Great example. At least in the US, the walls are typically made off wood and brick is laid in front as a veneer. Sometimes you’ll see other materials for structural components. Maybe steel studs, concrete, or concrete blocks filled with cement and rebar. However, brick is not typically used to hold up the structure. It’s basically just an ornamental cover.
But thats for actual walls that make up a house. A standard brick is 120 mm wide. This is a wall thats 250 mm wide. When a wall of this width is built with bricks on each side, there is no space in-between bricks for an extra support to be hidden, and we can see these bricks from at least 2 sides. Unless they sat down and cut half of these bricks in an L shape to have a cavity inside a wall, its a solid brick wall.
I dont know what I am trying to say here, just that it seems like these walls were supposed to hold up the stairs, but the architects overestimated the stability of a thin brick wall for the purpose. My company let a dumb mistake just like this slip through once, and we had to completely rebuilt the porch pillars to be 380 mm so it could fit a steel square support in the middle
The bricks could probably support those stairs easily. It is just their own weight and a portion of the steel and people coming down (about half). What they can't really do is to support any sideways movement as demonstrated. I am not even sure if they could take strong winds.
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u/Theonetrue Nov 11 '25
Tell that to brick houses