What is wood?

What is wood?

Wood is an organic material with fibrous, heterogeneous and anisotropic texture produced from the tree, which is a living organism. Wood is one of the oldest building material. Humankind uses wood for sheltering and protection purposes since the ancient times. Today, the wood has increased in value due to the decrease in forests for various reasons, the inability to grow new trees instead of those cleared away or due to the late growth of trees. Wood is used as roof fittings, woodwork and coating material and as loadbearing or decorative materials in models and scaffolding. Furthermore, there are also artificial building materials such as chipboard, MDF and plywood that are produced from woodchips, sawdust and dust, which are by-products of wood. A wood that has been cut and processed into standard dimensions is called lumber.

Why prefer wood?

* Wood has high bearing capacity. 1 kg of wood bears more load than 1 kg concrete or steel.

* Wooden materials are resistant to earthquakes and different climate conditions. Wood is a material that can completely prevent bug devastations and rotting by using chemical liquids.

* Its wooden structure is the most durable structure when compared to other plat structures.

* Wood is a material that is believed to burn easily. The larger the profile the longer it takes to burn. Due to its heatproof and carbonization properties, it is more durable than steel and concrete that loses its endurance at 600-800 degrees.

* Wood is a renewable structural member. It is a widely preferred building material due to its renewable structure, superior heat insulation and low energy needs.

*Its assembly can be performed using manpower. It does not get affected from weather conditions as opposed to other materials. Weather events such as extreme temperatures, cold, snow and rain affects all structural members except for wood.

* It has nearly no risk of causing life-critical consequences that may be later discovered in other structural members such as installing insufficient iron, wrong welding or early stripping. Therefore, it always bears almost zero risk in earthquakes.

* In addition, when wooden structures are disassembled, they can be reinstalled with lesser loss. It is easy to repair wood and change its plan. It offers users the opportunity of “individual intervention”.

* Wood has a chemical balance with the environment. It neither gets affected from the environment nor affects the environment. It can be sustained for hundreds of years due to its harmony with environment. Our 600- and 700-year-old wooden mosques are the best examples to such harmony.

* Wood is energy-friendly. It takes far less energy to heat a wooden house. A 10 cmof wood has the same insulation values of a 160 cm concrete.

* Wood is the single recyclable structural member in the world. Raw material of wood increases as it is used.

* If a city is structured in the right way using wooden supports, it can be completely freed from the earthquake risk within 20 years.