He followed her, not having the vaguest idea what was to come. They emerged into a patio, sunk perhaps some twenty feet beneath ground level. Looking up, he could see trees, bushes, flowers, and grass, on what could only be called the roof of the building. Various rooms opened off the patio, all many-windowed in order to take advantage of the sunlight.
Edith led the way. “This is the living room.”
It was a large room, possibly twice the size of that in the Leete apartment. The far side consisted mainly of a window under a cantilever, which was also covered with vegetation. Julian looked out over the wooded valley. If there were other houses of this type in the vicinity, he couldn’t see them.
With mounting amazement, he took in the furniture, the art work. It was a comfortable, well-lived-in room. He asked, “Is this whole building underground?”
Edith went over to the auto-bar. “Beer? I’m thirsty from our drive. Yes, all the houses in Hopewell are underground. In fact, so are most of the houses in United America. We leave the surface for plant life, for wild animal life. For nature in general.”
He flopped down in one of the chairs, looking as bewildered as he felt.
She laughed again, without ridicule, and handed him a glass of beer.
But then the small frown he loved so much brought two light wrinkles to her forehead. “Surely you must have had some underground buildings back in the middle of the last century.”
“We might have had a few—parking lots and so forth. But as far as homes are concerned, offhand all I can remember are some caves in Southern Spain that the gypsies used to live in. Come to think of it, they were amazingly comfortable. They held flamenco dances in them for the tourists.”
“I think Father still has an old brochure by Malcolm B. Wells. I suppose you’ve heard of him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s possible he’s still alive. I guess he was pushing fifty when you went into stasis. He was one of the most progressive architects of your time. Now let me see…” She went over to one of the bookcases and began searching. “Father keeps quite a few old books. He likes to mark them up with notes.”
“I thought you had to do all of your reading on the Library Booster Screen.”
“Oh, no. Any book in the data banks can be printed up at a very low credit charge and delivered to you. Here we are.”
She reached up and selected a rather well-worn brochure, which she handed to him.
“Read this while I activate the house and get a few things done.”
“Activate the house?”
“We turn it off when no one is in residence. And we’ll be wanting to eat and so forth. Besides, it’s a little musty; no one has been here for several months. We’ve all been caught up in your revival and your first few weeks in this century.”
Julian took a deep slug of his beer and began to read.
UNDERGROUND ARCHITECTURE
I can just picture some smelly old bastard, club in hand, the conventional caveman of the comic strips, a prototype Fred Flintstone, surprised at seeing a cave for the first time in his life. It must not have been very many minutes later that the idea of underground architecture was born.
That was perhaps a million years ago, long before modern man, as we know him, evolved. Since that time, of course, man has not exactly been standing still. Not only has he invented war and bigotry (and the religions to excuse them), and learned how to lay continents bare and to overbreed himself, but he has also invented or discovered many, many kinds of shelter other than the cave. Still, architecture —really great architecture —remains, as it began, an earth art; an expression, fashioned in the earth’s own materials, of the particular culture in which the man-architect lives. And despite great advances in the techniques of building above ground, man has never completely abandoned underground construction. Fossilized remains from every age, from every continent, prove that man has continued to avail himself of this most ancient of architectures.
Now, though, suddenly, for the first time, in this Twentieth Century, in the face of unchecked population growth, all earth-life faces the prospect of extinction because of man’s too rapid successes. He has at last begun to crowd himself from the surface of the planet. But now, too, for the first time, he has both the awareness and the ability needed to undo some of the earth-damage he has done. Faced with the problems of air and water pollution, water shortages, desperate overcrowding, a disappearing countryside, exhausted soils, and vast famines, man is forced to reappraise many long unquestioned ideas about his relation to the life-giving earth.
Out of this reappraisal whole new professions are evolving. Today, the growing importance of city planning, demography, soil, water, and wildlife conservation, and the overall science of ecology attest to man’s new awareness of the land crisis and his disappearing natural heritage.
Underground architecture for the purpose of conservation is but one expression of this new land ethic. Buildings already planned for construction in many parts of the United States will use the new practice of re-establishing balanced, natural-type soils above a man-made structure. Then, plant materials selected for both natural beauty and appropriateness to their region will be established on the roofs of the structures so that in the shortest possible number of years, thriving little biotic communities requiring no human maintenance will start to reappear. Future forests.
Underground architecture, though but one of many far-reaching conservation practices, promises measurable relief in many areas. In the Cherry Hill (Greater Philadelphia) area, for instance, a forty-five-inch annual rainfall amounts to over one million gallons of rainfall per acre each year. Obviously, then, for each acre made impervious by conventional construction (blacktop and roofing materials), over one million gallons of life-giving rain water are wasted each year, sent coursing down streams never intended to accommodate such surges, eroding banks, destroying plants and animal habitats, and finally carrying to the ocean rich topsoils, mineral nutrients, and bacteria that were built up on the land during those long centuries before modern man learned to pave. Underground architecture can prevent such damage by keeping its paved surfaces hidden from the rain. With a young forest to catch it, most of the rainfall on such structures will be held by the foliage and the deep humus layers, some of the water to be used by the plants and animals on the site, and the rest piped directly to the underground reserves now being robbed by conventional construction practices. But not all underground structures need have forests above them. In the West, where drier conditions prevail, hardy natural grasses and wildflowers can adorn such buildings just as they once adorned the prairies themselves. Parks, farms, meadows, and recreational areas can be established above these new buildings. A shopping center designed for the Philadelphia area, for instance, will have an 18-hole golf course above its skylighted stores and parking lots.
Further, underground architecture offers us many immediate, practical advantages. Because of the earth’s rather constant fifty-five-degree underground temperature (measurable in caves throughout the world), very little heating and even less air conditioning will be required in such buildings. This, plus almost no need for outside maintenance, snow removal, or lawn sprinklers, add up to considerable savings. In addition such intangibles as isolation from both outside noises and atmospheric radioactivity offer further incentives to build this way. The prospect that we may once more find the great green out-of-doors at our doorsteps makes hoped-for increases in leisure time seem even more appealing.