The half-timbered house (in German ‘Fachwerkhaus’, in Switzerland ‘Riegelhaus’) is the best-known use of timber framing in building construction in Central Europe.
It is a skeleton structure made of wood in which the horizontal bracing is provided by diagonally installed struts and the interstices are filled with clay, stone or masonry. The essential function of the structural members is mainly load transfer. The various timbers must absorb the loads and transfer them to the foundation or stone base. The infill panels do not perform any structural tasks at this point. In some cases, infill panels are used for additional bracing. But the main bracing is done by the timbers provided for this purpose. The structural timbers were joined by carpentry, largely without the use of metal fasteners such as nails or screws.
Half-timbered houses have a long tradition. The Roman architect Vitruvius mentioned the half-timbered construction method as early as 33 B.C. in his work ‘De Architectura’. In the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which was buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79, a building has been preserved that was partially constructed using the half-timbered construction method (Latin: ‘Opus Craticium’). Also the so-called Roman strip house of the 1st century was already built in half-timbering technique. The common half-timbering technique in house construction has only been recorded in Central Europe since the 12th century, and from the High Middle Ages until the 19th century, half-timbering built on sill beams was the most widespread construction method for buildings.