When in the planning stages of building you need to exam the enviorment you're building in, the main use & purpose for the building, the design & structure, the size of the building, then the building materials, the the means & construction methods. The budget is probably the 1st thing to consider though, seeing as this will drive the rest of all discissions & set the guide lines for all the rest. There are no 1 material or 1 method ways of building though there are right & wrongs way to build. If you look at the enviorment surrounding where you'd like to build you start to get an idea of what materials would be best to use. Here in New Englad we can harvest stone & timber which works fine in combination of a stone foundation & a wood frame on top, espically when building on a ledge or rock beds. To condemn wood is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Building codes are usually pretty right on as to whats proper construction methods materials espically if you're inquiring about what's been tried & true. When it comes to the more modern they're usually a few blocks behind the engineers & architect which is natural & is a good thing too. If yo've got a good building dept & good inspectors & a new material or a new approch they're great for bouncing ideas off of. "Going Green" is the new trend in building today but if someone wanted to look back over the past centuries the builders aways thought green. One look at the New England "attached farmhouse" shows how the builders of bygone days took the house alinement with the sun & prevailing winds into consideration. The availability of local materials and the availability of the local skill & talent was another "green" consideration. Depending on the structure steel sometimes does not do as well as wood in some fire situations. Steel beams will twist & warp where in a post & beam structure the wood will charr but still hold structually in place & only need sistering or a replacement of only the beam itself. An old wood structure also breathes espically if roofed with slate, clay tiles or wood shakes. A structure that's air tight has it's own set of problems that needs looking after. The tighter the structure the more intense the heat from fire. Which plays a part in weither you'd want to clad a house with a type of wood siding or choose a cheaper vinal or aluminum cladding. How to ventilate & insulate also needs consideration when deciding what to build with. If it's a cheap & fast way you need to go then build with partical or chip or osb instead of a 5/8 or 3/4 plywood. Of course if the 3 get moist, damp of wet they're useless where he plywood will dry out & hold plus the plywood is considered, because of it's multi-directional make up, structual where the other materials aren't. I'd love to build in stone but then it doesn't have any of the insulation properties of wood plus it takes heavy equipment to move, heavy machinery to shape, tool or cut & carve plus I don't know many with the skill & those that have the skill charge a high cost for it. I can do it with brick or wood. Concrete & cement has their own pros & cons but for my money, time & skill I'd build traditional (figures right) with wood. The same as I'd do for a boat.

Barry