Walls

Walls are built in all sorts of materials from straw, sticks and bricks – like the houses in the tale of The Three Little Pigs – to far more solid substances such as reinforced concrete, built to withstand much greater forces than a huffing, puffing wolf. In addition to strength, aesthetics also has to be considered, especially for walls built along side roads or in other public places. For large retaining walls, natural stone is often given the thumbs up as more pleasing to the eye in comparison to cheaper concrete. However, a compromise is often made with the concrete slowly being covered with plants growing down from the top. Dry-stone walling is an ancient rural craft still practiced in some parts of the world, used to build walls to divide up fields and also provide farm animals with some shelter from wind and weather. Walls have always served a vast variety of purposes, from Egypt’s ancient tombs and pyramids, to safeguard the Pharaohs’ souls, to huge dams for the production of hydroelectricity and the flimsy paper walls found in Japanese buildings.