Life at PABAS
3–5×
More time on tools than a typical college experience
Mastering a craft takes thousands of hours. Repetition allows for muscle memory — the point at which we are no longer consciously thinking about the tactile actions we undertake, but our body instinctively assumes them.
We see this in carpenters who are comfortable with a hand saw. They do not have to think about cutting — they saw plumb and square and on the line every time, because that tactile act is no longer considered.
"Wood and stone are not materials —
they are groups of materials."
Equally important to developing muscle memory is a consistent exposure to materials. Traditionally built buildings are exercises in problem solving — not only because of the craft techniques that construct them, but because of the variability in the materials they are crafted with.
It is accurate to say that wood and stone are not materials, per se, but rather groups of materials. The differences between species of timber, or types of stone, are vast — varying by how each was harvested, processed, and finished.
Understanding this material knowledge, as with the tactile knowledge of muscle memory, comes through repetition. Through constant handling — the smelling and feeling that takes place through cutting and shaping and placing. A few hours in a lab or shop environment cannot garner this knowledge.
It takes time.
Perth Academy plans to give you that time —
on tools and with materials.
Each year, participants take part in live building projects — not simulations, but real structures with real stakes: new timber frame and log buildings, and the careful restoration of historic stone structures.
Instruction is led by working builders and tradespeople — not removed from practice, but actively engaged in it.
