[geeky4qwerty]

This feels a bit like diet clickbait...

"use fewer bricks than a straight wall"*

*A straight wall of the approximal strength and length of a wavy wall, not just length.

My counter would be that from a practical perspective the amount of space wasted by the wavy design seems to negate the usefulness of the design.

Probably makes the lawn crew dizzy when mowing it too!

[DrBazza]

The 'space wasted' on an estate of many hundreds, if not, thousands of acres is minimal. Given that often the bricks used were made and fired on site, it definitely saved on resources and labour.

There's a stately home close to me that has a very short run of one of these walls, and the remains of the old brick kiln up on the hill side. If you know what you're looking for, you can also still see the hollows in the ground where the clay was dug, now fill of trees and bushes.

[Retric]

It cost even less labor to use minimal bracing for strait walls, these are curved for athletics.

I suspect they are imitations of curved fruit walls popular in the 1600’s before greenhouses took off.

[londons_explore]

I don't think this is the case.

A wavy wall with a wave amplitude of X has the same toppling resistance as a straight wall with buttresses on both sides of length x/2.

Assuming this stackoverflow answer is correct[1], the sine wave has (slightly) less bricks.

[1]: https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1500468

[Retric]

A single repetition of the wave is misleading. For N repetitions of the wave you need N + 1 buttresses not 2 N.

Also, while brick is stronger in compression a buttress increases toppling resistance in both directions so you need to consider material properties not just the geometry.

[Dylan16807]

> A wavy wall with a wave amplitude of X has the same toppling resistance as a straight wall with buttresses on both sides of length x/2.

Where did you get that number from, and how does it change as you vary the distance between buttresses?

[londons_explore]

Assuming one pair of butresses (ie to prevent the wall toppling in each direction) per sine wave cycle.

[Dylan16807]

But the math depends so strongly on how often the buttresses are needed, and the length of the buttresses, so you can't assume those things. The goal is a wall of equivalent strength, after all. If equivalent strength needs slightly less distance, or slightly smaller buttresses, the result could be thrown completely off in either direction.

[chrisweekly]

"athletics" -> "aesthetics", right?

[hinkley]

> these are curved for athletics.

Autocorrect strikes again.

[ChoGGi]

> hundreds, if not, thousands of acres

Sections (640 acres)

[tetrep]

> *A straight wall of the approximal strength and length of a wavy wall, not just length.

The article suggests that, if you attempted to build a straight wall with a similar amount of bricks, that it would not be able to be freestanding (i.e. it would need to be buttressed or it would fall over). That's a significant feature of a wall to some people, so I don't think it's fair to dismiss the utility of that by suggesting that it's simply "less bricks for comparable strength," it's "less bricks for a freestanding wall."

If you want a freestanding brick wall, this seems to be the "ideal" way to do it, assuming you have the space required for the wave. I think the space needed would be a function of the wall height, so if you need a tall wall, you need more horizontal space for the wave and a wavey wall becomes less ideal.

[kbenson]

> so if you need a tall wall, you need more horizontal space for the wave and a wavey wall becomes less ideal.

Not necessarily. You might need a straight wall to be thicker or have more buttressing in that case as well. The requirements for each (waviness, thickness, buttressing) likely change to different degrees based on height, so wavy walls could become less ideal, or they could become more ideal.

[vehemenz]

The extra space doesn't have to be fully wasted. You could plant bushes or small trees in the concave sections.

[Lutger]

Indeed. Historically these walls have been used in orchards, where they are ideal. The wall serves an important function: it buffers heat. This can make all the difference, especially in late frosts, which are doom for the bloom. Of course, the added warmth can also mean you can grow varieties in a colder climate that you normally wouldn't be able to.

[hammock]

Applies to flat walls not wavy, but espalier,[1] a way to cultivate trees in tight spaces, is one of my favorite things ever.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espalier

[developer93]

I mean I don't see a reason why it couldn't be applied to wavy walls if they were high enough, it's just training isn't it?

[hammock]

Fair point. I've personally never seen it

[ZeroGravitas]

This article mentions them, with photos:

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-fa...

Serpentine or Crinkle-Crankle walls, apparently a Dutch innovation.

> Although it's actually longer than a linear wall, a serpentine wall economizes on materials because the wall can be made strong enough with just one brick thin. The alternate convex and concave curves in the wall provide stability and help to resist lateral forces. Furthermore, the slopes give a warmer microclimate than a flat wall. This was obviously important for the Dutch, who are almost 400 km north of Paris.

> Variants of the serpentine wall had recessed and protruding parts with more angular forms. Few of these seem to have been built outside the Netherlands, with the exception of those erected by the Dutch in the eastern parts of England (two thirds of them in Suffolk county). In their own country, the Dutch built fruit walls as high up north as Groningen (53°N).

[nottorp]

Interesting, locally the same word is used for the structures used for cultivating climbing plants. Haven't really seen it done with trees.

[jacquesm]

I'm doing this with an apple tree right now :)

[mattmaroon]

It depends how you define "wasted". If it were a flat wall, it'd give the interior more space by just pushing it out to the furthest point in the wavy wall. I guess you could say that whatever the magnitude of the wall is would be wasted.

[turnsout]

If you have plenty of space but you're tight on money, it's an ingenious solution.

[geeky4qwerty]

Good point. I'd say if you're tight on money I'm not sure a wall should be at the top of your to-buy list.

[HWR_14]

If you own a large amount of land than the savings add up. Especially if you live 250 years ago (or you want to match the walls from then) when bricks were not produced and delivered in massive industrial processes and large estates were more common.

[araes]

Even in the modern era the cost is still relevant. Bricks are still pretty expensive.

If I have 100 acres (square), I need ~2.5 km of wall, at ~150,000 bricks for a 1m wall single brick-width wall (deter animals, mark property).

At the online prices I'm seeing ($0.65), that's ~$100,000. If I have to make it all double width, suddenly its $200,000. $100,000 delta is still pretty relevant for a modern small scale farmer.

[HWR_14]

The difference is people enclosing 100 acres today are either wealthy estates or using non-brick fences for farmers.

[londons_explore]

Historically, lots of countries had laws saying you had to enclose your land. If you didn't, then you might lose it.

In the days before wire, brick walls were a cheap longlasting enclosure method, especially if wood or stones weren't easily available.

[kragen]

wire dates to ancient sumeria i think; it was used for money before coins (because it's easy to measure out any desired amount of gold or silver)

[turnsout]

It is if you're selling sheep milk and you don't want to lose your flock.

[bee_rider]

I think that’s typically a job for fences, right?

This sort of wall is, I think, just an aesthetic way of marking a property line/get some privacy.

[devilbunny]

Drive through rural northern England and you will see vast numbers of sheep moving through pastures that are bordered by old dry-stone walls. The roads will even have equestrian gates alongside them when they have stock grids to prevent the sheep from using the road.

It's all about adapting to local materials. The same technique was used by early settlers in New England (think about the ending of The Shawshank Redemption) because they had to get the stones out of the ground in order to plow and harvest - rather than just make a pile, they used the stones to build walls separating fields.

[toast0]

Depends on how long you intend to keep livestock and what materials you have access to. Well built walls can last a lot longer than well built fences; but fences may be less costly initially. But it might also depend on how crafty/destructive your livestock is.

[CalRobert]

I have a few acres of land and annoying neighbours. Stuff like this is relevant (though in the end I just went with hedging, which is cheaper and good enough for privacy)

[scott_w]

It's relative. You might be "tight on money for building a wall" so you save money by building a wavy wall.

[BurningFrog]

Pre industrialism, almost everyone was dirt poor by current standards.

[seabass-labrax]

They were also dirt poor by current standards after industrialism started. It was well into the 19th century that laws like the Education Act of 1870 and the Trade Union Act of 1871 started distributing power to the common people of Britain outside of the traditional quasi-feudal system.

[wkdneidbwf]

this is an overly cynical take. headlines are brief by necessity. nobody would read that and think that a curved line from A to B is shorter than a straight line between the same points.

the first paragraph explains it,

> these wavy walls actually use less bricks than a straight wall because they can be made just one brick thin, while a straight wall—without buttresses—would easily topple over

[geeky4qwerty]

I recognize the cynicism in my observation, but is it fully unmerited?

I put the following prompt in GPT4:

create a professional title and a click bait title for the following article

Then provided the article. This was the output:

Professional Title: "Crinkle Crankle Walls: The Aesthetics and Efficiency of Serpentine Wall Construction"

Click Bait Title: "You Won't Believe How These Weird, Wavy Walls Use Less Bricks Than Straight Ones!"

[93po]

I think you overestimate what people would reactively think when reading this headline

[yboris]

Every dip in the wave is an opportunity to plant beautiful bush, flowers, or shrubbery.

[surfpel]

> This feels a bit like diet clickbait...

This is fun clickbait. Straight to the point, totally random quirky trivia, and most of the page is nice pictures. Love it.

[hammock]

Do you also think corrugated cardboard is wasteful?

[geeky4qwerty]

Yes, of course I do, just like I believe that the Australia, like false equivalencies, don't exist.

[tomxor]

Walls have purpose beyond neatly cut lawns.

This wall would work well at road field boundaries where a couple feet makes less practical difference than the large saving in materials.

[amelius]

The solution for the space problem is obvious: just make the wall wave in the longitudinal direction instead of the transversal direction.

[tomxor]

lol, a compression wall! sounds good, but is it?

[quickthrower2]

No space is wasted, unless you need to squeeze in a rectangle thing (e.g. tennis court, driveway) into a tight lot. But boundary disputes in urban areas are already bad enough so trying to define a wavey boundary wont be fun! That said how much freaking character would this add to a back garden!

[m463]

wikipedia says:

"leading to greater strength than a straight wall of the same thickness of bricks without the need for buttresses."

I was trying to figure out how lengthwise it could have fewer bricks.

[oatmeal1]

Also IMHO it looks horrible.

[gweinberg]

Yes, it's clickbait and nonsense. Obviously a straight wall would use fewer bricks. Your brick wall is going to be one brick thick either way, nobody is going to try to somehow make the straight wall as strong as the wavy wall. Most likely the straight wall is already way stronger than it needs to be.

[samus]

If either design is too strong, then over could just use thinner bricks.

However, as the article indicates, the straight wall would not be as stable as the wavy wall. It needs buttresses to prevent toppling. That's the key advantage of the wavy design.

[travisgriggs]

Amen to this. In a tabloidish sense.

I read the title and thought "duh". Maybe others were intrigued and clicked, but for me, this is just obvious. I had lots of legos, and own more now as a grandpa than, er, uh, I should. I guess spatial reasoning about bricks just is second hand at this point.

What the article likely leaves out, is that the all of the "corner only" touch points are going to create a more "pourous" wall. And collection points for crap.

[pm215]

You can see from the photos in the article that the amount of waviness is not so large as to result in large angles between adjacent bricks -- the usual mortar between bricks connects them and doesn't even look like it's all that much larger a mortar join than for a straight wall.