where he was involved with creating biodegradable plastics. He enjoyed the end-product of the work, but was feeling like a cog in a system and decided it was time to do something about it and find something he really enjoyed. “I feel like I’m on the right path now,” Jude explains. “The whole design/ build process and working with wood really meshes with me.”

Jude studied science since he was very young, and he is finding the transition to furnituremaking isn’t really that far-fetched. “I always wanted to know why things are the way they are. I appreciate working with wood because it is a scientific process, from the layers of each species to the molecular components. It’s not a cut-and-dry banging pieces of wood together. There are so many aspects to woodworking. I use my scientific background to cut a piece of wood. It involves the same precision as scientific research, for example. I am very detail-oriented.”

But furnituremaking is allowing his creative voice a new-found place in the mix. He explains how he had a transformative moment when he got to take an abandoned white oak trailer bed and make a top for a cabinet. “I enjoyed taking something that had lost its use and make something beautiful out of it.”

Jude is seeing his future path begin to take shape -- he has already landed a cabinetry job for this summer. “I’m really trying to pay attention to the details this week, so I can apply these skills this summer, from the drafting to the building. This course is changing my view-point on life. No matter what, I know I will be working with wood. I’m loving what I’m doing here, and I’m not going to stop.”

by Nic Tuf

Drew Roeder sits at a drafting table during week seven of the Woodworking Certificate Program. The students are in the midst of Small Scale Design/Build, a transcendent moment in the program when each student is provided the opportunity, for the first time, to design and then build an object from their own creative impulses. Most of the other students are already next door in the shop, milling lumber, making jigs, and moving toward the physical forms of chairs, tables, or sculptural elements. Drew is on another track; he is still figuring out the intricacies of a cartridge for an heirloom quality, double-barrel, rubberband shotgun – to be a gift for his uncle, who happens to be a fairly virulent anti-gun advocate.

As one might guess from someone intent on bringing rubberband shooting to new artistic heights, Drew’s road through life is filled with twists and surprises.He first arrived at Yestermorrow in August of 2013, traveling from southwestern Pennsylvania… on a bicycle.After numerous years bouncing between a variety of labor – from home construction to commercial swimming pool maintenance (“terrible chemicals,” he says) – interrupted by a variety of adventures, he peddled off toward Burlington, Vermont, but with a planned two-week detour at the school to embark on Yestermorrow’s classic Home Design/Build course.It was a revelatory experience.

“I fell in love with the program and decided then and there to take as many Yestermorrow classes as possible,” he said. With some financial backing, Drew enrolled in the school’s current Woodworking Certificate program, and is registered for 10 more classes this coming spring and summer, mostly in the residential scale construction and design realm.

“I realize that the people are the resource at Yestermorrow,” he said. “Where else can you get practicing professionals willing to devote themselves to the students, not just during the class, but after hours, and even after the class is finished? The people here are so helpful, so remarkably open. I want to keep building those relationships.”

And the revelations keep coming.The Woodworking Certificate has opened the floodgates for Drew’s creative juices. “The opportunity to embark on the design process this week, it clarifies what I love doing. Being able to delve into drawing, figuring out the gears, tolerances, and spacing for the gun cartridge, sketching it out a couple dozen times, making a prototype that worked great. I’m about ready to make the cartridge from sheet metal, and then I’ll be carving by hand the cherry for the gun stock.” He pauses for a brief moment, before adding, “I need to be making stuff!”

The wood shop is buzzing with activity, as our Woodworking Certificate students near completion on their Small Scale Design/Build projects. The diversity of projects is remarkable: from a coffee table to a sphere-making jig, from a stylized chair to a rubber band shotgun. This is the first time the students have had such a free assignment and the drive is palpable.Tess Thomas is no exception.The intensity of her concentration can be seen by the focus in her eyes as she examines the wood of what will be the legs of the pair of stools she is making.

No stranger to the design process, Tess studied sculpture and installation art in Charleston, SC and Chicago.A self-taught woodworker, Tess came to Yestermorrow to learn craftsmanship.“With woodworking, I always thought of it as being super-rigid, but I was able to have this very creative, open design process. Then I learned how to choose my own lumber and learn the order of operations. I am constantly learning that there is this intuitive nature about it all, and that was unexpected.”

Why stools for the current project? Tess wanted to keep it simple. Craftsmanship and consistency are two qualities which she really admires, so she chose a project where she could practice on these traits. Most of all, she wanted something streamlined, allowing her to make two of more of something. These beautifully hand-tapered stools with high quality craftsmanship empowers her to do just that.

“I am learning to trust my instincts and take my time,” she says. “Most of all, I have learned that one of the things that makes a great woodworker is that they know how to remedy their mistakes and make them look intentional. There’s a certain kind of magic in that. I am starting to see how that is totally true.” Tess points to a leg of one of her stools. “See this taper—I had two distinctive layers along with some pencil marks and glue. But I learned how to calm down, know that this does not ruin the whole thing, and trust myself that I would come up with a way to fix it. And I did, and they look great now.”

“Justin (Kramer, program director) has been really amazing to teach me about the efficiency component; to not only do something beautifully and make sure your level of craftsmanship is up there, but to do it in such a way so that you are not afraid to cut corners and use the machines in a more efficient manner so you are watching your time.It’s a component I am not used to thinking about.”

Before Tess came to the program, she was already dabbling in woodworking.She worked in a frame shop for a couple of guys in a two-car garage. She didn’t want to ask questions, though she had many. She speaks of how the Woodworking Certificate is a completely different situation. It is the first time she has truly been trained to use the various machinery of the shop and how she has been taught from the ground-up. And how questions are welcomed!

“I now feel comfortable.I am getting to the point where I can understand the inner workings of things and that is really helping me be competent in the shop. I have had a lot of design-heavy pieces in the past, but I haven’t been able to execute them. Especially in the past two weeks, I have been able to know how to implement my designs in a step-by-step manner… and that has made me feel very competent, which is a big change from having an idea but not having a clue of how to go about making it.”

By Nic Tuff

When I arrived at Yestermorrow for the first time in the summer of 2002, one of my first assignments was to join John Connell (Yestermorrow's founder) for a day to work with him shingling the exterior of the Yestermorrow treehouse. He would hold each cedar shingle up to the wall, draw a pencil line to continue the organic curve of the wall, and then hand it to me. I would jigsaw the shingle, then hand it back to him to hammer in. It was tedious work, but inspiring to see the care and attention given to each and every detail.

Photo credit Matthew Rakola

The Yestermorrow treehouse was a brainchild of John Connell and arborist Bill DeVos, and the first of what would prove to be many Yestermorrow treehouse projects. The treehouse was designed as an early prototype for a universally accessible treehouse and the unofficial launch of the Forever Young Treehouse organization. Started in the summer of 2000, the treehouse evolved over the next five years to become one of the flagship hang-out spots on campus, boasting a handmade hammock and an eclectic collection of furniture built by students over the years. The treehouse has hosted many a quiet nap break, gaggles of schoolchildren, yoga classes, and the occasional staff meeting.

Built and maintained by many Yestermorrow faculty, staff, interns and volunteers, the Yestermorrow treehouse has been a collaborative effort, and has continued to evolve with new additions and improvements from year to year.

Photo credit Dean Kaufman

Since its construction, Yestermorrow has offered one of the only treehouse design and construction courses in the world, inspiring many students to go on to build their own backyard projects. Moreover, many of the people involved in building Yestermorrow's treehouse took the knowledge gained to other treehouse projects around the world, including Forever Young Treehouses, The Treehouse Guys, Stauffer Woodworking, Winvian Farm Resort and others.

Sadly, though, Yestermorrow's treehouse prototype must come down this spring after 14 years of enjoyment and learning. Last fall we discovered serious structural rot issues compromising the safety of the structure and since then have had it closed to visitors. After investigating what it would take to repair the structure, replace the roof, and rebuild the ramp, we've decided to deconstruct the treehouse and put our attention towards a new future treehouse on campus. This summer's treehouse class will hopefully help us identify potential sites and start the brainstorming process.

Photo credit Matthew Rakola

Prior to its deconstruction in early May we would like to invite everyone who helped to build the structure and who has enjoyed it over the years to join us for a memorial of sorts, to celebrate and appreciate the Yestermorrow treehouse on Sunday, April 13th at 4:00pm. If you cannot join us in person please feel free to send your remembrances to kate@yestermorrow.org to be shared at the ceremony.

Kate Stephenson
Executive Director

Come up with a project that isn’t rectilinear. That was Meg McIntyre’s self-motivated mission for the Small Scale Design/Build segment of the Woodworking Certificate program. “I was trying to find a way to make practical furniture that had more curves and fewer edge elements, so I drew this sketch of a coffee table with stacked spheres. I asked [Program Director] Justin [Kramer] how hard it was to turn a sphere on a lathe and he said, ‘Oh, not so hard—takes well under an hour.’” Meg smiles and explains how four days later, she had her first sphere.

“I wanted to find a more efficient and uniform way of making spheres.” She held up an ash ball in the palm of her hand. “It’s pretty cool how you can calibrate something that is round with just your eyes and look — it’s round! But it’s not reallyround. I wanted to make something more uniformly round. I did some digging around on the internet and I found some people making various kinds of jigs, including a guy who made this crazy tablesaw jig to make a bowling ball.” Pursuing her passion, she got in touch with him to find out how he made his jig and to see if he could offer her his design. She explains that not only did he do that, but he took the effort to improve upon the design and, as Meg explains, “he came up with this idea that was more flexible, using a router instead of a tablesaw.”

Meg has become obsessed with making spheres. “There is something especially weird and cool about making this round shape from the inside of a tree.” When asked what she is going to produce from this sphere-making jig, Meg simply states, “I don’t know,” revealing that the nature of her passion is material-inspired, rather than design-inspired. She sounds a life-long sculptor, elaborating, “I’d like to use them as building blocks—just think about bubbles and clusters of round eggs and caviar. I want to bring out those clusters into building somehow.” And so she built 'Tom,' her affectionately-named, wooden sphere-making jig.

Meg's path to wooden-sphere sculptor has been circuitous, as one might guess. She came to Yestermorrow having been a successful manager for a host of businesses and non-profits, including a micro-brewery and an art gallery. But after working at a desk and staring at screens for 15 years, she realized that she was tired and wanted to ”press the reset button” by participating in the Woodworking Certificate Program. “Much like the spheres, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it… but something. We’ll see as it emerges.”

-- by Nic Tuff

“Live the life that you want to live. Don’t be unhappy in your work” -James Krenov

Early in the Woodworking Certificate program, Hank Brakely was introduced to the work of master furnituremaker, James Krenov (1920-2009), who began his career in Sweden before moving to Northern California to start the Fine Furniture Program at the College of the Redwoods following a sudden explosion of popularity in his work, catalyzed by the Mendocino craft art renaissance in the ‘70’s. Hank quickly fell under Krenov's spell, taking heed both in the philosophy on life that Krenov prescribed and in his distinctive and elegant domain of design.

For his final project, Hank was drawn to the way Krenovian cabinets worked and functioned. He decided that he wanted to make something special for his parents and felt a good way to integrate the craftsmanship and duly acquired design taste was to create a Krenovian wine cabinet. “The more you start looking at the grain of wood you are using, the more exciting it is to make perfect glue-ups. My goal with this project is to have all the grain-lines running from the cabinet down into the stand on which it sits and make it seem like it grew that way.”

Hank knew with certainty that his adult educational experiences needed to be focused on developing his interest and experience in working with his hands. For the last year-and-a-half, he has taken an array of classes at Yestermorrow, from Timber Framing to participation in the school's Certificate in Sustainable Building & Design. As he contemplated the Woodworking Certificate, he was skeptical at first of how it would fit in to meeting his expectations in acquiring refined woodworking skills. He has come a long way since then.

“I had a friend come visit me last weekend from another woodworking school," Hank says. He was astoundedhow we have all the tools to build, say, a Victorian desk from a plan, which my friend was more accustomed to, but here the focus is on your work; you create something that has a purpose for you and has meaning to you.”

“Yestermorrow is pretty perfect for me. There’s no other place I have ever found that can at once give you access to some of the best creative minds in New England and beyond, who can impart the skills while encouraging individual expression.”

To see Hank's complete Krenovian wine cabinet, as well as the creations of his seven classmates, join us Friday, April 18 from 4-6pm for the program's final presentations and graduation.

-- by Nic Tuff

"Wordship" mobile writer's cabin at Shelburne Farms

Village green bandstands, park pavilions, composting toilets, trail shelters, bus stops—you
can’t go far in Central Vermont without running across the innovative and functional public structures branded with the Yestermorrow Design/ Build School insignia. From the numerous projects serving the visitors and guests at Shelburne Farms – including a mobile writers’ studio dubbed the ‘Wordship’ by Bill McKibben – to an elegant footbridge astride the Poultney River at Green Mountain College – installed just weeks prior to Tropical Storm Irene, and which dutifully withstood the torrent – to an elegant outdoor composting toilet in Montpelier’s Hubbard Park, the rich and textured history of these structures adds to the cultural fabric of Vermont.

These projects, and countless others, were spawned from a two-week course that resides at the intersection of the Vermont-based design/build movement and the burgeoning public interest design movement, which seeks to promote architecture as a tool for the public good. The course, Design/Build for Public Interest, is taught by some of the preeminent names and pioneers of the design/ build movement, including Steve Badanes, who was involved in the landmark architectural project almost fifty years ago on Prickly Mountain in the Mad River Valley that radically broke from the constraints and traditions of architecture and helped set the foundation for the design/build movement. Jim Adamson, who, along with Badanes, distinguished himself professionally through the wildly innovative projects of Jersey Devil Design/Build fame, also instructs the course, as does New York City-based architect Bill Bialosky, who is currently working with Vietnam War Memorial designer, Maya Lin, on the design of a $300 million research laboratory.

Picnic Shelter in Warren

Badanes first began teaching at Yestermorrow in 1982, just two years after the school was founded, and for the last twenty years, he has been teaching the design/build course creating community projects alongside Adamson and Bialosky. Their students’ work pushes the creative envelope in the design/build process, incorporating the school’s commitment to environmentally and socially responsible building, all the while working to transform public spaces and the lives of those whose inhabit them.

From his office in Seattle, where he holds the Howard S. Wright Endowed Chair of the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments, Badanes explains, “We are able to build community projects for the nonprofit groups who couldn’t afford to do them if they had to pay. For me, [working for the public interest] is a much better of a way to spend my time, working where I can make a difference. Many architects spend their entire career working on nothing but houses and additions and commercial buildings. That’s all fine, but public structures affect us all.”

Trail Kiosk in Warren

Historically¸ there has been a disconnect between architects and students of architecture and the building process and the materials used to create architecture. This class offers students an opportunity to engage with both the design and building processes, and to see how they are interrelated. “Many students come into the class with few building skills, and we teach them a lot in a short period of time. We also teach them to not be afraid of trying something, and that design can be a powerful influence in the lives of people that don’t have access to innovative design,” Badanes adds. “Students benefit from our class by developing some confidence in themselves as designers and builders.”

It’s also fun, he adds. “It’s fun for us teachers, and it’s really fun for the students. It moves a lot faster than other classes where there are a lot of demonstrations. We don’t really have time. You learn by doing. You have to go through a collaborative design process and come up with something to build. It’s a fantastic combination, in a very short period of time becoming part of a cohesive unit that designs something and builds it for a public client.”

The prospective recipient of this year’s project is a public elementary school that has the need for an outdoor learning structure. Like all of the class’s projects, there are no designs predestined for this project. The entirety of the project, from its design to the building and instillation, will take place from August 3rd to August 15th and, empowered by the instructors, will be done entirely by the students of the class.

--by Nic Tuff

Back on campus for an early-May Timber Framing class, recent Woodworking Certificategraduate Ben Murphy has had some time to let the WWC experience soak in. With a few weeks distance from the program’s finale, he is finally ready to process what the 11-weeks meant to him.

His freshest memories and emotions emanate from the final week of the program, a mad scramble to pull together his projects in time for the final day’s presentations and graduation. “I was a little out of it for the final show,” he says. “I didn’t sleep that much during that week, especially the night before when I was working hard on my cabinet. I had an old shirt on with blood and stains on it. Right before the presentations, I washed my hair in the sink, then changed quickly into a collared shirt. So I cleaned up pretty quickly right before the show.”

But upon entering the Main Studio, magically transformed into a furniture gallery featuring the impressive creations of the eight graduating students, the exhaustion quickly turned to exhilaration. “It was amazing to see what everyone put together in the final days,” Ben said. “It was cool to see what everyone came up with and how different all the projects were.”

Those projects included chairs, coffee tables, Krenov-inspired cabinetry, stools, a roll-top captain’s desks, hand-carved spoons, and even a harmonigraph, a simple machine powered by weights that, with one push, creates increasingly complex geometric pen drawings that are consistently stunning to the eye.

Much of that creative energy, and the necessary skills to support it, stemmed from the program’s instructors. “I really liked the structure and balance between instructors. We had one instructor, Justin Kramer, who was great, for the entire three months, and then we had professionals rotate in every week. It was very useful. We got to see a bunch of different perspectives and a lot of ways of doing things, and the professional perspective was really useful for me.” Ben also feels that the school’s roots enhanced the program. “The design/build emphasis at Yestermorrow is something you don’t see in a lot of programs.”

The result is a new-found confidence. “I now feel comfortable walking into any shop, mocking up a design and pretty much making whatever I want, so the program was comprehensive and long enough for that. It helps you figure out if you would want to continue with this and, also, what direction you want to go. I now know that I definitely do not want to stop [working with wood]. The curriculum was diverse and touched on so many different things. Now I’m doing a timber framing class. Because I took the woodworking program, I am getting so much more out of timber framing. It’s all joinery, mortise and tenons, and pegs, but it’s just on a massive scale.”

Before turning back to the timber in front of him, Ben adds a final thought about his Yestermorrow experience. “Yestermorrow is a community. It’s great. I met a lot of people that I will be friends with for a while. Everyone is passionate here. The instructors are all really passionate about what they are doing. They’re excited, and the students are always excited,” he says. “It’s really nice to be in that environment.”

To see some of the final projects created by the Woodworking Certificate students click here.

-- By Nick Tuff

The scene is set!

The Yestermorrow campus is held in a ready stillness, our presentation rooms ready for eager listeners, our staff bustling about the grounds, as our first guests start to trickle in.

tent ready for the welcome dinner

the first roving-home to arrive

camping area - all marked out

wood shop yesterday, presentation space tomorrow

yestermorrow chairs ready for the first talk in the main studio: building community

our executive director and operations manager ready to check-in our attendees

The rain clouds have cleared just in time to get the finishing touches on Yestermorrow's campus as we prepare for our Tiny House Fair guests to arrive! We're gearing up for a beautiful and lively weekend with a host of lectures, conversations, and events led by over a dozen small-living notables, not to mention the ample opportunities all attendees will have to engage in conversations about alternative living, community-building, and innovative technologies.

For those of you who aren't able to join us in Waitsfield, we'll be reporting from the event throughout the weekend, so be sure to tune in and join the conversation online!

Maggie McBride, Summer Intern

If you want to learn how to build a boat using age old wisdom and not much more than your two hands, this is a great class. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I signed up for the course. I just knew that I love canoeing and the possibility of being able to build my own was very exciting.

It was great to see such a wide variety of people come out to take the course. Everyone was coming from different backgrounds and was taking the course for different reasons, but it was clear that we all cared a lot about the boat. It was a great class dynamic and everybody was eager to try their hand at all parts of building this little boat.

Hilary is a patient and encouraging teacher. Throughout the weekend he took the time to check in regularly with each student ensuring that their questions were answered, that they were happy with what they were doing and that they were not missing out on key boat-building tasks. He spoke with humility and from years of experience.

Much of the work was almost meditative. It required skill and attention to detail, but it was repetitive. There were times when every member of the class was standing around the boat lashing willow ribs together, and it was completely quiet. We were all absorbed.

After the weekend was over and I was reflecting on the whole experience I remember thinking that it made perfect sense to me that Hilary had started out as a poet and had become a teacher and boat builder. The boat we made required craftsmanship, wisdom and obtained a level of elegance that had been lost over time in conventional canoes. It is beautiful what can come out of a weekend investment of a small community of interested and caring people out at Yestermorrow.

by Maggie McBride, Yestermorrow summer intern

Students check out the trailer for Katie's tiny house.

There is something special about gathering people together to build a house for a friend. For two weeks I was immersed in a world that I had spent years dreaming, drooling and desiring existed. Better yet, the course gathered a group of young women and men who had been frequenting the same websites, owned the same books and who were taking steps to empower themselves to build their own. What a group of people!

I loved watching the group evolve on the jobsite. The first day we were all timidly making practice cuts, touching up wavy first time cuts and inching forward. But by day three, when we realized how cool Lizabeth and Patti were, we all stepped up, taking on the tasks and challenges we found the most compelling. Katie Tomai (a good friend and the class client) and I shared our first tandem-circular-saw-plunge-cut. It was hilarious, practical and glorious! I am so happy that I got to know and build alongside the wonderful woman who is making this tiny structure her home.

If not on the jobsite, our friendships were solidified over the late nights in the studio. I love the moments when somebody came along and made me laugh about my obvious oversights; for example a step-van doesn’t need to be insulated to R-40 because it is efficient to heat small spaces or that I was essentially designing an oven for myself if I didn’t think about shading or venting my skylight. Everyone was designing buildings, trucks and dream houses that were so different! In design people were acknowledging, prioritizing and evaluating their values and needs for highly specialized spaces. It takes beautiful people to design beautiful buildings.

Client (and student) Katie at work.

The course instructors made sure it was a meaningful experience for everyone. Patti was reading the plans and making the changes that needed to be made long before we got to the jobsite, correcting our mistakes, making long job priority lists, answering so many questions and helping with the next steps when the course was over. Lizabeth provided us with onsite instruction about tools, skills and safety, she patiently empowered us to answer our own questions and she helped us understand the practical logistics of our designs in the studio. Lina built alongside us on the jobsite, she helped us understand the legislation, logistics and options of systems for tiny dwellings, sharing her experiences of building her own tiny home and the connections she has with the larger tiny world. Paul helped us make meaningful design choices, equipped us with drafting skills and helped us better read and understand architectural plans, sections and details. Each one of them had such high personal integrity it was hard not to adopt one or many of them as mentors throughout the week. They obviously cared a lot about us, and were invested in the success of the course and our success as individuals.

Jobsite at Yestermorrow.

The class also toured local tiny and tinier homes, introduced us (by skype) to Dee Williams, and brought us together as a community. I hope that over the years I will help with the construction of some iteration of the 13 other designs that I saw grow and flourish over our short time together. Thank you!

Paul Derksen came to Yestermorrow in 2006 to take the Design for Builders and Timber Framing courses. The school was on Paul’s radar for quite some time. Building had always been an interest for him, as family-album pictures of him trying to build a treehouse while still in diapers will attest. Renovation work on his own house as an adult, and some volunteer experiences doing home repair and renovations for needy West Virginians ultimately sealed the deal.

In 2002, he left a career as a research biologist, moved to Vermont, and starting his own design/build business. But he soon realized that he needed more knowledge and a deeper skillset. Yestermorrow’s courses became critical for his new path. He was drawn to the school because of its creative and inspired programming as well as its commitment to energy efficiency and natural materials. He wanted something more than what he would get at a technical college, and what he found was just that. “It is more than a place to learn a skill, craft or trade," he says. "There are a lot of other interests and values, and a community that you tap into when you are there.”

As some years went by and he gained more and more mastery of his craft, his connection to the Yestermorrow ethos never dimmed. He still felt connected to the community, and a desire to give something back took hold. He inquired about the possibility of teaching.

It just so happened that an instructor who was scheduled to teach the school’s Renovation class had a conflict and needed to bow out. Paul came out of the bullpen and rose to the challenge with skill and grace. In fact, the students' rave reviews suggested that he possessed a natural gift. He has since been back several times, to teach Renovation again, as well as Intro to the Woodshop and Cabinets & Built-Ins.

“I really enjoy working with the students,” he says, “empowering them to take the skills that they have, honing them and giving them some more information, because I know for myself how satisfying it was to pick up some of those skills, especially coming from another walk-of-life, trade or career. It tends to be that a lot of students have a desire and a passion, but there is a hesitance to do it before they have the skills. Like watching someone using a powertool for the first time and being terrified of it. But then realizing how they can do it properly and safely and make something beautiful out of it is really enjoyable.”

Paul’s best advice to aspiring woodworkers is to “do things with integrity. If you’re going to do something, do it well from an aesthetic perspective, a quality perspective, as well as with an efficiency with the use of the resources. That is the approach I take with my work—so that I make something that will last for more than 100 years and that someone would want to keep in shape for that long because of the way it was built.”

He adds: “The school and the community that Yestermorrow attracts tend to be totally on board with that [vision]. I learn something from them every time I teach. Seeing people mastering a skill and doing something they thought they couldn’t do before or learning something they really wanted to learn about is really satisfying work.”

For the last couple of months on campus, Katie Tomai has been a consistently inspiring presence. Her journey started in July in the Tiny House Design/Build course. During those two weeks, the class kick-started her building process by building the frame for her home.

Since then, Katie has been outside everyday chipping away at her house. With very little building experience, she has been teaching herself how to build a home from the ground up. We have all watched the house grow from just a trailer to an almost finished home.

To see her in-progress tiny house, and the just started tiny house the semester program is building, come to our Open House this Friday, October 24th!

Check our Facebook Event for more information:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1470792659850190/

by Kate Stephenson, Executive Director

When I give tours of the Yestermorrow campus, frequently I end up telling folks we have many components of a high performance building. But one of the challenges of working to renovate and retrofit an existing building (originally a hotel built in 1960) in phases over time is that often you don't get a chance to look at the larger picture of the building as a whole. Every year we continue to work our way through an extensive punch list of deferred maintenance and improvements with the ultimate goal of improving the student experience here at Yestermorrow. But it's been a few years since we took a step back to look at the bigger picture.

Luckily, we have some amazing expertise right here in the Yestermorrow family. In September we had a visit from Donna Leban, a new member of the Yestermorrow faculty and a local lighting designer focused on energy efficiency in lighting. Through Efficiency Vermont's RELIGHT program which provides financial support to businesses interested in lighting retrofits, we were able to hire Donna to do a comprehensive lighting audit of Yestermorrow's main building and recommend potential upgrades including LEDs and controls.

Brad and Sayer set up the blower door

The next step was to bring in Brad Cook from Building Performance Services LLC in Waitsfield. Brad has been a long time friend of Yestermorrow, going back to when he was on staff at the school in the 1980s. He is BPI-certified to conduct energy audits and offered to donate a full audit of Yestermorrow's main building. A couple weeks ago he came by with his blower doors, infrared camera, combustion testing equipment to go through the whole building. Overall, we actually did better on the blower door test than we expected, coming out at 5,639 cfm-50 (cubic feet per minute at 50 Pascals). For an 10,000 square foot building that is decent for air tightness. However, we certainly found areas of potential improvement- failed windows, cracks around rough openings and in corners of sheetrock, and gaps in insulation between the foundation wall and first floor. Over the next couple of weeks we will work with Brad to put together a list of recommendations to improve the building envelope, and we're using a Kill-a-Watt meter to look at energy usage of specific appliances around the school.

Reviewing the blower door results via two different wifi enabled devices

Meanwhile we have also been looking at the bigger picture of the overall environmental impact of the organization. This summer we worked with a summer intern from the Community College of Vermont, Lisa Thacker, to update our Environmental Impact Report. We had published the first version of this report in 2011 with help from instructor Jim Newman of Linnean Solutions. Lisa and our staff went through the extensive process of reviewing data from 2012-2013 to update the metrics identified in the original report- including electricity, propane and water usage as well as local purchasing and occupancy. We will have the updated report up on our website by the end of the month.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to look at the efficiency of the campus and ways to reduce our footprint!

For the next two weeks, there is a new addition to the Yestermorrow Campus. The renovated Airstream trailer parked in front of our main building is a Mobile Design Gallery and Education Center.

AIA Vermont has created this mobile architecture classroom to spread awareness of green ecological design around Vermont. They call the trailer the 'Archistream' and it has been traveling around Vermont for the last 6 months, stopping around Vermont in places like the ECHO center on Burlington's Waterfront.

They were awarded a $42,750 Innovation Fund grant from AIA for the project. They purchased the used trailer, and undergraduate architecture students at Norwich university spent last winter remodeling the interior to house educational materials about design and hopefully bring more awareness about what architecture can do for them.

The Archistream is open to the public and will be parked out front for the next two weeks. Come see the engaging design, and learn more about ecological design in the process!

John Connell, Yestermorrow Founder

The following is the first in what we hope will be a series of guest blog posts from members of the Yestermorrow community on topics related to design thinking.

Yestermorrow Design Blog

Trying to invigorate the design conversation at Yestermorrow, I’m constantly challenged by where to start. I’ve tried design competitions, syntax, favorite examples, and inspired readings – none really launched the mission. This is probably more about my lack of follow-through than anything else.

So now, let’s try blogging! Participation is self-directed, from a long focused post to a quick comment on someone else’s. Or for the extremely tight schedule, one can just lurk in the wings.

This blog welcomes all comers to explore design issues, projects, concepts – whatever comes to the surface.

Design – is what?

Part of the challenge in wrapping one’s head around “DESIGN” is the varied uses made of the word. Design means so many things in so many contexts that a newbie is easily confused. For instance, architects commonly use the word to describe the 3dimensional result of their 2dimensional imagery while engineers use the word to describe the elegance of a numerical solution. Interior Designers use the word for everything in their field – she’s a “designer”. Graphic designers, landscape architects, fashion designers, animators, set designers, industrial designers, environmentalists, writers, book designers, cooks, painters and sculptors all use the word “design” in special ways. And yet, incredibly, they all share a common thread in that design always means intention or vision.

Regardless of the context, design is always the intended response to a problem (the “design problem”). The quality of a design solution is measured by how well it realizes the intentions or vision being pursued. So regardless of one’s professional bias or training or materials or methods,

design = intention

Design is Who?

In bygone times, design of any flavor was usually the result of one person. The architect, artist, master builder or craftsperson was almost always singular and their vision was a very personal expression. The study of architecture is a study of individuals remembered and venerated in our text books. Many hands and many minds entrained in one pursuit of one vision or goal laid out by The (autocratic) Designer. There are exceptions, of course, but generally this is the assumption behind architecture with a capital “A”.

Today, however, that assumption is being challenged. In a limited resource world with vastly expanded technological options, design (or intention) is not so easily outlined by a single vision. As the world gets smaller and more interconnected, the consequences of design become more complicated. Sustainable design, carbon neutral design, and affordable design are just a few examples that move beyond the earlier approach.

Pursuit of these more complicated design intentions requires the collaboration of many minds at the outset of a project. Finance, codes, structure, energy use, daylight, materials, health, comfort, ergonomics, land use, storm water, wastewater – any one of these alone could shape a building. Together, if not coordinated, they will reduce the design process to an internecine competition. This is why larger building projects are increasingly embracing some sort of integrated design at the outset. All the critical experts convene at the outset to work out a collaborative design (vision) that balances all the various agenda. This is a far cry from the autocratic design myth found in Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead.

Design has become a team sport! In a resource limited world, this is the only responsible approach…unless perhaps, if the building itself is quite small.

The house, if kept small enough, can still be the expression of a single person’s design vision. All the considerations listed above must still be understood and incorporated into that vision but it’s possible – just barely – for a single designer to pull it off. This is the allure of residential architecture. Each house becomes a talisman for how we must live sustainably on this earth. And since every site is different, this design problem must be reinterpreted endlessly to accommodate the infinite combinations of human cultures and natural ecosystems.

Autocratic Design vs. Team Design…(?)

Design Looks like What?

At Yestermorrow, this is the big question carried about just under the surface. It’s a great question and I want to advance it to center stage. We need to talk about it, hear various opinions, and develop some vocabulary.

In this post I have suggested that larger buildings benefit from Team Design while smaller buildings can still be the sublime invention of a single Design/builder. So let’s get some feedback on that!

Meanwhile, here are a few good resources to prime the pump:
http://www.house-design-coffee.com/

The Art of Critical Making (my favorite book for Yestermorrow)
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118517865.html

Universal Principles of Design (a classic on design at all scales)
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/universal-principles-of-design-revised-and-updated-william-lidwell/1116891960

A Pattern Language (a classic on vernacular design)
https://www.patternlanguage.com/

A guest post by John Connell, Yestermorrow founder and board member

It is a commonly held view that good design results when projects are driven by an autocratic leader, and bad design results when projects are driven by democratized groups.

Many find the notion of an alpha leader romantically appealing, believing that great design requires a tyrannical “Steve Jobs” at the helm to be successful. This notion is, at best, an oversimplification and in many cases it is simply incorrect. Design by Dictator is preferred when projects are time-driven, requirements are relatively straightforward, consequences of error are tolerable, and stakeholder buy-in is unimportant. It should be noted that with the exception of inventors, celebrity designers, and entrepreneurial start-ups, virtually all modern design is at some level design by committee (e.g., clients, builders, consultants, code officials, etc.). The belief that great design typically comes from dictators is more myth than reality.

Design by Committee is preferred when projects are quality-driven, requirements are complex, consequences of error are serious, or stakeholder buy-in is important. For example, NASA employs a highly bureaucratized design process for each mission, involving numerous working groups, review committees, and layers of review from teams of various specializations. The process is slow and expensive but the complexity of the requirements is high, the consequences of error are severe, and the need for stakeholder buy-in is critical. Virtually every aspect of mission technology is a product of design by committee.

Design by Committee is optimal when:
· committee members are diverse,
· bias and influence among committee members is minimized,
· local decision-making authority is encouraged (operating within an agreed upon global framework)
· member input and contributions are efficiently collected and shared
· ideal group sizes are employed (working groups contain three members, whereas review boards and decision-making panels contain seven to twelve members)
· a simple governance model is adopted to facilitate decision making and ensure that the design process cannot be delayed or deadlocked.

Consider Design by Committee when quality, error mitigation, and stakeholder acceptance are primary factors.

Consider Design by Dictator when an aggressive timeline is the primary factor.

Favor some form of design by committee for most projects, as it generally outperforms autocratic design on most critical measures with lower overall risk of failure — bad dictators are at least as common as good dictators, and design by dictator tends to lack the error correction and organizational safety nets of committee-based approaches.

· Autocracy is linear and fast, but risky and prone to error.
· Democracy is iterative and slow, but careful and resistant to error.

Image from: Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design ~ Lidwell, William; Holden, Kritina; Butler, Jill.

Both models have their place depending on the circumstances. The strikingly original design for Freedom Tower came from Daniel Libeskind using a design process that can be aptly characterized as design by dictator. However, the requirements of the building that would take the place of the World Trade Center towers were extraordinarily complex, the consequences of getting the design wrong unacceptable, and the number of passionate stakeholders great. Given these conditions, Freedom Tower was destined to be designed by committee. As the design iterated through the various commercial, engineering, security, and political factions, idiosyncrasies were averaged out — a standard byproduct of design by committee. The final design is less visually interesting, but it is, by definition, a superior design.

Adam Riggin Lovin' Learnin' With His Hands In Woodworking Certificate

City Repair Founder Mark Lakeman to Speak at Yestermorrow

Jude Connelly Sees the Science Behind the Wood

Drew Roeder's Road to Creativity

Tess Thomas: Developing Craftsmanship & Consistency in the Woodshop

Life and Death of a Structure

A Sphere-Making Jig Named Tom

Woodworking Certificate Student Hank Brakely Goes Krenovian!

Architecture That Makes a Difference

Processing the Process: A Woodworking Certificate Recap Through the Eyes of Ben Murphy

Live From the Tiny House Fair: ...GO!

Live From the Tiny House Fair: Get Ready, Get Set...

Willow Ribbed Canoe: It Takes a Poet to Build a Canoe

Tiny House Design/Build - a student's perspective

From Yestermorrow Student to Instructor (and a darn good one!)

Tiny House, Open House

Tackling Efficiency at Yestermorrow

Yestermorrow hosts AIA Vermont’s ‘Archistream’

Design Blog- Guest Post by John Connell

Design by Committee vs. Design by Dictator