BUILDING a Life-Size Noah’s Ark

Colorado Timberframe has teamed up with Ark Encounter to create a life-size recreation of Noah’s Ark as part of The Creation Museum project.

Encounter the making of the Ark with onsite footage

Yes, It’s an Actual Life-Size Ark

Designing The Ark

The Ark Encounter was designed to the size specified in scripture: 510 feet long, 86 feet wide, and 94 feet high. The boat was designed to hold up to 10,000 people and a 1,600-seat restaurant is to be set on the top deck of the structure. In order to meet engineering requirements and building codes, the building required over 3,000 steel connection plates to fasten the logs and timbers. Our lead designer assigned to the project used hsbCAD software to convert the architectural design in to production shop drawings. Given the vast size and complexity of the structure, the plans needed to be broken out in to multiple files.

Building The Ark

A total of 32 bents made up of 64 round logs and 5,435 heavy timbers were used to construct the world’s largest free-standing timber frame structure. The Ark required 3.1 million board feet of timber, and more than 1.2 million board feet of square timbers were needed for the frame itself. A majority of the material used is responsibly harvested dead standing Engelmann Spruce measuring up to 50 feet in diameter. Fabrication took a total 14 months and was completed in March 2016. Our installation crew of 10 workers along with 75+ Amish craftsmen finished construction just in time for the grand opening to the public on July 07, 2016.