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.
