There are two paths here, a literary path and an architectural path. The first path links classical sources to Old English texts. The second path is about construction techniques. Either one shows how prose sources used building techiques as metaphors.
Path 1: Literature
King Alfred's Preface to his translation of St. Augustine's Soliloquies describes building a dwelling as a metaphor for making a secure place for oneself in the world:
I then gathered for myself staves and props and tie-shafts and handles for each of the tools that I knew how to work with, and cross-bars and beams, and, for each of the structures which I knew how to build, the finest timbers I could carry. . . . I would advise everyone who is strong and has many wagons to direct his steps to that same forest where I cut these props, and to fetch more for himself and to load his wagons with well-cut staves, so that he may weave many elegant walls and put up many splendid houses and so build a fine homestead and there live pleasantly and in tranquillity both in winter and in summer--as I have not yet done! (Alfred the Great, ed. Keynes and Lapidge, 138.)
You can read this passage and check the notes to it in K&L, 299-301. What are the features of the text that they draw your attention to?
This is a figure of speech, of course, for one's earthly dwelling place as an intellectual world constructed of the "forest" of the ideas of others. What are the origins of this figure of speech? You can begin by reading what Martin Irvine has to say about the "silva" (Latin for forest) in his essay on "Medieval Textuality" in Speaking Two Languages, ed. Allen J. Frantzen, 200-202.
Path 2: Architecture
There is a lot about architecture in the Life of Ceolfrith and quite a bit about monastic architecture in Bede (see his discussion of Ceolfrith, for example Book 5, Chapter 21. 314-15). We are also interested in wood buildings, however.
Sometimes this information is indirectly conveyed. For example, near the end of Asser's Life of Alfred there is a discussion of the invention of a sort of clock (actually a horn lantern) created by sheltering candles from the wind (Keynes and Lapidge 108-9).
What is said or implied in this passage about the construction of buildings in the ninth century? What kinds of architectural structures are referred to--there are several "layers" to the building in question. Just list them for a start, then ask yourself if this was a complex or simple building, and what difference its construction makes in terms of who inhabits the building, what do they do there, and so forth. There is a good discussion of buildings in Whitelock Beginnings, in the "Classes of Society" chapter (e.g. 88-90).
There is another building metaphor, closely related to the "twig" technique, in another OE text, which is known as Byrhtferth's Manual:
"We first of all survey the site of the house, and also hew the timber into shape, and neatly fit together the sills, and lay down the beams, and fasten the rafters . . . ."
The uses this figure to introduce a discussion of Easter customs; (see the edition by S. J. Crawford in the Early English Text Society, Original Series 177 . Oxford University Press, repr. ed. 1966,142-44.) The edition contains the Old English and a translation.
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