About BiK

One might put the start of Baukunst im Kleinen (BiK) at 1993. In this year the CVA organised a contest for the best design of the Koppelpoort in the Dutch city of Amersfoort. Subsequently, in 1995 and 1996 new contests were issued on the Dutch castle Huize Ruurlo and an American court house. Meanwhile, the start of the commercial production of Anker stone sets from 1995 on, several Anker friends did not satisfy themselves with the existing Richter Bauvorlagen but began to make their own designs. Leo Coffeng collected these designs and made them ready for publication, leading to the"Second booklet for NF12 and 2 x NF12" that appeared in print in 2001.

To handle the growing number of new designs, Leo Coffeng in 2001 took the initiative to start the review committee Baukunst im Kleinen (BiK). BiK consisted of a group of five CVA members living in the west of the Netherlands and was chaired by Annie Pasteuring.
Derived from the CVA contests, initially BiK has been set up as a jury to review the incoming designs, although never a winner has been declared. The designs were rather reviewed on points like the efficient stone use, aestetical quality, the stability of the building, whether the ommon Anker friend would be able to erect the building, and the occurrence of missing stones. Subsequently the designs were made ready for publication by Burkhard Schulz. In the years to follow five new booklets appeared in electronic form (pdf) for NF 6-8, NF10, 12 and 14, NF16, NF18, and NF20.

However, the growing complexity of the higher NF sets put a continuously heavier burden on Burkhard Schulz for making the 3D drawings and cross sections ready for publication. Therefore, in 2010 BiK agreed with Burkhard to take over the production of the new booklets. Since Burkhard was already involved in NF22, BiK started with NF24. After a long learning curve where also the drafting format was reformulated, the NF24 booklets containing 9 designs, were completed in May 2012. After Burkhard's passing away at the end of 2011, it appeared that all NF22 designs had already been drawn, apart from the complicated design for 2 x NF22.

To cope with the increased size and complexity of the larger NF buildings, we have decided to change the booklet format from A4 to A3. In addition we follow more close the 19th century Richter styling than Burkhard did. We do no longer consider designs using a double or even triple stone set; the buildings are already sufficiently complex while not so many Anker friends possess a double large NF set. As a 3D drafting program we switched from AnkerCAD to AnkerPlan that is more suited for complex buildings and non-orthogonal stone orientations. It is our aim that all new booklets will appear in print as well.

On December 2019 AnkerPlan2 became available, a completely new developed program by Michael Erhard and Andreas Rhodin. It is excellent for generating the cross sections in a very short time while may bugs of AnkerPlan 1.5 like the collisions have been solved. Presently also shadows can be generated.

Presently, (October 2023) all available and suited designs until NF34 have been published as well as three booklets for NF34. Booklet NF34/4 is in preparation.

Fred Hartjes