The Timber Frame Kiosk

by Dylan Durkee

There will soon be a new feature for you to enjoy as you approach the Visitor Center at Merck Forest: a Welcome Kiosk, built in a timber-frame style, with materials entirely sourced from timber harvested on the property. The kiosk is close to the parking lot and will introduce visitors to our various operations — farming, forestry, education and recreation — and will provide hiking and program information so that visitors start their Merck adventure off right.

The kiosk is interesting for a couple of reasons:

1. It uses timber frame construction. The kiosk is the fifth timber frame building on the property, joining the Harwood barn (was raised at Merck in the 1850’s), the Thoreau cabin (constructed three years ago by volunteers/students), the woodshed at Clark’s Clearing Cabin (built in 2019 by Merck staff) and the outhouse above the saphouse (built in 2018). We can anticipate that with proper maintenance, our new kiosk may outlive all of us who worked to put it together.

2. All the lumber used in its construction was harvested and milled at MFFC.

• Red oak, known for its strength, density and the ease with which it can be worked, were used for the posts and some of the knee braces.

• Maple was used for the king posts supporting the vertical load of the structure.

• Cherry was used for tie beams and knee braces at the ridge. These hold the structure together laterally.

• Larch was used for the top plates, tying the building together lengthwise.

• Apple (timber-sized trunk and branches — a lucky find from a large apple tree downed in a winter storm!) form many of the knee braces, which prevent the bent from racking, or twisting.

• Red and Eastern White Pine, Norway spruce, White (or Paper) Birch and Ash. These form the rafters, which are not structural, but which support the roof deck.

One of the techniques used in the construction of our kiosk is scribing the timbers to fit them together. This ancient technique, developed before standard measuring practices — or even literacy in the building trades — was widespread, involved laying out the structural members in relation to each other and cutting the joints individually. This technique produces the best fit, but the pieces are not interchangeable. Scribing was used to fit the graceful curved apple knees on our kiosk.

Scribing was eventually replaced as a layout technique by the invention and use of framing squares at the end of the eighteenth century, which provided builders with a tool to streamline and standardize their building practices.

The timber resources of the American wilderness provided enormous timbers which could be hewn into large beams; the framing square gave builders a tool to produce structural members with standard sizes. As a result, huge barns could be quickly built. Note the massive oak and cherry post and tie beams in our kiosk, which are squared-up using this technique.

Note from Dylan:

Timber framing is a construction style which has always interested me, and I found a place to satisfy my curiosity at George Senerchia’s Northford Timber Framers organization. This firm does barn restoration and conducts classes in timber frame construction. I learned about European timber framing traditions and American innovations to the art, and in Connecticut I saw magnificent homes and barns that have stood since the early 1700s — some of them 300 years old! I knew that I wanted to be a part of the tradition.

One of the great things about working here is that in the course of our work, and based upon our interests and experience, we are able to dream and create new projects to enhance the Merck experience, and we can count on the support from our staff and community members. I hope that during your next visit to Merck, you seek me out on the farm so we could talk more about timber frame structures and why I love using this technique to create new projects.

By the way — thank you to volunteer Bob Meszaros, who put in many hours into helping finish this project. Thanks a lot, Bob!

Dylan Durkee

Thanks to your support, our resource managers have updated on-property practices to ensure that we are living by our values while our field educators have developed a suite of new events and workshops intended to showcase the organization’s land ethic and demonstrate how that ethic is exemplified through various projects around the farm and forest.

Many of these new programs - including ecological workshops, youth summer camp offerings, and spectacular citizen science opportunities, are in play. Now, the team is turning its focus to developing materials and educational waypoints that will facilitate more meaningful self-guided exploration within a mile of the Visitor Center. Simply put, the objective is to provide new and exciting answers to an essential question that we often hear from visitors: “What should I do while I’m here?”

With your continued support, we plan to enhance the educational experience that visitors have within one mile of the Visitor Center by:

• continuing our efforts (displayed on the opposite page) to highlight the natural communities and diversify accessible demonstration work in the nearby woods and on the farm

• developing new analog and digital resources to guide visitors through a series of reflection points on the landscape

• installing new interpretive waypoints that highlight interesting facts and encourage visitors to reflect on topics ranging from watershed health to carbon storage

• creating an “ecologist-for-a-day” program that will provide visitors with tools and information to get out onto the land and contribute to our citizen science driven effort to catalogue the many species that call Merck Forest home

• enhancing the area around the Visitor Center to improve visitor orientation and provide better spaces to learn, relax, and enjoy the splendor of these woods

Help us meet this goal! We welcome contributions to help underwrite this project. For more information, contact the Advancement Office at liz@merckforest.org or at 802-394-2579.