During the eighteenth/nineteenth century wood was the building material. The great North American forests, from the Mississippi river to the eastern seaboard and along the Canadian border from one side of the continent to the other, were decimated to build the ships and houses of the new world. Wood was used as a fuel, for plank roads and boardwalks, for furniture, carriages and tools, for wine casks and food storage barrels. If it is possible to forgive past generations for the destruction of the forests it will be because of the buildings they left behind.

Timber was used for structural beams and columns as well as internal lining and finishes of apartments, warehouses and town buildings of all types. A unique architectural contribution from nineteenth century builders came in the form of the detached single family timber house.

America's industrial tradition began with the manufacture of timber. Felled trees were floated down rivers into canals and on to saw mills. Batteries of water-driven and stream-driven saws sliced logs into lumber, then lumber into planks and boards. Pine lumber was shaved into tapered clapboards, tongue and grooved flooring, and decorative mouldings. Manufactured items such as doors, windows and entire prefabricated structures made possible the building of entire towns and cities in a short time and at great distances from the source of timber.

The development of this integrated building system and the transportation of manufactured building components by sea enabled a similar tradition to develop in other new world colonies. Timber settlements inevitably followed the occupation of territories by the British. As far away as South America, Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand American manufactured doors, windows and boarding were integrated into local systems with their own individual characteristics. One characteristic remained common. The language used by all nineteenth century european craftsmen was geometry. This ensured that each separate piece of the structure would fit together no matter where it came from. It was the language also used by American timber manufacturers to ensure that each item would fit into an intended design and pattern when it reached its destination.

An interest in building form leads inevitably to measured drawing. Buildings are measured objects when they are designed. To study them they should also be measured. This is particularly so if the intention is to understand their geometry which is the only way to understand architectural form.

The following sketches are geometric studies overlaid on measured drawings of timber houses. The twelve facades come from the same street in a small harbour town at the south east corner of Australia. The studies were done for educative reasons only. They are detached from architectural theory apart from the coincidences that occur.