Fergregor's House, in the hills north of Fairbanks, cedar channel siding, cedar shingles, 1980 ■

In the late 70's and still fascinated with saddle curves, I worked on a long series of welded wire frames studies. The Fergregor house began as one of these small sculptures. ■

It was 3 saddle curved shapes with common edges and not at all suitable for a house but I had a potential client that appreciated the art. ■

The client was a transplanted surfer and thought the roof-line was an image of breaking surf and he called it the wave house.■

I drew it, got my first commission and partnered up with 3 long-time friends. ■

The crew was a logger's daughter headed for architecture school; a builder and surveyor headed for geology school; and a structural engineer and ceramicist. It was a remarkable combination of skills and brains. We built the house on time and on budget and all made money with this complicated house despite the hard dollar contract. ■

The timber frames were on 8' centers and of 6" local white spruce. The structural beam/column joints were further stressed by the green timbers curing over time and I opted for bolted steel joinery when ever possible. This helped avoid stressing the slow growing but not particularly fine grained local spruce. ■

The 6" X 12" beam timbers are imported Doug Fir because of the scarcity of large local trees. Beam loads were transferred to the columns with 1.5" deep chiseled let-ins. ■

Timber complete and leaves on the trees. ■

A lot of framing ends ran wild until both sides of the corners could defined the intersection. ■

The finished ceiling is from bandsaw ripped-the-hard-way 2 x 6 Doug Fir board on board. ■

The curved exterior walls (outside/in) are; cedar shingles on 30# felt on horizontal 1x4 @ 5" o.c. skip sheath on 12" truss joist @ 48" o.c. This 48" wide cavity is insulated with 12" of fiberglass insulation. ■

The curved exterior walls from the inside of the truss joist are; horizontal 1x4 @ 16" o.c, vapor barrier and 5/8" gyp. board. ■

The roof (outside/in) is; cedar shingles on 30# felt on 1x4 @ 5" o.c. skip sheath on 2x4 @ 16" o.c. ventilated air space on 12" truss joist @ 48" o.c. and on pylons that provide an 18" fiberglass insulation cavity on the vapor barrier on 1x6 board on board finished ceiling on the timber frame. ■

The vertical exterior walls (outside/in) are; cedar channel siding on 30# felt on horizontal 2x8 @ 32" o.c. fastened outside of the vertical balloon framed 2x6 @ 24" o.c. wall with Simpson H-1 clips. The cavity is insulated with a total of 14" of fiberglass insulation. ■

The trick in covering these curved shapes is to avoid 4' X 8' materials whenever possible as the curve is impossible to cover without stretch distorting the covering material, try it with a piece of paper. ■

Sheet rock (5/8" thick) was used successfully but was a challenge. It internally fractures when pushed into the shape and all of its dimensions change so that it's no longer square or flat and nearly every edge on every sheet needed to be trimmed to fit. ■

Looking down a curved exterior wall insulation cavity showing twisted truss joist and skip sheath. ■

This combination of layers and materials allowed building the curved shape and satisfied the requirements of 12" insulated walls and a ventilated 18" fiberglass roof. ■

Fairbanks has an annual heating load of some 15,500 degree days and the framing and insulation decisions have paid for themselves several times over. ■