Section A
The first time anybody knew about Dutchman Frank Siegmund and
his family was when workmen tramping through a field found a narrow steel
chimney protruding through the grass. Closer inspection revealed a chink of
sky-light window among the thistles and when amazed investigators moved down the
side of the hill they came across a pine door and a brass knocker set into an
underground building. The Siegmunds had managed to live undetected for six years
outside the border town of Breda, in Holland. They are the latest in a clutch of
individualistic homemakers who have burrowed underground in search of
tranquility. Most, falling foul of strict building regulations,
have been forced to dismantle their individualistic homes and return to more
conventional lifestyles. But subterranean suburbia Dutch- style, is about to
become respectable and chic. Seven luxury homes cosseted away inside a high
earth-covered noise embankment next to the main Tilburg city road recently went
on the market for $ 296,500 each. The foundations had yet to be dug, but
customers queued up to buy the unusual part-submerged houses.
Building big commercial buildings underground can be a way to avoid
disfiguring or threatening a beautiful or environmentally sensitive landscape.
Indeed many of the buildings which consume most land such as cinemas,
supermarkets, theatres, warehouses or libraries have no need to be on the
surface since they do not need windows. There are big advantages, too, when it
comes to private homes. A development of 194 houses which would take up 14
hectares of land above ground would occupy 2.7 hectares below it, while the
number of roads would be halved. Under several meters of earth, noise is minimal
and insulation is excellent. In Europe, the obstacle has been
conservative local authorities and developers who prefer to ensure quick sales
with conventional mass-produced housing. But the Dutch development was greeted
with undisguised relief by South Limburg planners because of Holland’s chronic
shortage of land. In the US, where energy-efficient homes became popular after
the oil crisis of 1973, 10,000 underground houses have been built. A terrace of
five homes, Britain’s first subterranean development, is under way in
Nottinghamshire. Italy’s outstanding example of subterranean architecture
is the Olivetti residential centre in Ivreg. Not everyone adapts
so well, and in Japan scientists at the Shimizu Corporation have developed
"space creation" system which mix light, sound, breezes and scents to simulate
people who spend long periods below ground. Underground offices in Japan are
being equipped with virtual windows and mirrors, while underground departments
in the University of Minnesota have periscopes to reflect views and
light. Frank Siegmund and his family love their hobbit
lifestyle. Their home evolved when he dug a cool room for his bakery business in
a hill he had created. During a heat-wave they took to sleeping there. "We felt
at peace and so close to nature," he says, "Gradually I began adding to the
rooms. It sounds strange but we are so close ro the earth we draw strength from
its vibrations. ’ Japanese scientists are helping people ______ underground life.