Most types of wood and bamboo have high ductility, which makes them really suitable for resisting earthquakes.
Problem is, you start hammering up sheet rock (gypsum board or similar), bolt some aluminum framed glass windows, and suddenly; you’ve got bendy “bones” with a crap ton of potential debris, and baby you got a
stewstructural collapse goin.(I’m talking 100% out of my ass, but I’ve seen the results of a fire-gutted building still manage to stand. I’m in Texas, and buildings are getting blown the hell over from the weight. Now where’s my third beer of the night)…
Edit corrected formatting and punctuation
I mean. Those bendy bones are why California doesn’t just die when a major seismic event occurs.
Europeans often mock American construction for being comically flimsy (and in their defense, it often is), but in at least seismically active areas, this kind of construction holds up far, far better than other techniques.
You are absolutely right. The trick is to find compatible materials and some ingenuity. In this case, the entire structure should be of same sort of wood. With some clever tricks, glass panes can be used for windows as long as glass doesn’t get bend during the earthquakes or glass is somewhat shatter-proof.
In Europe windows are mounted to the walls with a pretty thick layer of foam to avoid stress from the walls. Isn’t that a common thing everywhere?
As far as I am aware, it is not standard practice in India. Also, generally speaking in day-to-day, windows don’t carry stress from the walls. This could change during earthquakes.
