What are you talking about? The whole of northern Europe is pretty much built with wood (perhaps with the exception of Iceland?). It is a great construction material. The downsides are that it's comparably expensive and the international know-how is low, since few countries have the amount of wood required.
It's also hard to fireproof without modern technology. But you can still build in modules and with modern technology the cost difference isn't that great for low rise areas. Not far from here there's an 8 story building completely built with wood, and higher buildings are not unheard of. For detached family sized houses it's the standard choice. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same throughout Canada, northern US and parts of Russia.
> The whole of northern Europe is pretty much built with wood
Wooden construction for buildings over a certain size has been outlawed in Norwegian cities and all of Norway historically, so it's actually mostly concrete and stone, although small towns have mostly wooden, detached homes.
There are some very high quality German self build companies that use timber frame and glass construction. HufHaus and Weber Haus are two but there are others.
> Kevin revisits David and Greta Iredale, who replaced their original house which they designed and built themselves with a German built, precision engineered Huf Haus.
> Esher, 2004
> Kevin McCloud follows a couple who have built houses before, but never on this scale. Their new 'Huf Haus' is designed and made in Germany but delivered for assembly in Surrey.
To quote wikipedia: Germany has several styles of timber framing, but probably the greatest number of half-timbered buildings in the world are to be found in Germany and in Alsace (France)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_framing#German_tradition...)
Not log cabins, but wood framed "Fachwerk" houses are everywhere in Germany, or at least Bavaria.
Here in Australia, a friend tells me of an expat German friend of his. When she visits people, she likes to shake the internal walls of the houses with her hands and (good naturedly) says "you guys can't build houses for shit". Which is true - Australian houses are generally flimsy, cheap stuff. :)
It's also hard to fireproof without modern technology. But you can still build in modules and with modern technology the cost difference isn't that great for low rise areas. Not far from here there's an 8 story building completely built with wood, and higher buildings are not unheard of. For detached family sized houses it's the standard choice. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same throughout Canada, northern US and parts of Russia.