Earth-Sheltered House: A Case Study of Dobraca Village House near Kragujevac, Serbia

Abstract

This paper presents the case study of the authors’ design of the earth-sheltered house in Village Dobraca near Kragujevac, Serbia, in the context of development and some thermal properties of the underground housing. The historical insight, in brief, provides a better understanding of the reasons for their modern use as energy efficient and sustainable structures. It shows that underground houses even today are more thermally efficient than above ground houses since, besides earth, there is no need for new additional thermal layers. The article also includes a review of the representative physical forms of the underground housing through different periods, with the result of measurement of their main properties. The study of the underground housing structures provides an insight of the relation between the location and typology of underground homes in a contest of climate zones. These structures have an almost constant temperature, which provides the primary “comfort” condition in which the man is determined to live in. The results on property-based monitoring data showed that the earth-sheltered house could provide the thermal comfort that is close to the ideal human needs temperature. Today, the new materials and especially the solar, geothermal, and wind accessories, enables the maximum sustainability of these specific building structures and provides them with an even better energy efficiency.

Elevational Earth-Sheltered Buildings with Horizontal Overhang Photovoltaic-Integrated Panels—New Energy-Plus Building Concept in the Territory of Serbia

“…In the recent past, the energy, environmental, and economic performance of these buildings have been the subject of many studies and projects in different countries: Nigeria [44], China [45], Egypt [46], Russia [47], the USA [48], Brazil [49], Iran [50], etc. On the other side, the negligible presence of ESBs on the territory of Serbia (despite a certain number of works by Milanović [51,52] and Nešović [53,54]), both in traditional and contemporary architecture, has a multi-layered background: historical, cultural, sociological, economic, climatic, typological, and pedological. Although thermal comfort has been positively evaluated, high investment costs, problems with moisture, sound and visual effects, etc., have, in the past, created another negative background in terms of structural elements.…”

Comparison of temperature and humidity among traditional underground and modern house in Gharyan, Libya

“…As such, they are very simple in design and inexpensive to build. They achieve less energy consumption compared to aboveground dwellings with the help of passive cooling and heating techniques (Gabril, 2014;Milanović et al, 2018). The underground houses also contributed largely to the green building construction.…”

Fire statistics and risk analysis in wooden building structures in Serbia

“…Serbian building heritage includes wooden churches and monasteries as well as numerous historical buildings in rural and central urban areas, completely (walls, etc.) or partially (only roofs and ceilings) made by wood (Milanko et al 2014). Traditional buildings by local poplar wood and mud mixed with straw, covered and enforced by reed, are present in north region of Serbia, i.e.…”