THE HANDHOUSE JOURNAL
Follow the journey…
Featured
Follow the journey…
Handshouse Studio Toys for Animals participants are delivering a newly designed set of toys for beloved elephants, Ruth and Emily, tomorrow! We are marking the 14th anniversary of this remarkable collaboration and want to share it with the community!
The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and the Lamar Dodd School of Art invited Handshouse Studio: Notre-Dame Project back to Athens,GA to offer a five-day workshop to continue the 1:10 scale white-oak model recreating one of the oldest sections of Notre-Dame de Paris timber roof.
Michael Burrey and Jackson DuBois, both vital participants in the Notre-Dame Project full-scale reconstruction of Choir Truss #6 in Washington, DC in 2021, were invited to work as members of the team of professional French carpenters rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris’s 315-foot timber spire.
A new group of participants from the Boston Prep Charter School joined the Toys for Monkeys project in collaboration with Handshouse and the Franklin Park Zoo. This unique Handshouse collaboration effectively enriches the lives of many species, human and non-human, who are living together in a shared home at a complex time.
Handshouse Studio hand-raised their Notre-Dame Project’s 8100-pound white oak replica of Choir Truss #6 and brought a 5-day La Forêt Model Project workshop to the Sam Beaufort Woodworking Institute and at the Great Lakes Woodworking Festival in Adrian, MI.
Handshouse Studio has created a new website; to begin exploring ways to create an interactive archive of living cultural heritage related to the Gwoździec Synagogue and other 17th century wooden synagogues of the Polish Lithuantian Commonwealth; launching a new chapter of the Wooden Synagogue Project.
Philippe Villeneuve and Remi Fromont, Chief Architects of the Notre-Dame de Paris reconstruction in Paris greeting Rick Brown Co-Founder of Handshouse Studio in front of the full-scale replica of a Notre-Dame de Paris wooden roof truss reconstructed by Handshouse Studio participants using Fromonts hand-drawings of the cathedral’s medieval timber roof structure.
The Catholic University of America and the National Building Museum, partners in Handshouse Studio’s Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project, host restoration architects of Notre-Dame de Paris, who will help hand-raise a 8100-pound full-scale reconstruction of a Notre-Dame roof truss. Events in Washington, DC Monday, Sept 26th!
The Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project exhibition at the Millennium Gate Museum ended with a gorgeous sunny day of demonstrations and presentations in Atlanta, GA. The Full-scale reconstruction of Notre Dame’s choir truss #6 stood on the Western terrace of Millennium Gate enjoying its last moments amongst the Atlanta community.
Filmmakers Rian Brown and Jake Hochendoner follow Handshouse Studios’ group of American timber framers in their efforts to accurately reconstruct a full-scale wooden truss as a gift, in an act of global solidarity, to repair the roof of Notre Dame of Paris cathedral that burned in 2019. A Studio Orsopolis and Divided Line production
This conversation will feature Lindsay S. Cook, PhD, Assistant Professor of Art History at Ball State University; Tonya Ohnstad, AIA, NCARB, MNAL, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Planning, The Catholic University of America; Traditional Carpenter Gerald David of GFD Woodworking, and Rick Brown of Handshouse Studio. Register HERE for this Free Online Event
Come see hands-on demonstrations and visual presentations of Notre-Dame de Paris's wooden roof structure, its history, and how it was made.
April 24th from 3-6pm at Millennium Gate Museum in Atlanta, GA Register Here for this Free In-Person Event
Handshouse Studio initiated The Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project to better understand the history of how Notre-Dame catherdral was built through the hands-on experience of remaking this large historic object. The full-scale reconstruction of one of the medieval wooden truss Notre-Dame de Paris trusses that were burned in the tragic 2019 fire was built as part of this educational project.
The North Bennet Street School’s brings together Henry Newhard, an NBSS alumni of the Preservation Carpentry program, with Rick and Laura Brown of Handshouse Studio to take immersive audiovisual tour into the Notre Dame de Paris Truss project…
This spring, Handshouse Studio is excited to bring Toys for Monkeys to a new age group of participants as we connect with students and educators, thanks to the support of two Mass Cultural Council STARS Residency Grants
With the support of a Mass Humanities Digital Capacity Grant, Handshouse Studio will create a website to house the Gwoździec Synagogue Project Interactive Archive/ Virtual Tour.
It is with such a heavy heart that we share that our host, guide, guardian, visionary, activist, artist, and very dear friend, Shukit Panmongkol has passed away. Shukit Panmongkol brought Thailand to life for us and for all the students who traveled with Handshouse to Thailand…
With heavy hearts, Rick and I, and Handshouse Studio wish to honor the lives of Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka. Maria Piechotka recently passed on Nov 28, 2020 and her husband Kazimierz passed in 2010. The Handshouse Studio’s Gwozdziec Synagogue reconstruction for the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews was possible because of their work and research.
For the first time since Handshouse was officiated as a non-profit in 2002, we are expanding our Board of Directors and employing a year-round staff member. In July of 2020, the Founding Board Members Rick and Laura Brown, Joel McCarty, and Cary Wolinksy formally hired Marie Brown to assume the role of Handshouse Studio’s first Executive Director.
Handshouse Studio has been exploring ways to bring our unique project-based pedagogy to more learners. In July, Art Education faculty, Adriana Katzew, invited Handshouse to be a case subject for her intensive Creating Curriculum summer course at Mass College of Art and Design.
Throughout the summer, we have been talking with teachers, educators, advisors about what we learned from our Toys for Monkeys and Trojan Horse remote projects. We are exploring the prospect of bringing this project to other institutions, as well as to other age groups of students in partnership with school teachers.
This week, we decided to reach out to our past Banjo Project participants to have them remind us how this project impacted them, to rejuvenate our resolve, to help us regroup the many past participants, to invite in future banjo makers, and to begin to explore safe ways to continue the project in the strange new world of COVID 19.
Over the past several months we have been working to develop curricula to help spread the stories rediscovered through our Handshouse projects to a broader audience. We have had the pleasure of working with a dedicated team to start this process, one of whom is our long time Handshouse family member, Krista Lima!
We have lost a hero. Ailton (Nito) Correia, a rising star in Industrial Design at Massachusetts College of Art, a central member of our Handshouse family, a Capoeira performer, a Cape Verdean-American from Amherst, MA, an artist and so many things, most important of which being a very, very dear friend to so many…
This is the time of year, The Toys for Elephants project class would normally be delivering a fleet of enrichment toys to Emily and Ruth, the Elephants at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford. Circumstances this year turned out to be a little bit different. Students in the 2020 Massachusetts College of Art and Design Toys for Elephants class did not let these circumstances get them down however, they just found a slightly smaller group of clients at the zoo. The Monkeys!
This week each year is a special one for Handshouse Studio & the Buttonwood Park Zoo. Students from the Mass College of Art & Design Toys for Elephants class deliver unique enrichment objects they have designed & built during the course of this semester-long Handshouse Studio workshop to Emily & Ruth, Buttonwood Park Zoo’s resident elephants. This week would have marked the 10th consecutive year of designing, building & delivering enrichment objects for these elephants & their managers.
Check out some of the models made by student Olivia Wiktor of the Trojan Horse, part of the Making/History: Trojan Horse Project. Originally the class goal was to continue research done in past workshops and classes by extensively studying the form of the horse, and creating several versions as 4-foot models made of wood. When the class had to move online, the project had to be adapted. Olivia, an Architecture student at Mass College of Art, was able to alter the classes CAD drawings of the Trojan Horse model, & using her Rhino skills, scale them to a few different sizes so fellow students could create layered horse models with the kinds of materials they could work with from their own homes.
Handshouse Studio traveled with the Toys for Elephants project to Thailand again! A group of 15 people from 5 different colleges from the US and England, traveled together to Thailand this past January to design and build both enrichment objects for Elephants, and tools for elephant keepers to improve life for elephants at BEES Elephant Sanctuary. (continue)
On Norwell Cares Day, September 20, 2019, Norwell high school students joined Handshouse Studio for a one-day workshop making historic gourd banjos.
Say hello to our newest team member at Handshouse! We are elated to expand our staff to welcome Eva Carter (they/them) on staff as an Assistant Director for the fall. Eva is joining us to support Marie with the breadth of administrative-organizational work required to orchestrate the unique types of programming Handshouse offers.