From Drawing
to Frame
How we turn your architect's vision into a fully engineered, manufacturable, buildable timber frame — and what that process really involves.
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SELF BUILD CLIENTS | ARCHITECTS | CPD | RESOURCE
![AdobeStock_1887003334 [Converted]WHT.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1ebe5e_b913d6e591de425fa8108a8673d99936~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_600,h_330,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/AdobeStock_1887003334%20%5BConverted%5DWHT.png)
You've got your architect's drawings. The vision is there — the roof pitch, the open living space, perhaps a big glazed gable looking out over the valley. But between those drawings and a frame standing on your plot, there's a process most people know very little about. That's what this guide is for.
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Timber frame design and engineering is a specialist discipline. It sits between architecture and manufacture — taking a design intent and turning it into something that can actually be built, safely, efficiently, and beautifully. At Anson, it's what we do every day, and we'd like to explain it properly.
"The gap between an architect's drawing and a standing frame is where the real engineering happens. Getting it right here saves time, money, and headaches on site."
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What Does Timber Frame Design Actually Produce?
When a client sends us their architect's drawings, we need to produce four distinct things — each one essential, each one quite different from the others.
An Engineered Structural Solution
Not just a frame that looks right, but one that works structurally — every beam sized, every load path traced, every connection designed to do its job.
Plans, Elevations & Sections
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Timber frame-specific drawings showing every beam location, panel layout, and structural element. The coordination layer that connects architecture to manufacture.
Workshop Drawings for Manufacture
Detailed cutting lists and machining instructions for every timber. These go directly to our saws and beam-machining robots — no ambiguity, no guesswork.
A Full Site Pack for the Erection Team
A complete A2 laminated drawing set for the site carpenters — clear, durable, and designed to be read in all weathers on a busy build site.
Who Does This Work
Specialist, highly trained draughtsmen and women using sophisticated software tailored specifically to timber frame construction — not generic CAD tools repurposed for the job. When you send drawings as .dwg files, we overlay the frame directly onto the architectural drawings, ensuring complete dimensional alignment from the start. PDF drawings can be used, but .dwg is always preferable.
Software that talks to the machines
​Our design software is directly connected to the workshop floor. Stud-cutting saws receive files automatically. Beam machining robots read the same data our engineers produce. Design and manufacture are one seamless process — which means fewer errors and faster production.
High-tech saws. Hand-crafted thinking
​The technology handles the precision cutting. The thinking — how the frame goes together, how loads flow, how joints are detailed — still comes from experienced people who understand timber. The combination is what makes the difference.
.DWG IMPORT | CNC SAW OUTPUT | BEAM ROBOT MACHINING | FRAME OVERLAY
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What Does It Cost?
Design and engineering fees vary with project complexity, but here is a simple way to think about it. Relative to the timber frame kit cost, design typically runs between 2% and 10%. Relative to your overall build cost, it is usually somewhere between 0.2% and 1%.
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In other words: for a project where the build cost runs to several hundred thousand pounds, specialist timber frame design is a modest investment — and one that actively protects every other element of your budget.
Design cost as a proportion of your project
AS % OF TIMBER FRAME KIT COST
AS % OF OVERALL BUILD COST
2 - 10%
0.2 - 1%
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The Design Process, Step by Step
Every project follows the same clear sequence. Timings are approximate and depend on project complexity and how quickly feedback is returned, but this gives a realistic picture of what to expect.
WEEK 1
You Send Us the Drawings
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We accept architects' drawings in PDF or — preferably — .dwg format. The .dwg file allows us to overlay the timber frame design directly onto the architectural drawings, ensuring complete dimensional alignment from the start. Getting this right at the outset prevents the kind of discrepancies that cause expensive problems further down the line.
WEEKS 1 – 3 · APPROX. 2 WEEKS
Anson Produce the Timber Frame Drawings
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Our specialist draughtspeople produce a full set of timber frame-specific plans, elevations and sections showing all beam locations, panel arrangements, and structural elements. This is not a redrawn version of the architect's drawing — it is a new document set that describes the frame as a manufacturable, buildable object in its own right.
WEEK 4 · APPROX. 1 WEEK
Drawing Pack Sent Back for Comment & Approval
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The full pack goes back to the client and/or their architect for review. This is the moment to raise concerns, request changes, or flag anything that doesn't match the architectural intent. A shared-screen video call at this stage is time well spent — it's often the fastest way to resolve questions that would take days over email. Changes now are straightforward and cost-free. Changes after production starts are neither of those things.
AS REQUIRED
Anson Make Any Necessary Changes for Re-approval
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We make amendments and reissue for sign-off. Most projects go through one round of revisions. We keep this moving efficiently — our goal is an approved set as quickly as possible without cutting corners on the checking process.
PRODUCTION STAGE
Final Production Set & Cutting Lists
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Once approved, we produce the final production drawing set — complete with full cutting lists for panel manufacture and beam machining. These files go directly to our CNC saws and machining robots. Every timber in the frame is identified, sized, and scheduled before a single piece of wood is touched.
BEFORE DELIVERY
Full Site Pack Produced
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A complete A2 laminated drawing set for the erection team. Robust enough to survive a busy site, clear enough that the carpenters can answer most questions by looking at the drawing. The site pack is one of the things erection teams consistently tell us they value most — and it's one of the things that keeps sites running smoothly when we're not there.
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A Project in Three Stages: The Stoep
The best way to understand what we do is to see it. The Stoep is one of our recent projects — a striking corrugated-clad timber frame home built on a river plot, designed by Grainge Rider Architects. Here is the journey from their initial physical model, through our engineering drawings, to the finished building.
STAGE 1 — CONCEPT
The Architect's Physical Model
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The project began with this beautifully crafted physical model by Grainge Rider Architects — corrugated sheet panels set within a laser-cut timber frame. This is the design intent we had to honour and engineer. Our job was to take this vision and make it buildable.
STAGE 2 — ENGINEERING
Anson's Construction Drawing: Upper Roof Setting Out
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This is an actual Anson construction drawing from The Stoep project — the Upper Roof Setting Out sheet. Every rafter position, beam reference, structural opening, hanger schedule and cutting list is captured here. This is the document that travels from our drawing office to the workshop machines, and then to the site carpenters' A2 laminated pack.
STAGE 3 — COMPLETE
The Finished Building
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The Stoep completed — corrugated metal cladding, exposed oak posts and beams, wrapped veranda and generous glazing. Architecture by Grainge Rider Architects. The character of that early physical model is entirely present in the finished building — that continuity is what good design and engineering makes possible.
THE STOEP — RIVER VIEW
The View from the Water
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From the river, the scale and character of the building are fully revealed. A complex roof form, a wraparound veranda, and a frame that needed to perform structurally while remaining visually honest throughout. The kind of project we love.
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The Structural Engineering
Running in tandem with the design process is a full structural engineering package — and this is where we'd urge clients and architects to pay particular attention. Not all structural engineers can do timber frame. It is a specialist discipline, and using a generalist engineer on a timber frame project is one of the most common sources of avoidable problems we see.
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CHARTERED STRUCTURAL ENGINEER — TIMBER FRAME SPECIALIST
Engineering that understands timber
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​Our Chartered Structural Engineer specialises specifically in timber frame construction. Working in tandem with the design team, they produce a full set of structural calculations and drawings — covering line loads, point loads, beam sizing, and connection design. This isn't a generic structural package bolted on at the end; it's an integral part of how we work.
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FOUNDATION SAVINGS
Precise line and point loads allow your foundation engineer to specify accurately — without needing to over-estimate for safety. This regularly saves clients meaningful money on groundworks.
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RIGHT-SIZED BEAMS
Specialist knowledge means beams are sized correctly — not oversized from caution, not undersized from inexperience. The right section, first time.
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CONNECTION DESIGN
Complex connections are fully designed, not just specified in principle. Critical, because an undersized connection can force a larger beam size and change the whole frame.
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WATER INGRESS DETAILING
Structural detailing that considers how water gets in — and out. A frame that works structurally but fails at weathering is a frame that fails.​
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ENGINEERED TIMBER PRODUCTS & SERVICES INTEGRATION
Any engineered timber products — roof trusses, metal web floor joists — are incorporated and fully coordinated at this stage. Metal web joists are particularly useful as they can be designed to accommodate services routing, including MVHR ducting, running within the floor zone without compromising structural depth.
A NOTE FOR FOUNDATION ENGINEERS
Our structural calculations include precise line and point load schedules, formatted to give foundation engineers exactly what they need to specify accurately. Working from a timber frame project without this information, a foundation engineer will — quite reasonably — over-specify for safety. Our calculations remove that guesswork, and the savings can be significant.
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Why Anson — What Makes Us Good at This
When a client sends us their architect's drawings, we need to produce four distinct things — each one essential, each one quite different from the others.
Three Generations of Experience
At Anson we've been doing timber frame for three generations. Grand Designs houses, simple extensions, large commercial projects, garden studios, swimming pools, restricted sites — we've worked across all of it, and we've made plenty of the mistakes so you don't have to. Sometimes the best solution to a tricky problem comes from a completely different project type.
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Value Engineering
Architects are great at dreaming up beautiful designs — and we love making them affordable. We find engineering solutions that enable the architectural vision while keeping costs within budget. Mirroring openings to avoid unnecessary girder beams, optimising panel heights, rationalising the frame layout — a specialist eye picks these up every time.
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Open-Minded to Solutions
We avoid steel beams where we can, but we'll embrace them — and anything else that isn't timber — if that's what the project requires. Connections and brackets can be off-the-shelf for simplicity, or bespoke manufactured for the prominent, visible areas of the build. We're not dogmatic.
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Material Knowledge
Over the years we've worked with many different timber species. Where an element is exposed for visual impact, we can advise on how to create something stunning. Have you considered Douglas Fir? What about larch glulam? Would Iroko work here? The choice of material is part of the design.
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Joined-Up Communication
We connect design, production, transport and erection in a single channel throughout every build. When the frame is on the lorry and a question comes up on site, we answer in minutes. When we started in the 1960s, we were lucky if there was a telephone box around the corner and a stack of 10p coins.
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Buildability & Access
We think about how the frame goes together on site from the moment we start designing it. Sometimes the design needs to be tailored to the maximum size or weight of individual components — constrained by the delivery vehicle available, or the options for safe mechanical lifting on a difficult plot.
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Beyond the Frame
Sometimes we need to incorporate building elements not directly linked to the timber frame, but impacted by the design long after we've left site — the route of a flue for a woodburner; the lapping of an airtightness membrane; routing of heating pipes or ASHP ducting. We think ahead so others don't have to unpick things later.
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Drawings That Work on Site
A2 laminated, clearly laid out, designed for real conditions. The site pack isn't an afterthought — it's a key deliverable, and erection teams tell us they notice the difference.
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Seeing the Invisible: 3D Connection Design
One of the hardest things to communicate in a flat drawing is how a complex structural connection actually works in three dimensions. Where timbers cross, intersect, bear on each other, and transfer load through carefully engineered metal fixings — it can be difficult to read on paper, and easy to get wrong on site.
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For complex junctions, we produce 3D visualisations that allow clients, architects, and site teams to fully understand what they're looking at before a single cut is made. This is the kind of connection detail that, incorrectly built, could mean rebuilding a significant section of frame.
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3D VISUALISATION — COMPLEX CONNECTION DETAIL. Produced by Anson for client and site team briefing
Why we do this
A 3D model lets every member of the team — from the structural engineer to the site carpenter — understand exactly how the connection works before it's built.
What it prevents
Complex connections are one of the most common sources of on-site problems. Seeing it in 3D eliminates ambiguity and means the connection is built correctly, first time.
Useful for CPD
For architects, understanding how structural connections actually work in three dimensions is invaluable — both for specification and for communicating intent to contractors.
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Common Pitfalls — What to Watch Out For
After many years of designing and building timber frames, we've seen the same problems come up repeatedly. Most are entirely avoidable — if you know what to look for. Here are the ones that catch people out most often.
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Architects Specifying Incorrect Timber Sizes
Architects sometimes indicate timber sizes based on habit or precedent rather than structural requirement. When we overlay the frame, we often find the indicated sizes don't work. Catching this at design stage is simple. Catching it in production is not.
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Panels Slightly Over 2,400mm
Sheet materials come in 2,400mm panels. A wall height of 2,410mm means cutting every single sheet — and these can be among the most costly errors on a project, as waste increases significantly across every sheet material used. Small adjustments to storey heights at design stage cost nothing.
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Cantilevered Corners
Cantilevered corners are always achievable — but they complicate both design and build, and increase cost. They are sometimes specified without a full understanding of the structural implications. We always flag these early and explore whether the same architectural effect can be achieved more efficiently.
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Beam Sizes Without Connection Design
A structural engineer might size a beam correctly but leave the connection design unresolved. Complex connections — at ridge junctions or heavily loaded posts — can require a larger bearing area than the beam calculation assumed, changing the beam size. We design connections in full, not in principle.
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Closed Joints That Trap Water
A detail that looks tight and clean on a drawing can be a water trap in practice. We detail joints to let water in and — critically — out. A joint that seals perfectly when dry but holds water when wet will cause long-term problems that are expensive to fix.
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Beam Deflection Over Bi-Fold & Large Doors
Long-span beams deflect under load — that's normal and manageable, but it must be designed for. This is particularly critical over bi-fold and large sliding doors: adequate allowance for settlement must be built in at design stage to ensure the doors operate correctly for years to come. Retrofitting this is expensive and disruptive.​
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A Note for Architects
We work alongside architects regularly and genuinely enjoy those relationships. The best results happen when timber frame design and engineering is brought into the conversation early — ideally at RIBA Stage 2 rather than Stage 4. At that point, structural logic can inform the design rather than constrain it.
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Bay spacing, roof pitch, panel height, the position of major structural elements — all of these have implications worth understanding before they are committed to in planning drawings. We're happy to have that early conversation at no charge.​
PREFER .DWG OVER PDF
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When you share drawings as .dwg files, we can overlay the timber frame design directly — ensuring complete alignment with the architectural intent. PDF drawings require us to retrace dimensions and introduce the possibility of transcription error. Where you can share .dwg, please do. It makes the whole process more accurate and faster for everyone.
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This article as CPD
For architects and architectural technologists, engaging with this content in the context of a current or upcoming project constitutes informal CPD under RIBA guidelines.
We can also deliver a bespoke 60-minute illustrated CPD presentation — in your practice or online — covering timber frame structural principles, design coordination, and common detailing challenges. Get in touch to arrange a session.​​
Outcome 01
Understanding the timber frame design and engineering process from brief to production.​
Outcome 02
Awareness of structural engineering requirements specific to timber frame construction
Outcome 03
Recognition of common design pitfalls and how to avoid them at early design stages​
Outcome 04
Understanding of how timber frame design interacts with foundation and enclosure specifications​
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In Conclusion
No news is good news.​
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In our experience, a well-run timber frame design and engineering process is almost invisible — to the client, to the architect, and to the erection team. Drawings arrive on time. The frame fits. The site pack answers questions before they're asked. The engineer's calculations give the foundation designer exactly what they need. Things just work.
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That invisibility is the mark of a process that's been properly thought through. When design, engineering, production, transport, and erection are genuinely joined up — when everyone is working from the same information and talking to each other in real time — the build runs smoothly and the client gets what they came for.
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If you'd like to talk through your project — whether you're a self-builder at the very start of the process, or an architect looking for a specialist timber frame partner — we'd be very glad to hear from you.