Ken Follett is currently a board member of the Association for Preservation Technology - Northeast Chapter. He has been involved in construction and historic preservation for fifty years, the majority in the NYC area. Mr. Follett is a founding member and first president of the Preservation Trades Network, and a lifetime member of that organization. He is formerly a board member of APTI, and is a member of the Stone Foundation. Mr. Follett's work specialty, in partnership with his son, is to assist architects, structural engineers, and conservators in the investigation of historic structures. They carry out probes, take masonry cores for testing, sample extraction, and mock-ups. His trade specialty is masonry restoration, estimating of historic works, project management, and team development. He is also a writer. Mr. Follett has been involved over the last thirty years in interfacing with a variety of historic preservation trades education programs.
Presentation
Invisibility
Traditional trades, including timber framing, hold a wealth of knowledge that is acquired over a lifetime of study and hands-on work. This knowledge is a valued resource that needs to be preserved and carried forward in the historic preservation industry. It is a human resource as valuable as the built environment, the structures and historic fabric that we endeavor to preserve for the future. My perspective is that the optimal manner to pass this knowledge on to future generations is for those who have the knowledge to be gainfully employed in a manner that they are able to likewise employ and teach younger individuals.
Difficulty immediately arises as to how to tell if a tradesperson knows anything of value. As traditional trades practitioners, we compete in a construction world where there is a multitude of unqualified individuals who will say that they know what they are doing. They may also say that there is nobody available to do what only they can do. Or, as they are unable to do what is needed, they will say that it cannot be done at all. They encourage projects where there is no looking any further for the possible. They encourage maintaining invisibility.
You may exist, and you may know what you are doing, but the people who need you cannot see you. Or, if they can see you, they are hampered by all the people who refuse to see you. Or you are looking around but you cannot tell what you are looking at.
I am not a timber farmer, my preference is to play with rocks, and my preference is to play with rocks with groups of people. Often those groups of people are timber farmers, architects, conservators, or structural engineers. I like to build project teams.
My presentation will describe projects where team building interfaced with timber framers, and where in each case there were issues of invisibility. The desire of the Association of Polish Conservators to recreate a 17th-century log and timber synagogue, working with the architect to align an experienced timber framer to work on the Roslyn Grist Mill, replacement of the shake roof on the Jean Hasbrouck House at Historic Huguenot Street (1720) that involved timber framers, development of the Preservation Trades Network, and the SKILLED photo project.