Why does such a large geographical region lack wood? Really? Maybe they just don't care and are happy with cement buildings.
History spanning back >5000 years, using either rocks, clay bricks (which require fire) or wood. North America has huge amounts of timber which wasn't exploited much until very recently, and a relatively low population for the size of the territory (even counting just the US, there were more chinese in 1900 than there are USians today, and the 1900 US population was below the Chinese population around year 1000… the two countries have almost identical surface areas).
Europe doesn't build with wood either, ignoring wood not being a very good construction material for high-density urban spaces, there's nowhere near the amount of raw materials you'd need lying around, and not enough room to grow it in the quantities necessary.
Oh and much of the Chinese territory is completely unfit for lumber growth (too arid, too montainous, or both), and what little would be fit is necessary for food production. China already imports ridiculous amounts of timber as it is.
It's also hard to fireproof without modern technology. But you can still build in modules and with modern technology the cost difference isn't that great for low rise areas. Not far from here there's an 8 story building completely built with wood, and higher buildings are not unheard of. For detached family sized houses it's the standard choice. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same throughout Canada, northern US and parts of Russia.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs/episode-gui...
> Revisit: Walton, 2008
> Kevin revisits David and Greta Iredale, who replaced their original house which they designed and built themselves with a German built, precision engineered Huf Haus.
> Esher, 2004
> Kevin McCloud follows a couple who have built houses before, but never on this scale. Their new 'Huf Haus' is designed and made in Germany but delivered for assembly in Surrey.
Not log cabins, but wood framed "Fachwerk" houses are everywhere in Germany, or at least Bavaria.
Wooden construction for buildings over a certain size has been outlawed in Norwegian cities and all of Norway historically, so it's actually mostly concrete and stone, although small towns have mostly wooden, detached homes.
I'm perfectly fine with brick-and-mortar houses (and concrete sky-scrapers). Brick houses have less fuel for fires, better load-bearing properties (pros), although they take longer to construct.
Unreinforced masonry, by contrast, is a terrible choice for an earthquake zone. It's heavy, brittle, and has approximately zero tensile strength.
After digging some more, it seems like cost is another factor.
I suspect our backgrounds subconsciously color our opinions though: my childhood home (and 99% of homes I have ever visited) were brick and mortar, maybe that is why I am partial to it.
A rammed earth building becomes a pre-dug grave when there's an earthquake.
Brick is just siding. What's the frame made out of?
You can use wood, you can use steel, you can use concrete with rebar. Those are your only real options.
In the US, you will frequently see 2-3 story houses framed with wood and with a brick siding. I'm in one right now. Anything higher than 3 stories will be done with steel or concrete.
Wood is cheaper than steel and lasts for hundreds of years if properly cared for, which is why it's preferred for smaller residential structures.
Same way as usual, except you use concrete or metal for beams, and e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow-core_slab between the beams. For brick, archways e.g. catalan vaults, you can do pretty amazing things with brick archs: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/11/tiles-vaults.html
> Even if it's a single story, how do you make a roof?
You can do them the same way, though a wood bent to support e.g. a tile roof tends to be more common (having just a wood bent is a far cry from a wood house).
For brick an mortar houses, the "frame" is also made of brick[1]. All the walls are load-bearing, so there is no actual frame + siding: just brickwork. You have a concrete foundation, then you lay your double-thick brick-walls (for all load-bearing sections - all of the outer walls that are expected to support roofing trusses). Internal walls can be a single-brick wide. The only place timber is used is for roofing.
Man, that is going to be a shock to my house that has all of the outside walls, and parts of the foundation, made from brick. Just because your house has a brick veneer doesn't mean that's the only way to do it.
In my particular the case the floors and roof are made from wood. The floor joists rest on the brick walls.
Brick. It's bricks all the way down...
To be serious: most houses in India are made of bricks.
There are quite a few all stone building from the dark ages made entirely from stone. Nothing but stone. Not even mortar, I think. They look very similar to modern buildings. If you moved into one today, it wouldn't be a lot less comfortable than it was then.
Byzantine & later Turkish architecture used brick domes and arches as roofing in buildings that are still in good condition. If you stand on the roof, it feels more like a hill than a building.
Bricks are a problem in earthquake prone regions. Even brick cladding on wooden frames tends to fall off and hit people on the head.
It's a strange US tradition. It's also regional. Until 2002, New York State prohibited most wood construction, and Chicago still restricts it severely. On the other hand, in earthquake country, unreinforced brick is prohibited.
(I live in a cinder-block house. It was built in 1950 by a commercial builder as his own residence, and he built the structure like a commercial building. It's very solidly built. This is quite unusual for Silicon Valley.)
A little historical perspective would help as well. Check how many houses are made of wood in New York City. A reminder: a large number of cities in China have a longer history than New York City.
In Beijing, there are some thujas (cypress-like trees) around but I agree that Beijing winter is not very colourful. And the yellow wind (i.e. sandstorm from Gobi) that you're about to get there just now isn't nice either, despite being a natural phenomenon.
We haven't had real bad dust storms since 2008, though a few days last year were bad. And the wind does blow out the pollution so....