Try living in a house with a limestone ceiling, a rock backdrop for your bathroom, or an entire cliff's edge for your roof.
According to this article by The Daily Green newspaper, these "Cave Homes" exist!
I first learned about these from a friend who had traveled through Texas. From his description alone, these homes sounded incredible: natural insulation from the soil, reduced amount of materials being used to create these homes? What could be better?
I did some research to see how reliable this information was and to see if the "Cave Homes" really were sustainable and credible.
In China, many of these homes were created in a pilot program that took place in the Yaodong cave area of the Loess Plateau in the early 2000's. The following characteristics were included in these homes for environmental sustainability:
- Use of local topography to provide the housing structure
- Locally sourced and recycled building materials
- Use of solar spaces to reduce the need for internal heating
- Houses are cut into hill terraces on land that is hard to farm or is infertile - maintains available agricultural land.
While LEED-certified and livable buildings are the ideal standard for all building infrastructure, these homes go one step farther in terms of amount of materials used (whether they are sustainable or not).
This website from World Habitat Awards can provide more information about these homes. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. Would you live in a home built into the landscape?
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