CAVE DWELLING ANALYSIS

Settlement

Rudolfsky's reference of "the underground towns and villages in the Chinese loess belt" is what we call the Underground cave dwelling in China. The Cave dwelling contains the cave dwelling and the settlement of this kind of mode.
A settlement is a place where people establish a community. In western cultures, it contains to two concepts： the city and the village.

This project on the renovation of the cave dwellings focuses on the settlement of fully underground cave dwellings, which is not merely about the architecture itself, but the related environmental, social and cultural context.

Settlement Patterns

Harmony with nature

 

Typical Plans

Spatial arrangement

Spatial progression

Cave dwelling spatial progression diagram

Cave dwelling spatial progression analysis

Communication

Kiln face

There is only one side of the cave dwelling in exposure: the face. It is one of the most important decoration parts in underground dwellings. The owner would do everything they can to decorate the arch, window and door on the "face". All generations of craftsman devote to this only facade.

 

 

PRECEDENT STUDY - HOLY

THE HOLY ROAD

(BIG)

This 4500 M2 mixed use development in central Athens combines two separate logics: a street pattern of irregular urban circulation which morphs into a dense orthogonal grid of patio housing, creating optimal conditions for both housing, shops and art galleries. The public spaces are shaded from the sun, while the residential units are protected from the noise of the surrounding entertainment area. Street become facetted gorges diffusing the intense Mediterranean sunlight. The typology reintroduces a medieval urban character into a city district dominated by monofuntional modem boxes from the sixties.

What I draw from this project is the creative geometry of those interesting rooms, stairs and pathways created by the irregular walls the under orthogonal appearance,which is exactly one of my design aims in the competition project.

VISUALISATION

TIMETABLE

DISSAPEARING UNDERGROUND CITY

 

RUDOFSKY'S BOOK

As Bernard Rudofsky proclaimed in his manual on Non-Pedigreed Architecture in 1964, a respectful look back to the “fairy-tale countries” and their “communal enterprise” should urgently happen; exotic built environments not produced by a few intellectuals or specialists, but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting under a community of experience.

“One of the most radical solutions in the field of shelter is represented by the underground towns and villages in the Chinese loess belt. Loess is silt, transported and deposited by the wind. Because of its great softness and high porosity (45%), it can be easily carved. [...] The dark squares in the flat landscape are pits [...] about the size of a tennis court. Their vertical sides are 25 to 30 feet high. L-shaped staircases lead to the apartmments below whose rooms are about 30 feet deep and 15 feet wide, and measure about 15 feet to the top of the vaulted ceiling. They are lighted and aired by openings that give onto the courtyard.” 
 [from LeopoldLambert's boiteaoutils on B. Rudofsky's Architecture without architects]

The floor/roof has a double function: shelter and crop field. Neither additional air-conditioning nor heating is required, due to natural thermal lag kept in the soil mass. Furthermore, grain from the fields may be dried above ground, and afterwards storaged downstairs in the cave dwelling, simply by letting it directly fall into the storage room, through a hole on the floor/roof.

CAVE DWELLING COMPOUND, ARCHITECTURE AND ART

The Cave Dwelling Compound, a unique and charming type of human habitation, the living fossil of cave living culture, is more and more recognized by people all over the world.

The chief judge of this competition Riken Yamamoto designed Saitama Prefectural University in 1999. In this scheme, he tries to erect the plan to a vertical plane. Riken said his was inspired by the cave dwelling conpound on the Loess Plateau in China. As a result, the architecture becomes the landscape as if the foundation of a city appears as architecture.

COMPETITION SELECTION

ASSIGNMENT 2

Download PDF

SITE CITY OF SANYA ON HAINAN ISLAND

Project: Townhall for fishmen
Site: City of Sanya on Hainan Island