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You don’t want to use brick in a seismic zone, reinforced concrete is overkill for a 2 storey house, and steel frame is not just overkill but also uses sticks and cardboard for nonstructural components.

As far as I can tell, almost every building in western USA that isn’t tall is wood frame construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(construction)



There's a growing concept of 'mid-rise' woodframe construction as well due to how the codes are written.


Yep, first (ground) floor is concrete with a slab "roof" and then a four-story stick-framed building constructed above that. Ground floor is either retail or parking. I guess they pass fire code but they look like tinderboxes to me.


Isn't this the case for most of the US, not just the West Coast?




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