Design

Great Room Expectations

Constructing this family lodge required a complex marriage of materials, including conventional milled lumber, steel, and structural and decorative logs, successfully executed by skilled local craftsmen.

May 1, 2004
2 min read

 

The great room's ceiling culminates in a cupola.
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Constructing this family lodge required a complex marriage of materials, including conventional milled lumber, steel, and structural and decorative logs, successfully executed by skilled local craftsmen, architect Aaron Zimmer says. "It's always a challenge in residential construction to introduce metal framing in what is traditionally a wood-frame structure."

Nowhere in the home is this amalgamation more important structurally - or more striking visually - than in its octagon-shaped great room. A 35-foot, tongue-and-groove pine ceiling culminates in a cupola, all supported by a combination of wood and steel framing hidden beneath decorative log trim.

"The goal was to create a space that appears as though it were a wood-frame structure," Zimmer says. "The eight-sided shape provides the opportunity for multiple window walls, increasing the view potential."

Kurt Hogue, general manager of Castle Builders, says the great room "was a very tricky space to build because of the shape of the room and the number of glass walls. With a room this shape and size, there is just not a lot of opportunity for lateral support."

Subcontractors framed the room's lower portion conventionally with a 14-foot top plate. Next, a tube-steel tension ring with anchor bolts welded to its top, permitting attachment of a nailing plate, was placed atop the walls, and tube-steel columns were positioned in each of the octagon's eight corners. The tension ring then was ramset and screwed into the top plate. Next, a compression ring, with joist hangers attached, was fabricated using I-beams and packed with laminated veneer lumber. A crane held this ring in place while it was welded to the home's steel ridge beam. Two-by-10 wood joists connected the two rings. A plywood sub-roof completed the structure.

"This was not a typical project," Zimmer says. "We relied on our framers' ingenuity and craftsmanship to get the geometries framed and the members set in the best construction method for the home."

About the Author

Ann Matesi, Contributing Editor

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