External walls

External WikiHouse Skylark walls are load-bearing. Consideration needs to be taken when removing blocks in place of openings. Lintels or supporting elements will always be required to support an opening in the main structural frame.

In a WikiHouse wall, you will generally need to have at least one solid wall block between any two window or door blocks.

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Floors and roofs

Floors and roofs also help provide lateral stability to the structure, ensuring the whole structure behaves as one strong, interlocked box.

Therefore, try to avoid placing lots of rooflights in a row.

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Internal walls

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'Internal walls' (also referred to as partitions) are (usually thinner) walls fixed into the inside of the building.

The straightness and accuracy of the chassis make it relatively simple to add or remove internal walls anywhere within the structure. This leaves plenty of scope to alter the internal layout of the building during its lifetime.

Internal walls can be made using any conventional stud framing.

In larger volumes or below voids, internal walls can be used as a bracing or load-bearing support to the main frame. These load bearing internal partitions need to be directly anchored to a supporting substructure/foundation below. A Structural Engineer will be able to recommend which walls may need to be used for bracing purposes or to carry some structural load.

Making sure that your walls work together to brace your building

The hardest challenge when designing with Skylark is bracing your structure against lateral flexing under high wind loads.

Any of the wall types can be used as a bracing (or 'shear') wall.

The length of a wall, and where you position openings in it has a big impact on its ability to act as a bracing wall. As a rule of thumb, the minimum length of solid panels on each wall shall be limited to either:

Single storey building:

1. Continuous 1.8 m wall (i.e. 3 wall blocks joined together with no openings) every 6 metres
2. Two 1.2 m walls (i.e. 2 wall blocks joined together with no openings) every 6 metres

Two storey building (ground floor):

3. Continuous 3.6 m wall (i.e. 6 wall blocks joined together with no openings) every 6 metres
4. Two 2.4 m walls (i.e. 4 wall blocks joined together with no openings) every 6 metres

A three storey building likely needs specific wall layouts and may be different from project to project. It is best to consult an Engineer with your early concept designs to check opening locations and sizes.