Construction systems of timber structures in China and Italy: a first comparison of conservation approaches

Timber is one of the construction materials widely used in historical structures all over the world. Particularly in China, main historic building and architectural heritage is made of timber structure, the traditional system is a pure wooden framework, which two main ones are Tai-liang and Chuan-dou. They are composed by vertical columns that begin at ground level, short vertical supports as struts, and horizontal beams or lintels connecting the struts and columns. In Italy, instead, timber components, as floor and roof, are included in the building structural system, commonly made of masonry. In the paper, the main aspects concerning the two construction systems are compared, in particular, the following categories are taken into account: Typologies of construction sys-tems, are mainly demonstrated the framework in macroscopic way and other minor carpentry work in microscopic way; Composition of construction systems, which include main structur-al composition and method of elements’ connection; With the great different and distant tim-ber technical traditions between two countries, aiming at illustrating the basic requirement of conservation approaches. The comparison among the various constructive systems between Italy and China, according to the analyzed aspects, constitutes a preliminary but fundamental step in the process of preservation of historical materials and structural behavior of timber components. It repre-sents a crucial step for the reliability of investigation and experimental methods.