Architectural characteristics of cave dwellings

The holes are all facing the sun, which is convenient for sunlight. The simplest cave is a soil cave formed by direct cave excavation; If the earth hole is reinforced with stones, it will become a stone hole. If reinforced with bricks, it will become a brick hole.

Cave dwellings generally have cliff type, sinking type and independent type. Among them, the back mountain kiln is the most widely used. It is built on the hillside, and at the edge of the original soil, there are often several steps along the mountain. The top of the lower kiln is the upper vestibule, with a wide field of vision. Sinking cave dwelling is to dig a square pit on the spot, and then dig a cave dwelling on the inner wall to form an underground quadrangle.

In the construction of cave dwellings, the village surface is generally nine meters high and 17 to 23 meters long. The hole head is scraped into patterns such as water waves, and three to five holes are dug in the front. According to the terrain, one to three holes can be dug in the side. The front soil is flat, generally walls are built on three sides, and gates and gatehouses are built. Cave dwellings are generally four meters high, eight to ten feet wide and three feet deep. The main cave on the front is slightly higher than other caves and serves as the main hall where elders live.

Doors and windows are installed on the wall of the kiln mouth, generally three caves or two caves. The window near the kiln top is called skylight. There is a heatable adobe sleeping platform on the back wall of the kiln, which is next to the gable and the kiln wall, leaving a heatable adobe sleeping platform entrance. "Burning firewood ignites the adobe sleeping platform to make the kiln warm, and the main kiln sits on the adobe sleeping platform, which is pleasant." Generally, cave buildings follow the same direction as mountains, avoiding wet and dry, low and high, and avoiding shade and sunny. There are many kinds of caves in Qingyang, which can be divided into more than ten kinds, but according to the main categories, there are three kinds, namely, Zhuang Ming kiln, earth pit kiln and hoop kiln.

Extended data

Cave dwelling is an ancient form of residence for the residents of the Loess Plateau in northwest China. The history of cave dwelling houses can be traced back to more than 4,000 years ago. In the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region of China, the loess layer is very thick, some of which are tens of kilometers thick. The people of China creatively used the favorable terrain of the plateau to dig holes to live, and created cave buildings called green buildings. Cave dwellings generally include cliff cave dwellings, sunken cave dwellings, independent cave dwellings, etc., among which backer kiln is widely used. Cave dwelling is a product of the Loess Plateau and a symbol of the people in northern Shaanxi, which has precipitated an ancient and profound yellow land culture.

Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia-Cave Dwelling