Building a house with exceptional design and materials and the best information we have will surely produce houses that the next generation will fight to keep.

Buildings that are built well enough that future generations will care about keeping them are one of the greatest examples of real-time recycling and actual sustainability. Every building, in its life, will fall into disrepair - the best built ones, the worst ones. From castles in Normandy to cabins in New England, every building ever built faces a struggle against water, wind, and its occupants. No building that has ever lasted for long periods of time has done so without repair, maintenance, and even rebuilding. All across America, in old neighborhoods that we were once so essential to the very character of towns, remodeling and refurbishing projects are going on. You can imagine the neighborhoods, with their elm-lined front lawns and houses built before Main Street America became subdivisions and stock plans. These houses are being repaired and saved for another generation of use for one big reason: Preserving the house and the neighborhood seems worth it. Their architecture is attractive, and the original materials are often better than the ones in common use today. For our tastes, the bedrooms are maybe too small, there aren't enough bathrooms and the kitchens are too confined - but almost everyone seems to agree that they're worth saving. So you knock out a couple of walls, replace the kitchen cabinets, accept a couple of compromises, and give an old house a new life. Most of these old homes, at least in the west, probably aren't timber frames. Neither are they built to todays standards of quality. I live in one that's 91 years old, and the original fir siding wasn't back primed or even installed with galvanized nails. But building a house with exceptional design and materials and the best information we have will surely produce houses that the next generation will fight to keep.

How do you build a house to last for centuries?

· Start a house with exceptionally good design, materials and workmanship. Working with Frameworks Timber can assure the integration essential to designing and building sustainable building.

· Maintain it with first class care and materials while you own it.

· Turn it over to another generation that you know will take responsibility.

Why do I advocate timber framed homes?

· They inspire me. The opportunity to leave workmanship on display for generations is good work.

· I believe that they challenge other tradespeople to do better work. At the least, they defy the prevailing norms and values of the construction industry and developers at large as they introduce more conscious and sustainable building practices.

· I think they hold an exceptional chance of being valued highly by future generations and preserved through a long life.

· I think they inspire their occupants. I've never met anyone not at least interested, and usually impressed by a building held together with pegs. I still am.

· Ask me in person.