I don't really remember why it was a thing, but I think I remember that it was because having a house underground-ish -- say, with just one face of the house exposed -- kept the house at earth temperature, which was generally a good thing -- no need to heat, nor cool. I think at the time maybe people were talking about heating bills??
If all that makes sense, could we do it again?
I always thought that it was awful to force humans underground -- like with subways -- but if it's a matter of survival...
What is threatening your survival that you feel you need to live underground?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy
I don't think it's something we will transition to in general "for survival" though. Building regulations should just catch up and enforce appropriate insulation levels and building methods for the given environments.
It's definitely a good option, but you're going to be pushing the boundaries of your local contractors and the materials you can source and or hire a crew to install. If you're motivated, there are any number of ways to construct these dwellings, but the most interesting and appealing method that I saw was one made like a commercial warehouse. It was in Virginia, maybe around Roanoke in the mountains, but the owner used steel warehouse trusses and a dexpan roof (poured concrete over a substrate like corrugated metal). Since it was a known method, he hired a commercial crew to do it and they didn't have a problem iirc other than getting the crane down his driveway. Istr I found this on the break time finehomebuilding forums...
The answer is hell yes, either way :p
It’s hurricane o’clock presently in phoenix, and my internal organs should be cooked by dinner time. You might say that I’m therefore on board with out-of-the box ideas, like being mole people.
Versus this? Yes! Absolutely. Let’s use the cold ground for thermodynamic comfort, before it is ultimately a final destination.
There's a reason I can think of that it might not work so well again. Lots of non-human animals survived the cold quite well, so there was game for those ancient ancestors to hunt, but there might be much less game surviving in great heat.
In the winter, it's still a minor win, the half the house with the dug in brick wall wants to be ground temperature (say 60F), which is still higher than air temperature... but its difficult to get it heated up to temps i can live with (72F).
Much thermal mass that has inertia.
Moisture and mold etc are problems even with some extreme measure against direct water incursion. We've got river rock / french drain type gravel between the house wall and actual dirt, on the buried side. That's in addition to some heavy sealant on that side of that wall. Without that, if the dirt came up to the wall; there'd be constant water seepage on the inside of the brick wall. I know, it happened; we dug the dirt back out and refilled with the river rock. fiddly backhoe work that.
in the summer that wall will collect condensation water if we let the house humidity get too high. in the spring and fall when we open windows and don't run the air conditioner that wall can be moist to the touch.