The Sunken Courtyard Dwellings
1
May 2007
This northen style traditional
Chinese residences are commonly seen along
the Yellow River in Shaanxi and Shanxi
provinces where the soil is highly compact.
Though built with yellow earth, they are
green buildings. Very green.
A sunken
courtyard dwelling in Shanyuan (陕塬),
Henan
Province
A typical sunken siheyuan would have a yard
about 6 metres deep with an area size more
than 100 sqms. Around this private open
space, 10 or 12 or 14 rooms are dug off the
central courtyard, each three metres high
from floor to the top of the arched ceiling,
eight to twelve metres deep from the front
door to the back of the wall.
This traditional
Yellow Earth style residence has a history of
over 2000 years. It utilises the materials
readily available nearby, occupies the least
farmland and leaves minimum negative impact
on the natural environment.
With ability to
maintain a stable temperature during all
seasons, being windprofe, noiseprofe and
quake-resistant, it is an inspirational
example of environmental sustainable
residential housing design that has its core
concept rooted in a culture that respects and
reflects the world around it.
But things are
rapidly changing.
Reportedly some
officials at a village in Shaanxi province
just want their homeland to look more like
anyone else's homeland, so they tore down the
sunken residences and began to build
on-ground houses.
It has catches
though. Firstly, the cash-poor villagers have
to pay for the houses which comparing to the
semi-cave dwellings are painfully expensive;
not everyone can afford, and those who cannot
have to take refugee at sheds in a orchard.
Then, on-ground
houses have serious issues with the local
climate conditions which is extremely windy
and dry. A few months later, cracks have
appeared in the walls.
Do some village
officials really think their ancestors never
knew there was such a thing called on-ground
building so they had no choice but to stay in
their sunken dwellings?
