Living Under Ground
Modern integrated air conditioning, LED lighting and flat
computer/TV screens allows comfortable and relatively inexpensive living under ground.
In some places, such arrangement could be preferable, because of weather
conditions or terrain.
To avoid underground waters, an
underground building should be embedded in a hill (or in a side of a mountain).
It does not need windows: large computer screens and sound equipment are able
to provide all needed variety and destruction.
Such building could be broad, long and
irregular - an underground settlement with pathways for internal movement,
vertical and horizontal. Its layout should be designed around natural internal
formations of the hill, where it is embedded. These formations should be reinforced
and used as vertical support structures.
One should expect broad use of
arches and related high ceilings in such underground building.
The layer between the building and
the hill, where it is embedded, should be a special “skin”, separating it from
the rock and dirt of the underground. This “skin” should be divided into
technical rooms used for “skin’s” monitoring and repair.
Rock and dirt removed during
construction should be used to adjust hill’s external features. Terraces should
be formed and trees should be planted there to strengthen the sides on the hill.
Rain waters and dirt, which they
carry, should be channeled downhill, away from the building, and for that
purpose, special cemented channels have to be made on the surface of the hill.
Access points of the building (doors
and gates), should be made on a few different levels to match features of the
ground. Some such features could be manmade, as roads, staircases, or terraces.
This way, previously not usable or even inaccessible places on the hill could
become useful.
The building walls and especially
its “skin” should be impermeable to occasional flow of underground waters.
Hence, hydraulic cement and related reinforced concrete should be main
materials in its construction.
Without windows and without air
exchange through building’s walls, the building has to completely rely on integrated
ventilation and air-conditioning system. This is similar to tall buildings in
large cities.
Most likely, such building needs to
be excavated in the area with no access to sufficient amount of fresh water.
Hence, fresh water needs to be produced, and stored. It could be pumped from
some place and purified, or sea water could be desalinated. Produced fresh
water is better to be stored inside such building: the building should have a
system of water tanks in it, made of water proofed reinforced concrete. This system
of tanks could be made to improve building’s stability and to stabilize
temperature in the building. Desalination plant could be embedded in the same
hill and it could use solar energy to reduce cost of fresh water production. In
a place with frequent bad weather – too hot or too cold, temperature stabilization
property of this water management system could reduce cost of building’s
maintenance.
Such building is built in a
sequence of steps.
First, the hill chosen for the building
is excavated and excavated cavities are reinforced. This is done layer-by-layer
from top to bottom. Shape of cavities should be dictated by the conditions in
the excavated hill and their intended use on the next steps of construction.
On the next step, cavities are
divided-up into “rooms” horizontally, but some might need also vertical
division.
Next, staircases, pipes and cables (water,
electricity, gas, sewer, communication, etc.) are placed, etc. This is done
from bottom up.
When a few building of this type have
to be made, they have to be connected with tunnels, in which should be placed roads
and various pipes and cables. This network of tunnels should be done with a
system of Hubs: it should be at least one path through tunnels between any two
such Hubs, and every building should have access through a tunnel to at least
one such Hub.
With the system of Hubs and tunnels
additional improvements could be implemented (see “City-Park” article on the
same site):
·
integrated fresh water management;
·
integrated observation system;
·
“clean sewer”, to water
trees on terraces.
Such underground buildings could be
useful in conjunction with mining.
Another example is associated with fishing.
There are cases, where highly productive fishing areas in high seas are close
to places on the shore, where people are not comfortable to settle. In such a case,
a port and underground buildings could make a settlement possible.
Alexander Liss 1/12/2020