Wind posts. Is there an alternative?

[saveasteading]

Just now, Oz07 said:

can the architect just use robust details or whatever the standard rules are?

Yes. The average house with cross-walls is sufficiently braced.

In big open spaces this changes.

 

You can see in warehouses that the wind bracing is provided by diagonal bars or angles on the outside walls which take the wind load out in simple tension, plus some compression struts at the top.

In a gale it is sometimes possible to see the bars tensing up. In an extreme wind I've seen them 'snap' tight and make a noise.

There will be similar crossed rods in the roof to transfer loads to the walls then down to ground.

 

But if there is no space for these bars because of movement paths or glazing etc (eg car showroom), then a post is used. Also in an enormous shed with intermediate columns and no walls.  It can be a post on its own, or more usually adapted on the sides of an existing column, making it into a Maltese cross shape. The forces at the ground can be enormous so it nearly always needs a very big concrete footing (I think we once put about 6m3 of concrete in the one base.)

They are expensive so sometimes worth 'designing out' with client approval.

 

So a house with very big rooms or large areas of glazing might need individual posts or 'goalposts. But these are seldom considered at preliminary stage where space and appearance come first.