Down Under

Underground Houses:

One form of unique house is that which is built underground. I have wanted to construct one myself for some time, but have never had all the right ingredients come together.

I still have my eye on a particular field in East Sussex which I want to buy at some stage and try and persuade the local authority to let me build into the side of the hill. The view is fabulous, and the neighbours, as far as I have found, are very stroppy.

I first came across underground constructions way back in the sixties, and remember talking to a very interesting architect when he came over to lecture in the UK sometime in the late sixties. His name was Buckminster Fuller. He spoke very convincingly about being nice to the earth, and talked about underground houses, about hexagonal domed structures, and something called the global village. I went home on a high.

I then discovered that underground houses were quite big in Australia, and started corresponding with some society whose name I have since forgotten. The houses there are built in disused mining shafts, and they are dug into soft rock that hardens upon contact with the air, just like those houses (caves) constructed in Andalusia....

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