9 ms·
10-acre underground home and gardens in Fresno (2023) [video]
- _giorgio_ 2y agoNice being there in the event of a flood. You can accomplish better insulation and thermal mass above the ground, while having better ventilation and less humidity.
- nick7376182 2y agoYou can accomplish better thermal mass?
- ted_dunning 2y agoYes. Because it can be semi-insulating (straw bales) or it can be externally insulated. Mass isn't just mass ... it needs controls and energy input. A hole in the ground is attached to the ground and that's the end of the story. No control. No thermal inputs.
- changoplatanero 2y agowell this particular site has survived 98 years. I wonder if it ever got flooded and then restored or if it went the whole time without flood damage
- foobarian 2y agoMy whole childhood I dreamed of digging secret tunnels and chambers all throughout my future house and yard etc. Imagine my dismay when I found out about water table and ventilation :-(
- Terr_ 2y agoSimilar vibe: Finding out how little time astronauts actually got to spend in space.
- _giorgio_ 2y agoSewers can last millennia.
- gnicholas 2y agoPresumably this wouldn't work in areas that flood, but Fresno isn't one of them. I also wondered about earthquakes, which are a risk in some parts of CA.
- eutropia 2y agoYT Comment from the video creator: > Since so many people have asked about what happens when it rains, here is Shera's response: "Baldassare actually put drainage systems in place! Many of the rooms are built on a grade and sump pits are placed in strategic areas throughout the Underground Gardens where the water is directed to collect and reuse. While it does get muddy underground, we do not deal with any serious flooding."
- fitsumbelay 2y agoThis is a great, very fascinating YouTube channel. Dirksen travels North America and Europe with her husband and 3 or 4 kids documenting home designs of all types. Lots of tiny homes in Los Angeles and California ( I believe one or two in Toronto ) as well as Western Europe. Her husband is from Catalunya so they've a bunch of clips from there. There's also one of a man who build a home sort of next to or inside a cave. The coolest clips by far are ones of ancient abandoned villages and compounds (I think one castle-like structure) in Spain, Portugal and Italy that individuals took over and converted into homes.
- y-c-o-m-b 2y agoI used to watch her videos back when she had very little followers. I'm glad to see she picked up so many subscribers, it's well deserved. I enjoy the way she interacts with the people because it seems more natural than the other heavily edited/pro formats.
- fitsumbelay 2y agoAgreed on all points. Her family is a big part of that casual interaction since they're young enough to be super active and curious. They seem to get on especially well with older subjects I only just discovered her during the pandemic and since then a lot of copy cat projects've popped up and moved on to bigger streaming platforms. I'd buy a DVD/Blu-Ray collection of her YouTubes
- johnohara 2y agoKirsten has a way of bringing out the enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and happy in people she interviews. A rare gift that she combines with superb editing.
- gsuuon 2y agoI really like her content, especially the earthship videos. The 'home engineering' that goes into these buildings is awesome. Though I'll probably never get to build one, would happily play a game based on this (like some sort of physics based survival game? Is this a thing?)
- Mistletoe 2y agoVery Uncle Owen on Tattoine vibe, I love it. Moisture farmers.
- ianbicking 2y agoTotally off topic, but what is happening with YouTube ads? I'm getting 30 to 90 second unskippable videos before every video. This time it gave me two in a row. If I go to another tab it starts over, often with a longer ad.
- ynac 2y agoSearch for the video in DuckDuckGo, flip to video, and watch it in there. No commercials.
- PessimalDecimal 2y agoI had started to think YT ads were getting worse recently but had convinced myself it was a frequency illusion. Interesting that others seem to be thinking that same thing though...
- kjkjadksj 2y agoThey came out and said they are making them worse, its not an illusion.
- FactKnower69 2y agoaddressed somewhat to HN commenters in general and not just to you: it's okay to trust your first hand observations and real life experience from time to time instead of constantly reaching for increasingly complicated explanations for why you must be wrong when your experience doesn't match the data you've been fed
- meroes 2y agoDo you also notice Google results getting even worse very recently? I noticed now besides retailers, I get news sites. Maybe it’s because of the election. It’s either product or news sites exclusively. Election or not, those two sites have the highest amount of ads.
- kergonath 2y agoNo, they are getting worse. But it has changed progressively so there is not really a point in time when it went significantly worse rapidly (except if you’re collateral damage in the cat-and-mouse game with ad blockers). But comparing across several years it is hard to ignore.
- jweir 2y agoThis is wonderful – however I feel a bit sad that is a museum rather than an active place people live. So many examples of wonderful architecture in California, but they are museums, and around them are built sub par structures.
- changoplatanero 2y agoI think you can rent it out as an event space if you wanted to have your wedding there!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chiph 2y agoNot just California - The Alamo in San Antonio is surrounded by cheap tourist stores. It was run by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas for years and they did a great job but didn't have any influence over the zoning around the Mission. It is now run by the Alamo Trust and they have a plan and the ability to restore the plaza area around it. https://www.thealamo.org/support/alamo-plan https://www.thealamo.org/support/alamo-plan
- leetrout 2y agoI visited in 2002 and my lasting memory: giant tourist trap.
- Hnrobert42 2y agoThere might be lots of cool actively inhabited houses. If they are actively inhabited, we wouldn't know they exist.
- jgale 2y agoFwiw, there is an established community of people experimenting with underground homes in the western United states. These are places where folks actually live and the curious can rent for a short term. https://earthship.com/ https://earthship.com/
- hosh 2y agoI was passing through Fresno last week, on the way back from a family trip. I'll have to check it out. The California High Speed Rail is being constructed, so hopefully, by the next trip, I can just pop into Fresno via HSR.
- TaylorAlexander 2y agoAccording to Wikipedia the first section, which includes Fresno, is currently expected to commence service in 2030-2033. Hope you have another trip before then! Don’t feel too bad though. I’m simply waiting for them to continue the Bay Bridge bicycle path from Yerba Buena Island to San Francisco (completing the Oakland to SF bicycle path) and that’s also not slated for completion till 2030.
- hosh 2y agoI hope so too! We drove through Merced and saw the new line in and around town. I guess I wasn't paying attention in Fresno.
- TheRealPomax 2y agoHotel, not home. It may have started as "man was not meant to live in these temperatures" but it turned into a phenomenally ahead-of-its-time idea. We went there a few years ago and it's insane that what you see is only half of what he did: the family was stupid enough to buy half and then destroy it "to use the land". In the category "not understanding what you have", this one's up there.
- jvandreae 2y agoAlso covered by Huell Howser, if you are a fan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b645RQuD6lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b645RQuD6lI
- DoubleDerper 2y agoThe Boring Co. could have a new consumer market on its hands helping people excavate underground as they seek cooler temperatures.
- supportengineer 2y agoExactly. I think the Boring company has unlimited opportunity. In the future, everything will be underground
- ggm 2y agoYou've been watching "the 12 monkeys" ? Or just read PKD's "The Penultimate Truth" ? Or even just "Terminator" because that seems to be about humanity's life underground. Or even the polish film "sexmission" from 1984. Or maybe Stanslaw Lem's "memoir found in a bathtub" about the pentagon 5 layers deep underground...
- mejutoco 2y agoOne of those is not like the others
- guenthert 2y agoNot sure about the American southwest, but here in Europe we not only have heat waves, but also periods of heavy rain causing (more and more) severe flooding. I rather see everything on stilts in the future ;-/
- EnigmaFlare 2y agoHow could there be a world where mechanized tunnel boring is feasible but air conditioners aren't?
- ornornor 2y agoHoles stay dug (for the most part), AC needs energy to keep working.
- 2y ago
- peterbecich 2y agoWikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestiere_Underground_Gardens
- Thorentis 2y agoThe closest thing to minecraft in real life I have ever seen.
- about3fitty 2y agoI have been both to this site and to Coober Pedy, South Australia. Pretty neat bit of architectural convergent evolution for extremely high temperature environments.
- illuminant 2y agoIt astounds me that these things do not catch on.
- rbanffy 2y agoI wonder if there aren’t zoning laws that create incentives for or against some of these approaches. In dry places the living space can be connected to rain-collecting cisterns that further help to reduce evaporation losses. When you free the surface to other uses, you can also generate power from wind or solar (and solar also helps to protect the top soil from evaporative losses).
- joshuanapoli 2y agoI think that underground or earth bermed homes are often failures. There are different water and ventilation concerns for these. An above ground home is pretty accessible for repairs, but these can be nearly impossible if the home is underground.
- bombcar 2y agoThis is what kills most "non-standard" homes and buildings - anywhere in the world. If you build an American-style house in Bavaria it may end up a disaster because nobody around knows the building materials or how to fix it. It gets even worse when it's entirely custom like this Skywalker style house, where it's a one-off using techniques nobody knows. You need a dedicated maintenance crew for that so they can learn all about it over time. So something like this could work for a largish company, or a college campus, but as a one-off house it's going to be expensive and eventually abandoned.