Why do ancient Chinese buildings use wood as building materials?

As early as 5,000 years ago in the Stone Age, semi-cave-style buildings with wooden frames supporting roofs appeared in China. Later, on this basis, gradually developed and formed bucket-style and beam-frame buildings with Chinese characteristics. The West also developed from the ancient Greek and Roman primitive wooden support structures to the later truss-type wooden roof truss buildings and wooden frame infill wall buildings with Western characteristics. So far, these two wood structure systems are still widely used in the houses of the East and the West.

The main characteristics of wood are small bulk density, small thermal conductivity, easy processing, certain strength and toughness, and a sense of intimacy with humans. The disadvantage is that it is flammable, perishable, easy to moth and uneven material.

With the development of science and technology, the fire-proof, anti-corrosion, moth-proof and other processing technologies of modern wood have been improved day by day, and the modification, gluing and bonding technology of wood have been greatly improved, and wood structures can be used for large-span structural buildings. Therefore, the wooden structure still occupies a certain proportion in the building.

The advantages of wooden structure ancient buildings are as follows: easy to obtain materials, strong adaptability, good seismic performance, fast construction speed, and easy to repair and relocate.

1. It is convenient to obtain materials. Wood is easy to process, and stone tools can be used to complete processes such as felling, cutting, leveling, and tenon and mortise. Later, the use of bronze tools and later iron axes, jins, saws, chisels, drills, planers and other tools made the technical level of wooden structures improve rapidly.

2. Strong adaptability. The wooden frame building is composed of columns, beams, purlins, fangs and other components to form a frame to bear the load of the roof and floor, as well as wind and earthquake forces. There is a saying that "the house will not fall if the wall falls".

3. Has strong seismic performance. The wood frame is composed of tenon and mortise joints. The wood itself is flexible, and the tenon and mortise joints have a certain degree of mobility, so that the whole wooden frame has great potential in reducing the damage of earthquake force.

4. The construction speed is fast. Wood processing is far faster than stone materials. After the Tang and Song dynasties, methods similar to today's building modular system were used (Song Dynasty - wood; Qing Dynasty - Doukou), and the styles of various wood components have also been finalized, so it can be used for various wood components. The components are processed at the same time, and then assembled and assembled.

5. Easy to repair and relocate. Tenon and mortise joints are detachable, and it is relatively easy to replace a certain component or dismantle and relocate the entire house.