Roundwood Timber Framing: Building Naturally Using Local Resources

A Timber Frame That Still Remembers the Tree

Ben Law’s Roundwood Timber Framing makes a simple but demanding proposition: build with the wood your landscape already grows. Instead of forcing every post and beam into a sawmill square, the method uses poles, crooks, forks, and natural curves, selecting timber for its character and structural role. The result is a building approach that can be low-impact, locally sourced, and deeply connected to woodland management.

First published in 2010, this is both an argument for a different kind of construction and a detailed guide to putting it into practice. The book moves from the reasons behind roundwood framing to the practical work of choosing species, cutting and preparing timber, forming joints, and raising frames. A foreword by Lloyd Kahn places Law’s work in the wider story of owner-building and natural shelter.

From Woodland Management to Standing Frame 🌳

The early chapters look at roundwood as a building material and at the woodlands that produce it. Law discusses managing woodlands for roundwood timber framing and examines suitable tree species, helping readers understand that a successful frame begins long before the first joint is cut. Species, growth habit, and the way timber is harvested all affect what can be built.

Tools get their own chapter, followed by a substantial section on construction. Rather than treating joinery as an abstract skill, the book follows the practical sequence of turning living trees into structural frames. The emphasis is on methods that can be learned, adapted, and passed on.

Buildings, Details, and Real Examples 🪵

Later chapters move beyond the basic frame. Beyond the Frame considers how roundwood structures are finished and inhabited, while Roundwood Timber Framing Builds presents examples that show the method at work. An appendix includes extracts from an engineering report for the Lodsworth Larder, giving a useful glimpse of how such projects meet structural scrutiny. Glossary, further reading, and resource sections round out the guide.

This is not a quick weekend project book, and it does not pretend that natural building is effortless. Its value lies in the detail: the attention to sourcing, the respect for material, and the belief that buildings can be made with fewer industrial inputs and more local knowledge.

Who Will Find It Useful?

Roundwood timber framing sits at the intersection of green woodworking, sustainable construction, and self-building. It will appeal to owner-builders, carpenters, woodsmen and woodswomen, foresters, architects, and anyone curious about low-impact shelter. Readers already comfortable with tools and timber will find plenty of technical substance; those new to the subject will gain a clear understanding of what roundwood framing involves and why it matters.

As a digital edition, this guide is easy to keep on hand while planning, sourcing timber, or working in the workshop. It is a book for people who like their building knowledge rooted in place, season, and the particular shape of a tree.