(Dai) Yoshito Ona founded and leads Daizen Joinery, located on the shores of the South Thompson River in Kamloops, British Columbia. They are a specialty timber frame operation that carefully balances precision technology and superior hand craftsmanship to deliver the finest quality timber frame construction in Western Canada.
Dai discovered log building in an unusual way. He was hitch hiking in Banff in 1987, coming from Japan to travel around the USA and Canada, when some people gave him a ride who were from the Allan Mackie School of Log Building in Prince George. It simply clicked with Dai that this was his calling. He went back to Japan and worked for a few places, but came back to Canada in 1988 and founded a log building company. The company concentrated on post and beam, and doing timber frame all cut by hand. In 2001 when Dai saw how the CNC machine works, he decided to focus exclusively on timber frame. The company mainly exported frame products to Japanese markets initially, but then changed the focus to North America. During 2003 to 2005, Dai developed his building career, starting from zero, learning how the North American construction culture works. He built by plan and learned the North American system, then started incorporating what he had learned in Japan into projects, and as Dai says, “And here we are.”
Today, Daizen Joinery is extremely well equipped. They have a vacuum kiln, CNC machines, tools and
the facility needed to build high quality timber frames in-house. But most importantly to Dai, the staff’s“knowledge, experiences, skills and passion” and prowess with the technology are what makes Daizen Joinery a high quality custom builder. According to Dai, “We are a timber frame athlete, and work out every day to give best performance we can.“
Dai says that the biggest challenge in running a timber frame company “is to get all projects to meet our highest quality standard when all projects comes in at the same time, and we do not have enough time to look after all details we want. “ On the other hand, his proudest moments are when they hear back from clients how happy they are, and the comments they make to compliment the team.
Dai believes that as long as the financials are covered, and enough time has been budgeted for the project, there should not be much pain involved in building a timber frame structure. The most
important part of the process is engagement: the client and the team need to be a good fit, and it is important to work hard to explain what the expectations are and what the priority is. Once everything is made clear, Daizen Joinery can promise to deliver on the expectations, much like other types of construction projects.
Dai believes that the “Fundamental of timber frame is to build the SAFE and COMFORTABLE house from renewable resources. We all need to make sure what we are building can protect people from natural disasters and mental stresses. “
Daizen Joinery can be found on the internet at http://daizen.com/
The shop is located at 2947 Shuswap Rd East Kamloops BC, V2H 1S9.
Their mailing address is Box 550,452 Shuswap Chase Creek Rd. Chase, BC, V0E 1M0
Phone is 250-573-1112, and you may email Dai Ona at dai@daizen.com