The roof structure for the Askew’s store picks up on the principles of the Richmond Speedskating Oval: taking a humble building material, dimensional lumber, and turning it into something wonderful. The 4’-wide box elements consist of 2 x 4 and 2 x 3 stacked planks as the bottom layer with a plywood skin on top. 2 x 12s at regular spacing, depending on the varying spans, connect the two. The elements were fabricated during winter in a warehouse and later lifted onto the steel beams. They form structure and finish at the same time. The amount of wood going into the big roof exceeded what any one small local mill could supply individually, so a number of mills all chipped in to make it a truly local effort. The principle is simple enough that crude tools can do the job and yet the resulting roof is a rather refined affair.
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florian maurer
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