2025 Volume 71 Issue 1 Pages 36-42
This study explores the significance of converting public buildings to wooden construction and employing wooden interiors when considering the expansion of wood utilization. It also examines how forest coverage and the presence or absence of forestry-related departments impact the conversion of main government buildings to wood construction in municipalities, along with the key issues related to this transition. The targeted municipalities were classified into “Wooden”, “Wooden interior”, and “Non-wooden” groups. According to the results, 10.4% municipalities fell into “Wooden” group, 83.2% into “Wooden interior”, and 6.4% into “Non-wooden”. A comparative analysis indicated that municipalities with higher forest coverage and more forestry-related departments were more inclined to adopt wood construction for their main government buildings. A quantitative text analysis of the minutes of committee meetings and other meetings related to the construction of the main government building highlighted issues such as the time required to procure local timber, earthquake and fire resistance, seismic isolation performance of wooden structures, and construction costs, although the use of local timber is expected from the perspective of forestry promotion when constructing main government buildings.
