My last sizeable joinery contract was to build a Japanese teahouse loosely based on an original in Kyoto. Although I had a line elevation of the building and a floor plan, I had to design many of the details and in the initial stages was lucky to have the help of a Japanese carpenter from Tokyo, who helped me frame up the building in the traditional way using Japanese joints. His name is Shoji which is also the Japanese for the ricepaper sliding doors inside the building. Later on Tokumi Ayzen, a Japanese artist, gave me much aesthetic and historical advice, and together we visited the Japanese teahouse built in the British Museum. I had to adapt the building for locally available materials.The greatest challenge was the roof, which is slightly convex in all planes, but had to be covered with copper tiles: thicker than the flexible ones the Japanese would use. Each hip and ridge tile had to be made to an individual pattern. 

This year I will finally complete my 31' Wharram Tiki catamaran, which has experienced three different building sheds and a somewhat "fractured" building programme. It is built from scratch in ply/epoxy. It is the result of at least three thousand hours of work.