Harbin, China

Talking about China there is an interesting difference between the social housing and the wealthy people, here we are going to analyse one example of social house from the north called yaodong, 窑洞 in chinese, which was designed mainly for supporting cold weathers and the Tulou, 楼 in chinese which is a traditional communal residence in the south of China. 

Yaodong:

In the Yellow river region in the north, people built their dwellings with timber and yellow earth in order to avoid harsh winds, snow and heavy rains. According to official statistics, there are still 40 million people living in such dwellings in China. As early as the Neolithic Age, about 18,000 years ago, using a wooden framework, grass, and soil. the clans that used to live in the middle reaches of the Yellow River built simple shallow caves in natural earth holes in the mountains. In the areas that are popular with such dwellings, there are very thick loess layers. People made full use of the loess layers to create the original farmer’s caves. Such dwellings were originally built into the mountain cliffs of the loess plateau and were the typical troglodytism. Living in a Yaodong was a practice handed down to descendants. It has a semicircular door of fieldstone and windows with exquisite sash bars set like fan ribs.
There are two types of underground yaodong: