Perspective Of Wood Buildings In China View From The Development Of Chinese And Western Wood Buildings

Wood is a permanent material for buildings. Energy efficiency, indoor air quality, renewable and recyclable materials, all these qualities are gaining interests among building designers. In 1000BC, there came post and beam buildings to form the main wood structure in ancient Egypt and Greece and there were mature wood trusses in Rome. In ancient western countries wood structures are widely used in dwelling houses. Although they were developing with the masonry at the same time, they were subsidiary in the history of architecture. In China, through thousands of years of development Chinese created sophisticated timber frame constructions, valuable of art and technology. These buildings form a special system and become the most important constructions of Chinese buildings. With the development of industry in Europe and North America, especially in recent fifty years, developed countries in North Europe and North America apply advanced technology to wood selection, wood processing and structure designing, fixing wood components. So timber frame constructions become a combination of traditional materials and high technology. Due to excessive deforestation and misgovernment, China went short of woods. On one hand, we abandoned our traditional method of how to building wood construction. On the other hand, we did not develop industrial process to build modern wood constructions. So there is a blank on wood structure in contemporary buildings. This thesis will introduce wood structures both in China and Western countries, analyze the influent elements to wood structures under the different culture, economy, technology background both east and west so that probe into the perspective of wood structures in China. We hope in future wood, the energy efficiency, indoor air quality, renewable and recyclable material, can be widely used on more buildings in our country.