Even at the beginning of the last century, the construction of wooden log houses was a massive and commonplace. Naturally, in regions with abundant forest vegetation, it never stopped.In this article, we present an overview of the architectural styles of wooden houses from different countries, the advantages and evolution of comfortable modern houses made of hand and machine logs, as well as talk about technological innovations in production, which open up amazing horizons in the design and construction of modern wooden houses using post & beam systems.

With the advent of the era of urbanization and the development of industry, the requirements for industrial premises and the urgent need for high-rise buildings gradually forced wooden buildings out of the industrial zone, and then they disappeared from cities altogether. At first, common sense was present in the understanding that brick and concrete were for workshops, factories, factories, and wood was used for private areas of residential buildings, but then everything changed ...

Huge production associations needed a large number of workers, who were settled compactly in two-story barracks. This is how the first industrial settlements arose. Then the "barracks" became 5,9,16-storey brick or reinforced concrete, with a central plumbing system, heating and, of course, with huge heat costs and heat losses both on the supply lines and in the buildings themselves. With huge reserves of energy resources and their cheapness in the 20th century, this was acceptable, but times have changed, prices have risen, and housing requirements have increased. In order to reduce energy costs for the maintenance of residential buildings, chemical industry products are often used in construction, forgetting that there is an absolutely safe, warm and quite affordable building material in nature - wood. Many, realizing that the urban environment is harmful to the physical and mental health of a person, return to cottage villages, but with a different level of comfort and convenience. Life outside the city receives a new evolutionary round. The demand for wooden houses is growing again, and for those who can afford to live away from the spoiled atmosphere and city noise, in the natural silence of a small village, there is no need to build up thick stone walls when there is a large cozy courtyard around the house, a garden with fruit trees, flower garden and lawn.

The wooden houses themselves have undergone evolution.

The evolution of log houses

You should not think that 150 years ago all wooden houses looked like a Ukrainian mud hut or a Russian log house, but they were also dwellings for a peasant and his family all his life, and large families lived in these houses ...

Ukrainian log house early. 20th century	Russian village frame

The traditional Ukrainian house was folded “in a paw”: the logs lay on top of each other without tenon grooves, the first crown was made of oak, and it lay right on the ground. In such houses, wooden floors were rarely laid, usually it was clay mixed with straw and covered with mats. The roof was made of straw or reeds. In the center of the hut there was a large stove, which both heated the whole house and served as a partition of the living space. The logs of the wall were coated with clay, lime and then whitewashed. In the background, the “shed” turns black, which was located right in the hut, but was separated by a partition from the residential part. Pets lived there and garden tools were kept.

Everyone built according to their wealth. Of course, looking at a photo and walking in a real wooden house is not the same thing, but trying to describe the highlights of the era is still worth using an example.

This is the log house of Baron von Meck, built near Kiev around the middle of the 19th century by a railway magnate and engineer of German origin. The house has an interesting historical fate that goes beyond the scope of this article. In a house with a unique design, not typical for that time, a whole complex of stoves, fireplaces, roughs was used, the drawings of which have not survived to our time. In the photo we see a massive rubble foundation, a terrace with a solid finish, small bay windows, an elaborate system of chimneys and towers, and small German-style gables. The logs are folded into a paw, the joints of the corners are hidden under the architraves, painted white, there are many small and beautiful details in the decoration, and each window is protected by a rain visor.

Log houses from different countries

Wood, like no other material, is able to emphasize the unique feature of the house or its architectural zest and the originality of the culture and era in which it was designed and built.

For example:

Colorful, almost fabulous Russian wooden towers with traditionally rich carved filling, shutters, skates, balusters, turrets and, of course, multi-colored paints.

And here is the dapper Polish accent of Stanisław Witkiewicz, who described and embodied the "Zakopane style". It is noteworthy that the author of the project himself was neither an architect nor a builder, but a wonderful artist, and the house was built in 1897 only on the basis of his sketches and from his words, without a single floor plan.

It combines frontal and corner terraces and balconies, alternating straight and arched windows, asymmetrically located bay windows with broken sharp roofs and windows with rectangular canopies protruding beyond the roof plane.

A very interesting feature of Norwegian log houses.

Norwegians often vegetate the roofs of their houses, with a characteristic northern squat and small windows. It is not too hot in these countries, and vegetation covers the roof of the house throughout the summer season, and in winter it serves as additional natural protection against freezing and heat loss. The site has a separate section with photos in the article "Зеленые кровли"

Today, life in a wooden house is no longer a whim or an eccentricity, but an economically and ecologically justified objective reality. All conveniences and technical household innovations organically fit into the architecture and interior with a distinctive and original atmosphere. The modern Renaissance of log houses is not at all accidental and not unexpected. Many people are in need of a sustainable program of building secure, fast-facing, low-cost housing. Nothing of the kind, except for long-term slave loan programs for expensive square meters of apartments in urban skyscrapers, already densely populated, the state never guessed to offer. Therefore, a brilliant solution came from the people.

Log house and energy saving

The price of building a square meter of a log house is much cheaper than that in an apartment equivalent.

In brief about construction.

A house made of mechanically rounded logs is assembled within a month. A log thickness of 200-240mm is enough to build a year-round wooden house (it is lightweight and does not require a massive foundation). The finishing of wall logs is minimal: it comes down to grinding and treatment with an antiseptic, and in comparison with brick or panel houses, it is practically non-existent. The log house heats up very quickly and retains heat well. We offer a detailed overview of questions on this topic in the article Log houses - questions before starting construction .

Easy to repair.

A brick house needs a deep massive foundation, and if for any reason a crack appears in a brick wall, the house falls into disrepair, and its repair requires serious capital investments. Compared to this perspective, shrinkage and natural cracks during shrinkage of a log of a wooden house are easily eliminated. Modern industry has many types of sealants and thermal tapes in order to eliminate even significant gaps in the wall of an old log house that has endured the test of time. In our latitudes, subject to simple technical standards and the availability of a high-quality foundation, caulking the facade from logs improves the energy efficiency of the house and reduces fuel consumption by several times. More details about this and caring for a wooden house in the article Service maintenance of wooden houses

New technologies and styles of wooden structures

Over time, both the log house itself and the technologies of its construction and style change greatly. A log is just a building material, and anything can be constructed from it, but do not forget that it is a living, moving material, with an uneven structure, knots, resin pockets and of course a unique shape. This is precisely its property and essence. But the requirements for living conditions, comfort, aesthetics and the feeling of living space increase every year, new ideas and technical solutions, interesting design and production developments appear.

For example, in Canada, the method of square joints began to be used to connect visible truss and load-bearing structures.

Its essence is to increase the accuracy of cutting and give aesthetic completeness to the nodal junctions of logs. To do this, their ends are cut to the shape of a square beam, and thus all connected visible beams in the house acquire a unified shape. This is also done taking into account the fact that in the local market log houses or their main structures are proposed to be pre-assembled at the factory before sending the kits to the construction site. The idea is generally not bad, but it requires a very large staff, consultants and technologists, as well as production space. But most importantly, the price of a house that is actually handmade rises due to repetitive work and production costs. After all, the work of specialists, especially in terms of handmade wooden houses, is well paid.

Another trend in the design of log houses has recently been the use of a large amount of glazing.

It was impossible to do this in a classic log house due to the laying technique and the properties of solid wood. By changing the concept of structures to a frame one and having thought over the fastening system, which allows mounting a double-glazed window directly into the structure of supporting logs and load-bearing beams, the developers have achieved a special effect. Many Canadian industries are actively working on this issue, producing ready-made sets of frames, beams, support logs for assembly by a contractor at the client's site.

This method requires a developed structure of relations between production and construction companies. Despite the classification of "handcrafted" (handmade), such a house cannot be built in a handicraft way - it requires advanced modern technologies.

The images shown in the examples of this part of the article are not advertising or commercial for our company and are offered for informational and educational purposes only.

The company "Modern Wooden Houses" constantly monitors the emergence of fresh and interesting solutions in the world, and some ideas inspire our designers to their own developments and technical innovations. Perhaps in the future we will implement something similar in this style, but it will be a Ukrainian evolution and a new round in the construction of log houses.

Conclusion: Modern log house in conjunction with new technologies, unexpectedly for skeptics, has taken a steadily stable niche in modern housing construction. Its positions, with an eye to the growing interest in prefabricated and relatively inexpensive technologies, will only strengthen in the future. The log house has a unique appearance, it can be offered both as rounded logs and hand-cut. Every day there are many new projects and ideas, for the implementation of which the customer himself plays a decisive role. New times require new and often unconventional solutions: this has always been an incentive for the manufacturer to keep up with the times and give the wooden frame a special gloss of originality that distinguishes it from the many similar offers of the current housing construction market. They dream about a log house, talk about it, work on it, live in it - happily ever after!