
Crinkle Crankle Wall - vyuh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crinkle_crankle_wall
======
jhncls
While this type of wall mainly exists in England and the Netherlands, it is
amusing how the English Wikipedia's main arguments are about saving bricks and
possible military advantages, while the Dutch Wikipedia tell these walls are
meant to protect fruit from weather conditions. The fruit would typically be
planted at the south side. One of the ideas is that the bricks both protect
against wind and keep giving some warmth after the sun has disappeared.

~~~
Cytobit
Does the shape of the wall affect either of these uses? Otherwise, wouldn't it
be off-topic to start listing general facts about walls for agriculture?

~~~
jessriedel
Based on this comment, I think the idea is that if you plant trees within the
bend of a wall, they are shielded and heated from more than 180 degrees.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21564553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21564553)

You only get this benefit for tree right along the wall, which is not much
agricultural area. Seems like a strained justification.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Fruit trees were commonly grown against purpose built walls. For flat walls
trees would be trained to keep their branches in a plane.

~~~
jessriedel
Thanks. You're talking about espalier?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espalier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espalier)

I could only find a single picture of something like this on a curved wall.

[https://images.app.goo.gl/AXPFnXgE47K1vm5U7](https://images.app.goo.gl/AXPFnXgE47K1vm5U7)

If the tree is going to be pinned to the wall (as opposed to being free-
standing and surrounded by the wall), I don't really understand how making it
curved helps with absorbing heat or shielding from weather.

~~~
Razengan
Slightly tangential, but having lived mostly in bare concrete jungles, there's
something so aesthetically pleasing about green things growing on a backdrop
of bricks or wood.

A soothing harmony of nature and artifice. :)

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brianpgordon
Funny-named type of wall? This reminds me of the ha-ha wall:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-ha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-ha)

~~~
pottertheotter
I like this. My neighbor is a billionaire and I think I'll replace my fence
with one of these so I can see his property better. It's very nice!

~~~
whamlastxmas
Wouldn't he just add a fence right at his property line if it bothered him at
all?

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azepoi
The dutch wikipedia page mentions their use to protect fruit trees from the
wind and add sun reflection. You run the wall east-west and place the fruit
trees in southern bends of the wall.

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DragonCot
For those who wish to see it on Google Maps...
[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.3095596,1.5174271,3a,75y,2...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.3095596,1.5174271,3a,75y,226.38h,90.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKqk3UNSD7KR94_zEzyV-
VA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

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boomlinde
Compare to the ”crinkle crankle” layer of corrugated fiberboard which has
similar properties (higher rigidity per mass)

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geerlingguy
I believe the oldest exterior wall of the St. Louis Zoo (on the north side,
along where the 1904 World's Fair bird cage was relocated) was modeled after
this style. I think it's more than one brick thick, though, so it probably
wasn't done that way to save on brick, just to echo the style.

~~~
pubby
That was my first thought too. You can see it on google maps here:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6369944,-90.2886515,3a,75y,2...](https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6369944,-90.2886515,3a,75y,228.27h,89.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7FLKsn677ynqLqoWicfgFg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)

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roel_v
I wonder if in modern times, now that labor is so much more expensive than
bricks, it would still be economical. Building a brick wall costs (here in
Western Europe) around e40/m2 in labor, and e25 in material for a cheap brick.
So building this crinkle crankle style would only have to add about 50% in
building time. I think building this is much slower than that though - I don't
even know how I'd go about it, other than with a laser level, which would be
_really_ inconvenient (compared to using a string like is normally done). Then
again, it would be _inconvenient_ and frustrating, but would it be _slow_ ?

~~~
superhuzza
You're likely right, it's probably not very economical nowadays. Especially
given the wider range of materials than be used to build a wall or fence.

~~~
KSteffensen
Aestethics still apply though and it looks nice.

Pet peeve: Why isn't anyone building brick houses anymore?

~~~
superhuzza
I actually know the answer to this, as I used to live with an architect. This
information may apply more specifically to Canada than other places.

1\. It's not very good at insulating relative to other materials.

2\. It's more labor intensive than other materials.

~~~
rhacker
I have always suspect brick is superior for sound insulation, perhaps not
weather though?

~~~
thedaemon
Wood is better for weather as it is flexible to allow expanding and shrinking.
When you have such a hard material, such as brick, in a climate that changes
from extreme hot & cold the bricks will crack and break due to stress from
expanding and shrinking.

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abruzzi
Reminds me a bit of Andy Goldsworthy's "Storm King Wall" (one of his few
permanent art works.) Not that he was doing it to save stones, or protect
fruit trees. That shape is just a common part of his art:

[https://stormking.org/artist/andy-
goldsworthy/](https://stormking.org/artist/andy-goldsworthy/)

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diestethrowaway
Eladio Dieste made some very interesting brick buildings using similar
techniques in the 20th C: [https://www.archdaily.com/890362/the-intricate-
undulating-br...](https://www.archdaily.com/890362/the-intricate-undulating-
brickwork-at-eladio-diestes-cristo-obrero-church-in-
uruguay/5aa07d9bf197ccb54d000060-the-intricate-undulating-brickwork-at-eladio-
diestes-cristo-obrero-church-in-uruguay-photo)

[https://morphocode.com/eladio-dieste-reverence-to-the-
laws-o...](https://morphocode.com/eladio-dieste-reverence-to-the-laws-of-
matter/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eladio_Dieste](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eladio_Dieste)

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doctor_m
If only crinkle-crankle software were equally justifiable...

~~~
Xophmeister
If we take the meaning of a "crinkle crankle structure" to be something like
an "economically self-supporting structure", then it's justifiable by
definition. The question then becomes: What, in the realm of software
engineering, fits this description?

Lisp, perhaps?

~~~
doctor_m
If crinkle-crankle walls protect fruit, then I suppose the analogous software
might run on some Apple device that's unnecessarily expensive, technically
lagging, and probably beautiful. Hard to justify economically, but still
attractive.

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irb
I grew up in Suffolk, where I knew of several examples, and I never realised
that they were a particularly Suffolk-specific thing: according to the
article, twice as many in the county as the rest of the UK. I would be
interested to know why.

~~~
bencollier49
TFA mentions that Dutch engineers brought over to reclaim bits of Suffolk from
the sea introduced the walls.

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carapace
See also _Gaussian curvature_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_curvature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_curvature)

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davidw
Split rail fences are sort of similar

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-
rail_fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-rail_fence)

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bitslayer
In modern standards a straight wall is much easier to build because you can
just measure once for each row and stretch a string to match the bricks
against. A curved wall requires a level placed against every brick to make
sure you are still going straight up. I expect older walls actually trusted
the mason's skill without going through all that. The Wiki photo certainly
looks true.

~~~
MagnumOpus
> In modern standards

Even in ancient times masons had pieces of strings and plumb-bobs to level
vertically and horizontally.

The more likely constraint is that before the 20th century the farmer couldn't
afford masons to lay orchard walls, but did it himself...

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wmorein
There is one of these in Cambridge MA (or was until recently when someone
crashed their SUV through it):
[https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/05/15/cambridge-mass-car-
cr...](https://boston.cbslocal.com/2019/05/15/cambridge-mass-car-crash-brick-
wall-brattle-street-fresh-pond-parkway/)

~~~
SamBam
I had seen the results of that accident, but was amazed by the video at all
the people saying that the area is a magnet for such accidents, and that the
brick wall itself had been hit many times.

I mostly walk and bike in the city, but that whole neighborhood has wide,
straight, clearly-marked roads. It's like you're out in the suburbs. If people
have trouble there, how do they deal with some actually-confusing
intersections, like Newton Corner, Inman square, or Columbia Road in
Dorchester?

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RickJWagner
That's cool, especially the economy of bricks.

But I don't think it'd work well where I'm from. We have straight property
lines, so you'd either have to convince your neighbor to go along with it or
put it all on your side (leaving areas of grass over the fence where you
couldn't mow it.)

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equalunique
My first thought was the irregular shape of the walls affects the way
automobile noises echo off of it, potentially contrubuting to slightly quieter
streets.

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arethuza
This made me Google "crinkle crankle ha-ha" \- unfortunately I could not find
any references to such a wall existing.

~~~
0xcde4c3db
A ha-ha is (typically?) a retaining wall, so I wouldn't expect the mechanical
advantages to apply in the same way. I imagine it would also complicate the
excavation/infill.

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appleflaxen
So is it the case that it brings the cost of the wall down from

2N (two brick depth for strength) to

sqrt(2)N (for a hypothetical 45 degree angle)

?

~~~
gweinberg
I don't think so. I don't think you need anywhere near a 45 degree angle, and
making the wall double thick won't really solve the fall over problem in the
first place.

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gweinberg
Wouldn't it be easier to make with straight zig-zag sections than with wavy
curves?

~~~
jfoutz
I don't think you'd get the protection from lateral forces on the straight
sections. Just a little bit of curve transfers the cross force down the whole
curve.

The gist is, if i push on a brick in the middle of a flat part, the force has
to be resisted by the width of the single brick. but if i push on any part of
the curve, that's got to lift the adjacent next level up bricks as well, which
in turn have to lift the next level, and on and on.

It's been a long, long time since i studied static forces though.

