Ground and structure
Retaining wall
hillside housingroadparkbasement
It is a wall that holds back soil where there is a difference in level between two plots.
What it solves
It makes it possible to build on slopes without the ground sliding. In the tropics its worst enemy is rainwater building up behind the wall, which pushes it and can overturn it.
Today
Always provide drainage behind the wall with granular material, a perforated pipe and weep holes through it. Design the height, base and reinforcement according to the soil and seismic conditions.
Common mistake
Building the wall without drainage, so that trapped water pushes it until it cracks or overturns.
Tomorrow
Gabions and planted slopes let water through and shelter lizards, insects and roots. A wall that breathes and is covered in plants better supports a hillside neighborhood.
Fact A gravity wall usually needs a thickness of 50 to 60 percent of its height.
Where it comes from
- 1Wari and Inca Andes of Peru, 6th to 15th centuries
Stone walls with layered fill that drained rainwater and slowed erosion on the slopes. - 2Ifugao people mountain ranges of the Philippines, about 2000 years
Stone or mud walls hold rice terraces on very steep slopes. - 3Guayabo de Turrialba Costa Rica, 1000 BC to 1400 AD
Their stone roads, walls and canals were recognized in 2009 as an engineering work of world value.
Masters
- Antoni Gaudí Park Güell, Barcelona, Spain
He supports the paths and the great terrace of the park with walls and porticoes of local stone, leaning like tree trunks. The thrust of the hillside becomes arches working in compression.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Ground and structure
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.