General definitions of walls
Walls are vertical building structures which, depending on whether they are external or internal, delimit the interior of the house or separate the different rooms. Structurally, a distinction is made between load-bearing and non-load-bearing walls and structures. Load-bearing walls bear or transfer the loads of the structures above them: walls, slabs, roofs, etc... to the structures below them, while non-load-bearing walls bear only their own weight.
Buildings can be long-walled (long main walled), gable-walled or mixed depending on their structural system and load-bearing direction. There are different types of walls based on location and function: gable walls, main walls and partitions, basement walls and retaining walls, etc… This section looks at load-bearing walls, e.g. main walls using traditional solutions.
1. Wooden walls
The first wooden wall constructions may have been palisade walls, which were later woven in a similar way to basket weaving. The most successful structures have proved to be log and timber-framed structures. These structures are characterised by using wooden joints to fit elements together.
The walls of a log house are formed by a series of horizontal beams. At the corners, the connecting walls are built with half offsets, creating corner joints between the ends of the alternating beams above each other. For round beams, the most typical corner joints are round notch or round hewn notch joints. For rectangular cross-sections, the lapped notch or dovetail notch are the most common ones.
For timber-framed structures, the typical elements are horizontal beams, vertical columns and diagonal bracing: such as knee braces and Andrew’s cross bracing. The most typical connections are the various types of mortise and tenon joints, the also many types of crosslap and halving joints (e.g. dovetail halving) and oblique joints.
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2-3. Earthen, Adobe and Composite Walls
2. Earthen and Adobe Walls
Earthen walls are also among the oldest man-made structures. The most commonly-used technologies in traditional construction practices were the rammed earth wall, the cob wall and the adobe block wall.
During the construction of the rammed earth wall, the clay soil is compacted between formwork or moulding with a tamper, and raised higher and higher in layers.
The cob wall (layered mud wall) is made from clay mud mixed with water and straw added to it. Scoopfuls of soil are stacked by hand or with a pitchfork, taking care to ensure that they are bound together. The structure is cut vertically and straight in sections using a spade.
The adobe block is made from a mixture of mud and straw by using a mould. The dried, rectangular/ brick sized elements are bonded together using mud mortar, according to the rules of brick bonding.
3. Composite structures
Traditional structures were not made purely of one material. Combinations of different materials have also been highly successful, i.e. economical and useful walls were the result.
