School of Practical Stereotomy - École Pratique de Stéréotomie

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School of Practical Stereotomy - École Pratique de Stéréotomie

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Stereotomy; the fundamental mental skill of envisioning in 3D. Masters of it are true master builders

The purpose of the Professional School of Practical Stereotomy is, after apprenticeship, the training of elite craftsmen. This is a school for construction design arts where it counts among its pupils, from all points of North America and even from abroad, distinguished contractors in carpentry and timber framing, public construction, well-respected foremen, architects, and numerous craftsmen, whose gratitude and recognition were always one of the best rewards. This Professional Element (Art du Trait), called upon today to render so much service to the industry, cultivates good design by teaching practical ways to seek all that one can give to work, to insure that the solution to each problem is rational and produces, in construction, a solid and well-thought-out execution. The pupil at the School starts with the elementary study of joinery, essential to any work; then he draws his first scale drawings, creates a scale model; then, with the same data, realizes the design, in life size, on a building site; thus, while working, he studies the various combinations containing all that is necessary for construction.

10/17/2026

New podcast with Grain de Vérité Episode 1

Check it out!

10/04/2026

Student Success Story!!!

Brian Proctor of Proctor Woodworks just designed and built this stunning eyebrow dormer! He used the exact skills and knowledge learned in our Eyebrow Dormer Workshop hosted at the Heartwood School - Timber Framing and Traditional Trades

Brian is an architect and owner of Proctor Woodworks who often collaborates with his wife, Hope, at Proctor Architects (proctorarchitects.com).

09/27/2026

Shout out to Shane Lesniak for sharing his completed double curved project. After the workshop he went home and fine tuned it. It looks great!

Well done Shane!!

09/24/2026

Check out this 2-day weekend introduction workshop on double curved, or compound curved, work at the Marc Adams | School of Woodworking & Time Honored Crafts

Think of this piece as the upper portion of semi-circular sash in a curved wall. These two curves, found on both plan view and elevation view, give this really interesting look. The pieces are made of solid wood where we used a substantially larger block and cut out the curves on the band saw. This is very similar to how stone carvers solve their layout.

This was the first time offering this type of workshop. It was fantastic and learned just as much, if not more, than the students.

It was a ton of fun!!

09/21/2026

Holy smokes! Check out the size of this timber framed structure; a free standing 12' x 30' at the Marc Adams | School of Woodworking & Time Honored Crafts. This is by far the largest structure completed in a 5-day workshop. Participants worked really hard and hit every milestone im order to get this structure completed. Incredible work by everyone!

If you look closely at the valleys you'll see they consist of two rotated rafters with compound birdsmouths. This is called a "slatted" valley. The roof has equal overhangs with unequal pitches.

A huge congratulations to all the students and a big thanks to the school. Thank you!

08/23/2026

Had a fantastic 2-day weekend workshop at America's 🇺🇸 oldest trade school - North Bennet Street School, in Boston, M.A. ( North Bennet Street School ) teaching and introducing nine wonderful people to the incredible world of stereotomy.

Thank you!🙏

08/22/2026

I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have spent this past week in Boston teaching at the North Bennet Street School. North Bennet Street School NBSS is truly a remarkable institution, and both their faculty and staff are absolutely amazing people.

Participants learned the geometry behind the bell curve, which gives this dormer its unique and sweeping shape. They also learned how to layout the curved valleys and the curved bevels ontop of the eyebrow rafters.

You can see on the inside we also laid out and cut what essentially is a groin vault. This piece, set between the rafters, us to provide solid backing on the interior side.

North Bennet is truly an incredible school! Along with their faculty, amazing people!

Thank you so much to all the participants and to NBSS for hosting the workshop. It is such an honor to share this amazing intellect with you all!

08/12/2026

To all the Finnish carpenters out there 🇫🇮—here is a slice of Northern Ontario history that speaks directly to the art of survival and craft.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, Finnish settlers arrived in communities around Hearst, Ontario, facing unbroken forest, subarctic winters, and tough terrain. Before they even finished their main homesteads, one of the very first structures to go up was often the sauna—built circa 1930 using traditional round log construction techniques.
These pioneers cleared the land with raw manual labor, timber-framing log dwellings, harvesting pulpwood, and adapting traditional Nordic joining methods to local softwoods. In some pockets of Northern Ontario, Finnish communities were so dense that generations grew up speaking English with a distinct Finnish accent.

Structures like this restored 1930 sauna stand as a testament to self-reliance, resourcefulness, and carpentry craftsmanship built to endure subzero climates.

08/02/2026

Had a great chat with Eric Fourthon from Grain de Vérité

We chatted about all things Compagnonnage and work. It was a blast and I learned so much about the history of the Compagnons. A fascinating talk!

Merci pays !

07/13/2026

What an incredible weekend workshop! We brought geometry, timbercraft, and a little structural magic together to design and build these reciprocating (Mandala) timber roof structures.

Over two hands-on days, we used practical stereotomy to solve the entire layout on paper; figuring out every rafter length, angle, and bearing, before translating that layout onto the rafters.

One of the funnest moment was learning the scaled model was able to hold more than 250lbs of direct weight! 🤯 (Hence the photo of the students literally standing on their work!)

Students walked away with a finished model, the templates to repeat it, and the confidence to scale this idea up.

Thank you so much to all the participants and to the Marc Adams | School of Woodworking & Time Honored Crafts for hosting. 🙏🙏

Address

Ottawa, ON
K2J1H1

Website

http://schoolofstereotomy.com/

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