Abstract
This study aims to investigate the relationship between girder height and the design process of ancient Chinese architecture based on Yingzaofashi(營造法式), the official building engineering code book published by the Song government in A.D. 1103. The original texts about girder height on Yingzaofashi were not clear to understand due to being written from the perspective of the making process of girders. At first, the original texts were analyzed, disorganized, and reassembled from the view of building design. There were eight building types confirmed through the combination of structure types and girder types based on the reassembled texts. One main condition and three subordinate conditions were reexamined based on their related building type. It was found that the dimension was roughly decided by the length of the girder and closely regulated by the depth of bracket sets called Puzuo(鋪作), which is the depth of the whole building or the layout of girders beneath the grid ceiling according to the related building type. The basic dimension of girders were decided in the unit of Cai(材) and Zhi(?) based on the length of rectangular section girders, and the artistic girders called YueLiang(月梁) were returned to the unit of Fen(分°), the 1/15 of Cai height for making a curved surface and details.