At Willowbank, Dawson teaches traditional timber framing. Dawson has been timber framing for nearly 25 years. Upon graduating from Algonquin College’s Heritage Carpentry program, he was fortunate enough to work with the local timber framer. While there he was part of many heritage barn repairs, stabilizations, rehabilitations, as well as new construction both with antique, hewn timber and new. After that he applied those traditional framing skills towards combining them with sustainable enclosure systems such as strawbale, cellulose, and hempcrete in mostly new residential construction. He currently runs sustainable home design and timber frame construction business, Pondering Pine Design and Timberworks. Focussing on historic, traditional frame typology and joinery, and specializing in using naturally shaped, curved, forked, otherwise firewood to create structures that connect us with the forest from which they came. Largely using local, sustainably produced, raw materials where possible, the operations are also fully solar powered. Inspired by the centuries old traditions and aesthetics, combining them with modern building science to produce efficient, small (energy, carbon, building) footprint buildings people can feel good about being in.