China's ancient architecture pays attention to "flexible structure". What seismic wisdom does it contain?

In ancient times, people paid attention to flexibility. After all, the ancients did not have such advanced technology and new materials as reinforced concrete. They only have tools like wood, but they still built excellent buildings under such harsh conditions. Ancient architecture is really smart. Even today, it is hard for us to imagine how a building without nails was built. It is with this architectural wisdom that the ancients created those amazing works.

Flexibility and decisiveness are the traditional wisdom of the Chinese nation. The world-famous Taiji is the direct product of this idea, and the earthquake-proof method of traditional wooden buildings in China can be called "The Legend of Architectural Taiji".

In fact, there were many records of earthquakes in ancient China, and ancient wars were very frequent, so buildings inevitably suffered various losses and injuries, so in this case, people got a lot of experience about architecture.

Different from the western masonry structure, the traditional wooden structure in China adopted this kind of thinking when resisting earthquake impact. Through various ingenious measures, its goal is to minimize the powerful natural destructive power at the least cost. Many ancient buildings in China have successfully withstood the test of major earthquakes.

For example, the bucket arch, another important anti-seismic weapon of ancient buildings in China, played the role of deformation and energy consumption like automobile shock absorbers during the earthquake. In history, many buildings with stilts can resist strong earthquakes. The stilts connected by various horizontal members can form a "rigid plate" with strong integrity, and the seismic force is transferred to the columns with seismic capacity according to the principle of "those who can do more work", which greatly improves the safety of the whole structure.