Timber Portal Frame

I did not come across any timber portal frames in real life so I have looked on the net to get some examples.

Found the site recommended in the lectures: oak.arch.utas.edu.au/research/portal

I came accross this building, the Uluru Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre, designed by Greg Burgess with engineering by Peter Ytrup. I visitied this building a few years ago. I remember being struck by the design of the building but did not know much about it. I can't imagine this building being built of anything but timber. A glass/steel/concrete building would seem completely wrong culturally and asthetically. I guess thats why its great to know about long span timber construction.

This building has adbobe walls which are tied to the main structure of round poles that look like they have just been chopped down. The main roof frame is supported by a curved LVL ridge beam. Presumably it is relatively ease to craft the undulations of the roof out of this method. Timber is easier to mould into undulations than steel. I imagine it could be done on site. Getting large curved steel beams all the way out to Uluru would have been very difficult. The frame is all connected by plywood gussets. It seems that steel was used to brace the building.