What are the unique traditional houses in the Loess Plateau? What are the main houses in the Loess Plateau?

What are the unique traditional houses in the Loess Plateau? What are the main houses in the Loess Plateau?

The caves are located in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region of China, and the loess layer is very thick, some of which are tens of meters 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 dwelling is an ancient form of living for residents of the Loess Plateau in northern China. In the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region of China, the loess layer is very thick, some of which are tens of meters 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. In the past, a farmer worked hard all his life, and his basic wish was to build several caves. Marrying a wife in a kiln is a family business. Men dig in the yellow soil, and women do housework and have children in caves. 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.

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 are in the same direction as mountains, avoiding wet and dry, avoiding 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.

How to dig a cave?

Cave dwelling is an earth building in architecture, which is characterized by harmonious coexistence between man and nature, simple and easy maintenance, material saving, durability, warm in winter and cool in summer. But is his digging really as simple as we thought? Although in recent years, with the continuous development of economy, more people abandon kilns and fewer people build kilns, we can find that the width of single-hole caves is generally between 3.3 and 3.7 meters, the height is between 3.7 and 4 meters, and the intersection is between 0.3 and 0.4 meters. Depth1.7m to1.9m, horizontal pile height1.8m to 2m, arch height1.7m to1.8m.

Although I didn't have the honor to see the cave construction process, I saw the cave being built and learned that modern caves were basically transformed on the basis of ancestors. We know their excavation methods from their workshops and materials.

The first is to dig the foundation: after the cave orientation is determined, start digging the foundation. The foundation of a cave is the type of cave you dug first. If there is a ditch in front of the door, you can dig up the soil and push it into the ditch with a shelf car, which is convenient and labor-saving. If you want to dig a pit yard, poor families or terrain are not conducive to mechanized construction, and you have to rely on manpower to carry it one by one, which is very hard. In the past, when people built Zhuangzi, they only used the slack season and rainy days to dig and transport dirt, and moved it from dawn to dusk. During the squeezing time before and after meals, you can bear the weight once, the skin on your shoulders peels off again and again, and the cocoons on your hands grind up layer by layer; Often young and old are not idle; This generation can't finish it, and the next generation will continue to do it. After digging the general shape of the foundation, the surface must be trimmed and leveled, which is called "cliff scraping surface" by locals. If the scraper has good eyesight, skill, hand strength and strength, it can scrape wonderful patterns on the loess.

The second is to hit the cave. After digging the foundation and scraping the cliff surface, the kiln was opened. Kiln drilling is to dig out the shape of the hole and carry the soil away. You can't rush into the cave, because the soil is full of water and it is easy to collapse. After the cave is completed, there will be a submerged kiln, or a "pick kiln" or a "grinding kiln". Pick out the arch from the top of the kiln and scrape the edge of the kiln, so that the kiln is completed. When the cave is dry, the mud kiln is made of loess, chopped wheat straw and soil. The mud in the mud kiln is only reinforced with dry soil, and the plane made of mud is smooth and flat. Wet soil and muddy adhesion are not easy to use. The mud kiln has at least two layers of mud, one layer of coarse mud, one layer of fine mud and three layers of mud. If you live for a long time in the future, the kiln wall will be black and muddy again.

The third step is to tie gables and install doors and windows. After the kiln mud is finished, the gables, doors and windows are tied with earth pendants. Generally, the high window is installed on the door, and the low window is installed side by side with the door, with one door and two windows. A kang stands by the window inside the door, and a chimney stands by the wall outside the door. The kang by the window is for smoking quickly, which is beneficial to the cave environment and health. It is also good for women to do needlework on the hot kang.

After these steps of excavation and arrangement, the cave is basically dug.

The caves dug by people have unique life value and cultural connotation. It is stronger and more durable. There are hundreds or even thousands of caves in the local area. There is also a folk saying: "There are caves that don't leak for a hundred years, and there is no house that doesn't leak for a hundred years." The vault structure of the cave conforms to the mechanical principle, and the roof pressure is divided into two parts, which are divided into two sides, with stable center of gravity, balanced components and strong stability. In order to live in peace of mind, wooden burdens are often used to support the kiln roof in caves. After several generations, through thick and thin, it has changed hands several times, and it has not lost its residential value.

However, with the development of economy, more and more caves are abandoned and few caves are excavated. This mining method will become less and less known and has become a trend. But I still hope that when these caves exist and someone digs them, I will keep some materials. I hope this spirit can be passed on, so that we China people can understand and love our culture.