Part 2 of our two-part webinar series continues the conversation with architect Jiri Lev on timber in human-centered projects. We’ll draw on ideas from these books, so check them out before the session:
Architectural Principles in the Age of Fraud – Branko Mitrovic
The Architecture of Community – Léon Krier
While timber is often discussed in terms of sustainability, efficiency, and aesthetics, this session examines what happens when those concepts are applied by a single person designing and building their own home.
Jiri Lev shares insights from his Tasmanian House projects—a multi-year, hands-on exploration of designing, detailing, and constructing timber homes with simple tools and a focus on material honesty. Working largely alone, his projects blur the lines between architect, builder, and occupant, offering a rare, ground-level perspective on how architectural ideas and building products perform in real conditions.
The session explores timber’s structural, material, and spatial use—from framing strategies and sequencing to detailing, durability, and long-term performance—highlighting practical realities, trade-offs, and lessons learned when theory meets the constraints of time, budget, and labour.
This webinar gives designers, engineers, and builders a candid look at timber construction in practice, showing what timber enables, where it demands respect, and how thoughtful design can make small-scale, high-quality housing achievable and repeatable.
Jiri Lev is an Australian architect and urbanist renowned for sustainable, low-impact residential, civic, and humanitarian architecture.