Shining a light to the future

Alex Skarshelg, shown above, is a Russian-born carpenter with high hopes, 42 metres high to be precise. Tall timbers run in the family. His grandfather was an architect who worked on the tallest structures of his time, and his father was an engineer.

Twelve years ago he travelled to Norway to train in laft, traditional log building techniques. ‘The training was simple: a few days, just you, an axe and the parts of a small log frame,’ explains Alex. ‘We worked with hand tools alone, the axe and the scribe, cutting the notch and the long groove between the courses so that the frame would settle tight.’

His training continued into stavlaft, a post and log framing technique. These techniques along with his own method for ‘diamond notch’ corner joints (described below) are the basis of the solid pine houses he builds and the school in traditional hand-axed carpentry he founded in 2019.

Showing the roof trusses and joinery of a house built in the Norwegian stavlaft tradition by Alex Skarshelg.

In recent years, major house builds have included a 700sqm house designed and built over three years, and Stavlaft House (2024), which he designed and built down to the furniture and lighting. Looking ahead, Alex’s dream is to build a lighthouse within what he calls The Sapiens Garden: ‘A lighthouse is a strong symbol and a simple image that anyone can understand, whatever their worldview, age or social standing. A lighthouse asks for nothing. It simply shines quietly as a strong symbol of hope.’

‘The tower will have seven sides and be surrounded by a garden of 77 trees, each bearing the name of a person, a scientist, a philosopher or a composer, whose work, courage and thought moved humanity forward. Inside the lighthouse there will be seven floors, each a hall, linked by a central spiral stair. The path begins with the foundations laid by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, passes through science, form, word and sound, and arrives at the lantern, at the light: at Blake, Rumi and Hildegard of Bingen. On every floor there will be a small library and a little museum of objects and relics.’

Concept sketches for The Sapiens Garden lighthouse project. Plans are for the lighthouse to stand on Beacon Hill near West Runton, the highest point in Norfolk, where a signal fire was recorded as early as 1324.

He intends to use solid English oak clad in larch boards ‘like the hull of a ship’. Seven weighty corner posts, 450mm section size at the base and 300mm at the top, will connect via 400mm square beams. The tower will be stabilised by 14 steel cables, 80mm in diameter, two at each post. The lighthouse is designed to last more than two hundred years, with frame components that can be disassembled and replaced with the same hand tools.

Funding the project

Alex will seek funding through the Everhelg Foundation which he plans to register in 2027. This will support the stages of construction which he plans to carry out with a small team of British architects, engineers and craftspeople. In this way, he hopes the project will create a community of makers and ‘a school of craft, with wide use of natural materials, handwork and hand tools’.

‘Right now the prototype is in the workshop, and it will be finished in November 2026,’ Alex says. ‘In 2027 I want to show an exhibition version in Britain, so that people can touch the timber of the lighthouse with their own hands. The next step is a small weather beacon about 14 metres high, and its site is still under discussion.

‘The large lighthouse on Beacon Hill in Norfolk needs an agreed site, planning permission and funding. I am in no hurry. If the lighthouse is lit and the garden is in bloom around 2037, that will be a good, steady pace.’

The diamond notch joint

Alex’s version of the traditional diamond notch joint grew out of years of work in Norwegian laft. He explains how it developed. ‘I needed a corner that holds the wall tight, sheds water by itself and sets the rhythm of the facade. At the corner the log narrows to a central neck through four inclined cheeks. On the elevation these faces form a faceted diamond, like the cut of a gemstone, which gives the joint its name. A trapezoidal slot is cut above the neck and an arched saddle below it. The crossing log comes down into the saddle and seats its neck in the slot of the log beneath. With the sharp edges of its saddle each log locks the one below it, and it is locked in turn by the one above, so the corner holds in every direction and resists twisting in particular.

‘Along the wall each course bears on the course below on the two edges of a longitudinal W-groove, about 124mm apart. The W-groove was developed by the Canadian log builder Lloyd Beckedorf, and I brought it into Norwegian laft. It works as a labyrinth and keeps out wind and cold. The courses are joined and braced with square dowels.

End-on view of the diamond notch joint

Water and air

‘The log ends stand clear of one another and are cut back at an angle to the wall. Rain runs off the facets, air moves round the ends, and the timber dries quickly after a downpour. Following Norwegian practice, each log is hewn back to heartwood on both faces, the most durable part of the trunk.

Cut by hand

‘Every face of the joint is cut by hand with an axe. We use Norwegian axes forged by the smith Øyvind Klausen in Fyresdal, and templates made in our own workshop. Course after course, the angled log ends build a faceted rhythm that reads on the facade and inside the house alike. It is a calm rhythm and a pleasure to the eye.’

Learn more about Alex Skarshelg and The Sapiens Garden here