Wall

Brick wall

For other uses, see Wall (disambiguation).

A wall is a structure that denes an area, carries a load,

Stone wall
Glass wall (only when most of the wall, in smaller
amounts it is called a window)
Doors are mobile walls on hinges which open to
form a gateway

1 Etymology
Wall comes from Latin vallum meaning "...an earthen
wall or rampart set with palisades, a row or line of stakes,
a wall, a rampart, fortication... while the Latin word
murus means a defensive stone wall[1] English uses the
same word to mean an external wall and the internal sides
of a room, but this is not universal. Many languages distinguish between the two. In German, some of this distinction can be seen between Wand and Mauer, in Spanish between pared and muro.

Decorative exterior wall, Mexico City, Mexico, 2008.

2 Defensive wall
Main article: Defensive wall
The word wall originally referred to defensive walls and
ramparts.

A brick wall

3 Building wall

or provides shelter or security. There are many kinds of

See also: American historic carpentry
walls:
Defensive walls in fortication

Building walls purposes are to support roofs, oors and

ceilings, enclose a space as part of the building enveWalls in buildings that form a fundamental part
lope, along with a roof to give buildings form, and to
of the superstructure or separate interior sections,
provide shelter and security. In addition, the wall may
sometimes for re safety
house various types of utilities such as electrical wiring
Retaining walls, which hold back earth, stone, or wa- or plumbing. Wall construction falls into two basic categories: framed walls or mass-walls. In framed walls
ter
the load is transferred to the foundation through posts,
Walls that protect from oceans (seawalls or rivers columns or studs. Framed walls most often have three or
levees)
more separate components: the structural elements (such
as 24 studs in a house wall), insulation, and nish elePermanent, solid fences
ments or surfaces (such as drywall or panelling). MassBorder barriers between countries
walls are of a solid material including masonry, concrete
1

BUILDING WALL

including slipform stonemasonry, log building, cordwood

construction, adobe, rammed earth, cob, earthbag construction, bottles, tin cans, straw-bale construction, and
ice.
There are three basic methods walls control water intrusion: moisture storage, drained cladding, or facesealed cladding.[2] Moisture storage is typical of stone
and brick mass-wall buildings where moisture is absorbed
and released by the walls of the structure itself. Drained
cladding also known as screened walls[3] acknowledges
moisture will penetrate the cladding so a moisture barrier
such as housewrap or felt paper inside the cladding provides a second line of defense and sometimes a drainage
plane or air gap allows a path for the moisture to drain
down through and exit the wall. Sometimes ventilation
is provided in addition to the drainage plane such as in
rainscreen construction. Face-sealed also called barrier
wall or perfect barrier[3] cladding relies on maintaining
a leak-free surface of the cladding. Examples of face
sealed cladding are the early exterior insulation nishing
systems, structural glazing, metal clad panels, and corrugated metal.

Glass Partition Wall

track.[4] The system does not require the use of a oor

guide, which allows easy operation and an uninterrupted
threshold.

A timber partition consists of a wooden framework, supported on the oor or by side walls. Metal lath and plaster, properly laid, forms a reinforced partition wall. ParBuilding walls frequently become works of art, externally
tition walls constructed from bre cement backer board
and internally, such as when featuring mosaic work or
are popular as bases for tiling in kitchens or in wet arwhen murals are painted on them; or as design foci when
eas like bathrooms. Galvanized sheet xed to wooden or
they exhibit textures or painted nishes for eect.
steel members are mostly adopted in works of temporary
character. Plain or reinforced partition walls may also
be constructed from concrete, including pre-cast concrete
3.1 Curtain wall
blocks. Metal framed partitioning is also available. This
partition consists of track (used primarily at the base and
Main article: Curtain wall (architecture)
head of the partition) and studs (vertical sections xed
into the track typically spaced at 24, 16, or at 12).
In architecture and civil engineering, curtain wall refers
to a building facade that is not load-bearing but provides Internal wall partitions, also known as oce partitioning,
decoration, nish, front, face, or historical preservation. is usually made of plasterboard (drywall) or varieties of
glass. Toughened glass is a common option, as is low-iron
glass (better known as opti-white glass, which increases
light and solar heat transmission.
3.2 Mullion wall
Wall partitions are constructed using beads and tracking that is either hung from the ceiling or xed into the
ground.[5] The panels are inserted into the tracking and
Mullion walls are a structural system that carries the xed. Some wall partition variations specify their re reload of the oor slab on prefabricated panels around the sistance and acoustic performance rating.
perimeter.
Main article: Mullion wall

3.4 Party wall

3.3

Partition wall
Main article: Party wall

A partition wall is a wall that separates rooms, or divides

a room. Partition walls are usually not load-bearing. Partition walls are constructed of many materials, including
steel panels, bricks, blocks of clay, terra-cotta, concrete,
or glass blocks.
Some partition walls are made of sheet glass. Glass partition walls are a series of individual toughened glass panels
mounted in wood or metal framing. They may be suspended from or slide along a robust aluminium ceiling

Party walls are walls that separate buildings or units

within a building. They provide re resistance and sound
resistance between occupants in a building. The minimum re resistance and sound resistance required for the
party wall is determined by a building code and may be
modied to suit a variety of situations. Ownership of such
walls can become a legal issue.It is not a load bearing wall
and may be owned by dierent people

3.10

Pony wall

3.5

Inll wall

Main article: Inll wall

An inll wall is the supported wall that closes the perimeter of a building constructed with a three-dimensional
framework structure.

3.6

Fire wall

3.10 Pony wall

Pony wall is a general term for short walls, such as:
A half wall that only extends partway from oor to
ceiling, without supporting anything
A stem walla concrete wall that extends from the
foundation slab to the cripple wall or oor joists
A cripple walla framed wall from the stem wall or
foundation slab to the oor joists

Main article: Firewall (construction)

3.11 Movable partitions

Fire walls resist spread of re within or sometimes between structures to provide passive re protection. A Main article: Portable partitions
delay in the spread of re gives occupants more time
to escape and re ghters more time to extinguish the Movable partitions are walls that open to join two or more
re. Such walls have no windows, and are made of non- rooms into one large oor area. These include:
combustible material such as concrete, cement block,
brick, or re rated drywalland have wall penetrations
Slidinga series of panels that slide in tracks xed
sealed with special materials. A doorway in a rewall
to the oor and ceiling, similar sliding doors
must have a rated re door. Fire walls provide vary Sliding and folding doors similar to sliding folding
ing resistance to the spread of re, some intended to last
doors, these are good for smaller spans
one to four hours. Firewalls, generally, can also act as
smoke barriers when constructed vertically from slab to
Folding partition walls - a series of interlocking panroof deck and horizontally from an exterior wall to exteels suspended from an overhead track that when exrior wall subdividing a building into sections. When contended provide an acoustical separation, and when
structed in this manner the re wall can also be referred
retracted stack against a wall, ceiling, closet, or ceilto as an Area Separation Wall.
ing pocket.

3.7

Shear wall

Main article: Shear wall

Shear walls resist lateral forces such as in an earthquake
or severe wind. There are dierent kinds of shear walls
such as the steel plate shear wall.

Screensusually constructed of a metal or timber

frame xed with plywood and chipboard and supported with legs for free standing and easy movement
Pipe and drapexed or telescopic uprights and
horizontals provide a ground supported drape system with removable panels

3.12 Solar energy

3.8

Knee wall

Main article: Knee wall

Main article: Trombe wall

A trombe wall in passive solar building design acts as a
heat sink.

Knee walls are short walls that either support rafters or

add height in the top oor rooms of houses. In a one- See also: double-skin facade
and-one-half story house, the knee wall supports the half
story.

4 Shipbuilding
3.9

Cavity wall
Main article: Shipbuilding

Main article: Cavity wall

On a ship, a wall that separates major compartments is
Cavity walls are walls made with a space between two called a bulkhead. A thinner wall between cabins is called
skins to inhibit heat transfer.
a partition.

RETAINING WALL

Boundary wall

Stone wall of an English barn

Boundary walls include privacy walls, boundary-marking

walls on property, and town walls. These intergrade into
fences. The conventional dierentiation is that a fence is
of minimal thickness and often open in nature, while a
wall is usually more than a nominal thickness and is completely closed, or opaque. More to the point, an exterior
structure of wood or wire is generally called a fence
but one of masonry is a wall. A common term for both is
barrier, which is convenient for structures that are partly
wall and partly fencefor example the Berlin Wall. Another kind of wall-fence ambiguity is the ha-hawhich
is set below ground level to protect a view, yet acts as a
barrier (to cattle, for example).

An old Italian wall surrounded by owers

national borders and topography. The most famous example of border barrier in history is probably the Great
Wall of China, a series of walls that separated the Empire of China from nomadic powers to the north. The
most prominent recent example is the Berlin Wall, which
surrounded the enclave of West Berlin and separated it
from East Germany for most of the Cold War era.

7 Retaining wall

Before the invention of artillery, many of the worlds

cities and towns, particularly in Europe and Asia, had
defensive or protective walls (also called town walls or Main article: Retaining wall
In areas of rocky soils around the world, farmers have
city walls). In fact, the English word wall derives from
Latin valluma type of fortication wall. These walls
are no longer relevant for defense, so such cities have
grown beyond their walls, and many fortication walls,
or portions of them, have been torn downfor example
in Rome, Italy and Beijing, China. Examples of protective walls on a much larger scale include the Great Wall
of China and Hadrians Wall.

Border wall

Main article: Border barrier

Some walls formally mark the border between one population and another. A border wall is constructed to limit Dry-stone wall - Grendon
the movement of people across a certain line or border.
These structures vary in placement with regard to inter- often pulled large quantities of stone out of their elds

8 Shared wall
Special laws often govern walls that neighbouring properties share. Typically, one neighbour cannot alter the
common wall if it is likely to aect the building or property on the other side. A wall may also separate apartment
or hotel rooms from each other. Each wall has two sides
and breaking a wall on one side will break the wall on the
other side.

9 Portable wall
Portable walls, such as room dividers or portable partitions divide a larger open space into smaller rooms.
Portable walls can be static, such as cubicle walls, or can
be wall panels mounted on casters to provide an easy way
to recongure assembly space. They are often found inside schools, churches, convention centers, hotels, and
corporate facilities.

10 Temporary wall
Ashlar wall - Inca wall at Machu Picchu, Peru

A temporary wall is constructed for easy removal or demolition. A typical temporary wall can be constructed
with 12 (6 mm) to 58 (16 mm) sheet rock (plasterboard), metal 2 3s (approx. 5 7 cm), or 2 4s,
or taped, plastered and compounded. Most installation
companies use lattice (strips of wood) to cover the joints
of the temporary wall with the ceiling. These are sometime known as pressurized walls or temporary pressurized
walls.

11 Walls in popular culture

Walls are often seen in many popular cultures, representing barriers preventing progress or entry. For example, the progressive/psychedelic rock band Pink Floyd
View of the western enclosing wall of the Great Mosque of used a metaphorical wall to represent the isolation felt by
Kairouan (also called the Mosque of Uqba) in the city of the protagonist of their 1979 concept album The Wall.
Kairouan in Tunisia.
American poet laureate Robert Frost describes a pointless rock wall as a metaphor for the myopia of the culturebound in his poem "Mending Wall", published in 1914.
In a real-life example, the Berlin Wall, constructed by the
Soviet Union to divide Berlin into NATO and Warsaw
to make farming easier and have stacked those stones to Pact zones of occupation, became a worldwide symbol
make walls that either mark the eld boundary, or the of oppression and isolation.
In some cases, a wall may refer to an individuals debiliproperty boundary, or both.
Retaining walls resist movement of earth, stone, or water. tating mental or physical condition, seen as an impassable
They may be part of a building or external. The ground barrier.
surface or water on one side of a retaining wall is typically
higher than on the other side. A dike is a retaining wall,
as is a levee, a load-bearing foundation wall, and a sea
wall.

Another common usage is as a communal surface to write

upon. For instance the social networking site Facebook
previously used an electronic wall to log the scrawls of
friends until it was replaced by the timeline feature.

14

12

See also

Ashlar
Climbing wall
Dry-stone wall
Fabric structure
Hy-Rib
List of walls
Load-bearing wall
Sleeper wall
Stone wall
Tensile structure
Thin-shell structure
Wallpaper

13

References

[1] Wall. Whitney, William Dwight, and Benjamin E. Smith.

The Century dictionary and cyclopedia, vol. 8. New York:
Century Co., 1901. 6,809. Print.
[2] Committee on Damp Indoor Spaces and Health, Board on
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Damp indoor
spaces and health. Institute of Medicine, (U. S.). National Academies Press. Washington, D. C.. 2004. 34-35.
Print.
[3] Straube, J. F.and Burnett, E. F. P., Driving Rain and
Masonry Veneer. Water Leakage through Building Facades, ASTM STP 1314. R. J. Kudder and J. L. Erdly, Eds.
American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM),
1998. 75. Print.
[4] PARTITION WALL. Principles of Design. Retrieved
17 July 2013.
[5] Partition Walls. Excellence in craftsmanship. Retrieved
17 July 2013.

14

External links

The dictionary denition of wall at Wiktionary

Media related to Walls at Wikimedia Commons

EXTERNAL LINKS

15
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TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

File:Western_side_of_the_Great_Mosque_of_Kairouan.jpg Source:
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