Yáo Dòng (house cave)

Chinese Bronze Age civilization, from 2000 B.C.E (Xia Dynasty). to present; today these houses are still in use by forty million Chinese people. Located in the Loess Plateau in China's north, in Shanxi, Henan and Gansu provinces. With such a huge thermal mass, cave houses are cool in summer and warm in winter. They are carved out of deposits of loess, a thick, hard, yellow rocklike soil, which cannot be used for agriculture. Generally, cave rooms surround a dug-out square pit courtyard inhabited by one or several families. Rooms hollowed out of the hard loess usually have arched ceilings. Earthquakes in the region, make living in the Yao Dong a risk.

Elevation is c. 1460 meters (4800 feet) above sea level.

Materials of construction: Hollowed out loess soil, with courtyard facing fronts
of wood, concrete, mud brick, and stone.

Data for CG model:
1. Golany, Gideon S. Chinese Earth-Sheltered Dwellings. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, Press, 1992.
2. Bernard Rudofsky Architecture without Architects. University of New Mexico Press; Reprint edition (July 1, 1987)
3. Ronald G. Knapp Chinese Landscapes: The Village As Place. University of Hawaii Press, 1992