Chinese Dijiao (Cellar) Courtyard

The Dijiao Courtyard, located in Pinglu County, Yuncheng Prefecture, Shanxi Province, China. It is a unique residence on a loess plateau. The courtyard was built below ground level, on average 10 meters deep. Dotted by trees, it remains warm in winter and cool in summer. The courtyard is seen as a legacy of history. There are still quite a lot of older people living in the courtyard.

There is a Chinese proverb to describe the characteristic of the cellar:

     There is no mountain when raise the mountain

     There is no courtyard when get into the courtyard

Smoke spiral from the ground

Suddenly you can hear the cockcrow

The reason why people built the Dijiao Courtyard was due to the height above the sea level is around 1000meters (where London is 12meters only) in Shanxi Province and has the strong sand storm years ago, as there is a short supply of stone block, people have to dig big holes from the ground to became an underground architecture and people still keeping in use today.

(Some of the cellar were more than a hundred meter square, but it also has small one which only occupied around 20 meter square.)

After a big hole dig from the ground, people needed to dig the "main room" and the other rooms they need.(Sizes and numbers of the rooms varied by the size of the cellar.) At the corner of the cellar, a long hole horizontally needed use as the pathway connect to the ground(entrance) and the courtyard.

Room which faced to the sun where people usually built at the center used for living, the other rooms on two side used for storage and private livestock. 

                        

                        

         

          

People used the main room for all the indoor activities, for example: cook, eat, sleep and receive visitors all in one room. Newspaper and fabric were use for prevent the dust from the wall. 

The reason why I researched about the Chinese Dijiao Courtyard was due this kind of architecture is undercover. It is hard to realize it from outside unless you already stand at the edge of the hole or drop into it accidentally. And this problem can protect people who live inside. With fill with full food storage, have all facilities for living etc.

Artificial Island/ Man-made Island

I personally think that artificial islands/islets would become one of the results if human have to live in a world with zombies. Even though we don’t have time to build one when we are going to escape, but we can build some before that day would come. Therefore, I did some research about the Man- made Islands and see how people performed in those islands.

Artificial Island:

• is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means.
• They are created by expanding existing islets, construction on existing reefs, or amalgamating several natural islets into a bigger island. 

 In modern times artificial islands are usually formed by land reclamation.

The largest artificial island: Rene-Levasseur Island, was formed by flooding of two adjacent reservoirs. (resent developments have been made more in the manner of oil platforms).

Artificial island vary from different size:

        1.         small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of building or structure.  

        2.         Support entire communities and cities.

Artificial islands are an expensive but in some cases incrative option for many cities having lack-of –land problems. E.g. Tokyo’s Odaona&Fukuoka’s island city project.

                         
                           Here, I studied the Hashima Island in Japan which it already has been abandoned now.

The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility. The island’s most notable features are the abandoned and undisturbed concrete apartment buildings and the surrounding sea wall.

(Concrete walls used to protect the whole island from waves or any other damages from the ocean.)

They Built Japan’s first large concrete building(9 stories high), a block of apartments in 1916 to accommodate their burgeoning ranks of workers. Concrete was specifically used to protect against typhoon destruction. A society grew here during the 20^th century, with schools, kindergartens, shops, cinema, restaurants, hospital, hotel, temple and graveyard.

Block 65,where all people lived inside this large concrete building. (The Japan’s first large concrete building.)

         In 1959, the 6.3-hectare (16-acre) island’s population reached its peak of 5,259, with a population density of 835 people per hectare(83,500 people/km²) for the whole island, or 1,391 per hectare (139,100 people/km²) for the residential district. Here, people were cramped up on an area roughly a square meter and a half per person.

         The island closed down in 1974, today it is empty and bare, it is called Ghost Island. Travel to Hashima was re-opened on April 22, 2009 after 35 years of closure.

                                         Complex staircases connected to different floor levels.

     The staircase called “stairs to the hell”, it was the stairs connected to all the places you need to go, run through the whole island.

Link of the website of Hashimi Island: http://www.hashima-island.co.uk/#

Link of a person talked about his life in Hashimi Island before with his whole family: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okRUrxvngCc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Interest on the site: Greenwich Foot tunnel (good place to hide and use as a refugee)

A good place for hide and survive from the walkers should be undercover and also strong enough to protect the human inside. I think in this area, the Greenwich foot tunnel could be a suitable pre-built building for human to survive. It’s underneath the water (Zombies are afraid of water, they can’t swim!) and which is invisible from the outside; its inner area is very big; entrance/exit can be blocked but still have good ventilation; linking Greenwich in the south with the Isle of Dogs to the north.

The Greenwich Foot Tunnel crosses beneath the River Thames in East London, linking Greenwich (Royal Borough of Greenwich) in the south with the Isle of Dogs (London Borough of Tower Hamlets) to the north. The tunnel is currently open while refurbishment works continue on the entrance shafts and domes.

The entrance shafts at both ends lie beneath glazed domes, with lifts (installed in 1904, upgraded in 1992) and helical staircases allowing pedestrians to reach the sloping, tile-lined tunnel at the bottom. ----------- (Source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_foot_tunnel)

This image can explain how can people get into the tunnel from the lift in the middle of the domes and also can use the spiral staircases. 

The cast-iron tunnel itself is 1,215 feet (370.2 m) long and 50 feet (15.2 m) deep^[4] and has an internal diameter of about 9 feet (2.74 m). Its cast-iron rings are lined with concrete which has been surfaced with some 200,000 white glazed tiles. The northern end was damaged by bombs during the Second World War and the repairs included a thick steel and concrete inner lining that reduces the diameter substantially for a short distance.--------(Source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_foot_tunnel)

 

( The northern end was damaged by bombs during the Second World War and the repairs included a thick steel and concrete inner lining that reduces the diameter substantially for a short distance.)

 The Tunnel is classed as a public highway and therefore by law is kept open 24 hours a day. The tunnels are accessible by spiral staircases and large lifts 24 hours a day. The cyclists are required to dismount and push their bikes through the tunnel itself.
I've shot a short video showing how was the tunnel looks like inside:

The Greenwich foot tunnel also been used as a scene in the zombie movie <28 weeks later > where as a route for the protagonists escaped from the zombies and the bomb.