Summer Retreat to Mt. Constitution

Last weekend, team atelierjones left downtown Seattle for Orcas Island to retreat from the city and into the woods. Susan led the team winding up Mt. Constitution to reach her family’s forest, a site for extensive restoration across multiple generations.

Everyone geared up with hardhats and axes to trim, collect, and pile thinned wood, making room in overstocked areas for sunlight and new growth. In these woods, time is a blink, and a tree is a drop in the ocean. A few hours of clearing and stacking wood feels satisfying; a small accomplishment in the lifetime of the forest. For atelierjones, working directly with timber inspires care and attention towards how we source and design with the material. Susan’s love and dedication towards the forest’s enduring health is reflected in how she continues to encourage family and friends to learn about and to work with wood in a lifelong project that keeps giving back to people.

atelierjones gathered on the deck of Constitution Shed, a small structure crafted from windfall trees found on site, to reflect on the past year. From the construction of one of the first tall mass timber workforce housing buildings in the US to the prefabrication of timber modular homes replacing those lost in a wildfire, each project ties back to sustainably sourcing wood. The tight-knit team’s greatest strength is balancing each other’s expertise across project management, technical detailing, strategic relations, and design, which allows them to navigate variegated project types together.

Moving forward, atelierjones will continue to tell the breadth of stories embedded in our design process because the depth of meaning in our work comes from the web of collaborations involved in each project. Our goal is to grow together through a shared vision with our network of partners, much like the thriving relationship between trees in the forest.

Evenings on the beach lit by campfires and enlivened with personal stories brought the group closer together. Susan’s family cabin provided a beautiful setting and creature comforts to make new memories through cooking meals, playing card games, and exploring the landscape. The weekend culminated in a day of hiking, swimming, and painting to relish the sunshine before returning to Seattle. We settled comfortably back into our new home at the Bullitt Center, refreshed and ready for the busy summer ahead.

ATELIERJONES RETREAT AT THE CONSTITUTION SHED

Lots of great thinking and planning for the future going on at atelierjones at our annual retreat! We definitely decided we would keep on seeing more of the incredible Pacific Northwest Mass Timber resources - from forests to factories to buildings. And we started with the Mt. Constitution Forest Camp - thinning hemlocks and spruce trees, to bring more light and diversity into the remote mountain forest that we are tendering.

METHOD HOMES VISIT

The Wet Core is moving ahead at record pace! atelierjones visited the three wetcores under construction at the Method Homes Factory earlier this week, and were excited to see them completely framed and mechanical/electrical/plumbing rough-in starting. The factory build was high quality, and it was exciting to see how much had been accomplished in just two weeks. These prefabricated wetcore modules will be the first of three mass timber modular homes to be built this summer and fall in the Sierra Nevada town of Greenville, CA, which was destroyed in the Dixie Fire in August 2021. atelierjones is leading the design and prefabrication process with Method and DR Johnson, who is supplying the mass timber structure for the homes.

TIMBERLAB VISIT

atelierjones visited Timberlab in Portland, OR, where they saw Mass Timber prefabricated elements undergoing production for our Heartwood workforce 126-unit workforce residential building. On display were the Freres produced mass plywood panel (MPP) Exit Stairs going through post-processing at Timberlab, and a mockup of Heartwood’s innovative all-wood beam to column connection.

SIERRA INSTITUTE SAWMILL RIBBON CUTTING

On May 18, 2022, atelierjones visited Greenville, CA, where four of their mass timber homes will be erected in the fall to help rebuild the town after it was devastated in the Dixie Fire of 2021. They also participated in the Sierra Institute’s ribbon cutting ceremony for a new sawmill on their wood utilization campus. The mill will bring jobs back to the area, provide local lumber to help rebuild the town of Greenville, and salvage charred ponderosa pines.