Most people believe that desert areas are not meant for habitation. It would seem that the sparse landscape and temperature changes do not contribute to comfort at all. These five houses built in the desert fundamentally challenge conventional wisdom.

1. Modular house

In the desert area of ​​the park Joshua Tree(Southern California, USA) is an original house consisting of two modules facing each other at an angle of 90 degrees. To the manufacturing company Blu Homes it took just eight weeks to completely build the house in a factory, then truck it to its destination and complete the necessary finishing touches. Photovoltaic panels are located on the canopy, which creates the necessary shade for the owners of the home. A rainwater collection system has also been installed.

2. “A piece of paradise” in the desert

Architect Albert Frey ( Albert Frey) built a small abode for himself in the Californian city of Palm Springs. The house looks like a natural extension of the hill. The architect spent more than one month searching for a suitable location. The house, with an area of ​​only 75 square meters, has transparent glass panels instead of walls, blurring the boundaries between the interior and the surrounding nature. Albert Frey calls his Frey House II a piece of paradise in Palm Springs.

3. Container house

It took five shipping containers to build the house. EcoTech with an area of ​​213 square meters in the Mojave Desert. For creating comfortable temperature in housing, architects and designers 44 West Construction covered the roof with green decking made from local plants. It absorbs sunlight, preventing the roof from heating up. In addition, the walls in the house are triple insulated.

4. Personal unfinished construction

It took aspiring architect Aaron D’Innocenzo 8 years to build his dream home in the desert ( Jackrabbit Wash). The 145 square meter home heats and cools itself, thanks to a natural ventilation system and passive design principles. The architect performed almost all the work himself.

5. House with “sombrero”

Company Bluff together with students from the University of Colorado Denver, she designed small house in the Navajo Desert. One of the architects noted that in the desert everyone should wear a sombrero against the sun, and the house should be no exception. Roof of a house with a canopy Skow Residence really looks like a hat.
They will also be another confirmation of how you can live comfortably in the middle of a lifeless space.

“We’re going to Sid, tomorrow we’re going to Sid” - you fall asleep with this thought and anticipate that you’ll wake up with it too, and it will be that same tomorrow, and we’ll be in it. And so it happens, and at first Sid means leaving the city and ice cream in a special foam box, three servings for each. The first - we are in the car, waiting for mom. She checks to see if they forgot to lock front door. Then the car starts moving, our windows pass by. They glow, but it’s the sun, we’re not at home. The second is a ruined fortress on the seashore. I climb the tower and look far away. The sky is shining, the sun is reflected from the sea with thousands of sparkling blades; I try not to squint; A sharp white sail is moving along the horizon, under the overhanging sky. A cool red drop drips onto your fingers, then another - the ice cream melts. Third portion - we'll arrive soon, the sun is sinking into the sand. Sid are dunes to the right and left of the highway, and behind them are ridges of hills that look like stale bread. Sid is an unexpected patch of bright green grass here, it smells of stagnant water, a little further you can see the skeleton of a truck, ants are swarming in the former engine. The older I get, the closer the word “Sid” comes to the man who, seeing our car coming around the bend, rises from his dented straw chair under the acacia tree and waves to us.

We get out of the car and the doors slam. I try to take a breath, but I can't feel the air entering my lungs. Living beings die in such a situation, but this does not happen to us. The hot air just fills us; and we would take off like Balloons, but it’s just as hot around here, so we stay on the ground and head towards the house. Sid shouts to us: “Welcome!”

The road ends at Sid’s house and touches his front garden with tongues of cracked asphalt. The desert is everywhere, we are in it, but the road is surrounded by hills, and this is not visible. To understand where we are, we need to walk around the house or go into it and look out the window opposite the entrance. And then you see another horizon, not sparkling, but absorbing light in the line that separates the sky from what approaches it. The wind blows from there, carrying dust into the house - it pours out of cracks in the plaster walls, lies on the floor - whitish and transparent. On the bathroom door, the previous owners of the house - some kind of bankrupt geological office, it seems - even posted a sign: “Before entering the shower, shake the sand out of your head.” I automatically run my hand through my hair and hear the sound of hundreds of grains of sand falling to the floor. Dad says that one day the plaster house will be filled to the top with sand, and in winter it will rain heavily, and the plaster house will melt in it like a cube of yellowed refined sugar. Sid invites us to drink lemonade.

Early in the morning we go behind the house to see what the wind has brought during the night. The sun has just risen, and the space in front of us is lined with gray-blue shadows - from the house, from the hills, from the clouds sliding across the sky that has not yet separated from the earth, brightening from within, from us. I turn around and look at the house. On this side it is indeed covered with sand almost to the windows. We walk along the facade and look at our feet, looking for the “catch” - what was left lying when the wind retreated to the horizon. We find a dried plant with branches towards the house. On other mornings, Sid found rusted tin cans, burst helium balloons, sanded teeth of small animals, a square mirror, a crumpled postcard with a tower by a mountain river, pebbles with shellfish bodies imprinted on them, a photograph of a boy on a wooden horse, gun casings, worn-out coins , scraps of wool. One day he discovered the skeleton of a medium-sized bird - with folded wings and a “compact” head lying neatly between them. It looked like a watch in a glass case, inside of which its entire mechanism was visible. Sid entered the house, holding it in his palms, and saw that a bird was darting about in the room - a nondescript, pockmarked bird with a curved beak. A few seconds later she flew out the window facing the road, on the leeward side. Sid stood in the room with a skeleton in his hands, and then swung and threw it out the opposite window - for symmetry. The skeleton lay there for several days, and then disappeared somewhere. Since then, Sid has not kept anything he found behind the house; he has returned everything to the sand. “An empty house is a point of balance,” he said. Another time, on a dune that had formed by morning behind the house, he discovered a living bird - wounded with a broken wing. He brought her into the house and placed her in a cardboard box. The wound gradually healed; the bird lived with him for several years. In the morning he sat her on the windowsill, always on the window that looked out onto the front garden and the road. She spent there long hours, moved reluctantly. When we visited Sid, we drove up to his house, I noticed her cautious profile, her black wide-open eye above the window frame. The bird also became "Sid". When she died, her body, which Sid discovered in the morning in a cardboard box, was shriveled, dull - almost a skeleton. Sid buried this bird in the front garden, under an acacia tree.

One morning Joseph came out of the desert. It so happened that I noticed him first. Sid gave me his binoculars and I was just setting them up. There was sand in the binoculars, too, and everything I saw - dunes, dunes, ridges of hills to the right and left of me - was under a sandy shower and had no clear outlines. Suddenly, a blurry yellow dot appeared right in front of me. I tried to see it without binoculars, but I only saw a grain of sand, brighter than the rest. I could not determine how far away she was from me. Finally, I managed to set up the binoculars. The sandy shower behind the lenses did not stop, but I saw a man approaching us from the desert. We met him behind the house. The man became bigger and bigger. He was barefoot, wearing canvas hiking pants that were torn at the knees and, for some reason, wearing a yellow shirt with some kind of bears, trains, stars, and flowers. I looked at them without looking away. Joseph slowly approached, I saw tangled, bleached hair, red skin, black, cracked lips and mica-like, motionless eyes. We set him up in the house, under a fan, and gave him water. Two days later, Joseph smiled, told us his name, said that winter was coming, and so it was, but we didn’t find out anything more about him. True, there was no one to find out, because we soon returned home, and Sid, it seems, did not try to find out anything.

The next time we headed out into the desert, it was winter. I was driving the car, my parents were sitting in the back seat. On the way, I bought them ice cream. When, late in the evening, a familiar house finally appeared around the bend, Joseph rose from his straw chair under the acacia tree and waved his hand to us. He treated us to lemonade and told us that Sid had left - not long after us: Joseph woke up one morning and Sid was nowhere to be found and his things were gone. However, he did not have things in every sense of the word. We were sitting under an acacia tree, and a gray dog ​​on three legs came out of the house, hobbled towards us, lay down heavily by the straw chair, and put its muzzle on Joseph’s shoe. I went into the house and went to the opposite window; sand spilled over the windowsill.

***
We return after dark. Mom looks for the key in her bag, can’t find it, even dumps its contents on the steps - there is no key. “He probably stayed in the desert,” says dad. “There’s nothing left!” I take the key out of my jacket pocket and hand it to my mother. It has gotten colder, but the key is warm to the touch.

_____
Subject:
“A shirt with yellow flowers and four cucumbers” from

The houses of Africa and the dwellings of the Indians are very interesting, original, and in some ways even stylish.

However, when creating housing, the Indians themselves are guided primarily by the principles dictated to them by natural conditions. What is at hand is used. More precisely, what is most practical and does not contradict the principles of nationality.

According to tradition, in African villages, the work of building Indian houses is assigned to men, but the final and decorative stages are the prerogative of women, who cover Indian houses with straw, strengthen them with leaves, and coat them with special materials.

Semi-deserts are characterized by a shortage of wood, so Indian dwellings are built mainly from:

• stone;
• clay;
• herbs;
• bushes.

Palm trees and cotton stalks are popular in savannas. But bamboo and palm leaves are popular in forests.

In addition to these materials, there are also others that are auxiliary. They can even be manure, materials, animal skins.

Large settlements in Africa, which were formed in the last hundreds of years, are rebuilt by special hired builders who carry out construction work for some payment.

Typically, houses in Africa do not have windows because residents rarely stay at home.

Mostly they hunt animals, have fun on the street, but only take refuge in houses for the time allowed for sleep. Dwellings also serve as shelter from bad weather, which happens quite rarely in Africa.

Some Indian dwellings may be equipped with clay benches, which help warm the room.

These buildings are typical for mountainous areas where the temperature can drop quite quickly. such is that many houses are decorated from the inside with clay patterns that women create with their own hands.

Round houses in Africa

Most often found in Africa round houses, which can have different wall heights and differ in various shapes.

Just as often you can find buildings that have not just a roof, but an integral complex of roof and walls.

This option is quite reliable, but at home in in this case can have a round shape, and the door is located at the bottom and be very low. Most often, such buildings can be found in areas where there is a tropical climate.

In other places, the roofs for Indian dwellings are different, sloping, and may contain an additional exit. Such buildings are decorated inside, and patterns and various ornaments are used as decorations, for which stones, clay and other natural materials are used.

Different people build round houses in different ways. Somewhere you can see windows, but somewhere you can’t even find doors. More precisely, there are entrances to such houses, but they are “dug” into the ground.

Rondavel is a house that can be found in northern and southern Africa. It can be quite large and reliable.

The walls are usually built of stone, and the covering is made of dung, sand, earth and clay. From above these Indian dwellings are covered with special building materials for protection from external destructive factors.

Indian dwellings and African houses - huts

The peoples of Africa, such as the Bushmen, are accustomed to leading a nomadic lifestyle. Therefore, houses are usually built from the simplest materials, such as dry coarse grass.

It is also held together with grass, but its content is more elastic. At the same time, there are peoples who do not engage in construction at all, but simply hide inside the recesses of the rocks, in caves.

You can also find portable houses that “fold out”, and they are more likely to be wicker than simply folding.

The hut has a number of features:

• it is built by women;
• construction time is short - 1-2 hours;
• first, a hemispherical frame is created;
• then the frame is secured on top with branches on which the reeds are folded;
• then a hole is dug inside the hut;
• A fire is lit in the center.

It is also interesting that they play a big role, but it is the nomadic peoples who are accustomed to making the main symbol fire, which protects them.

Dwellings and houses of Africa in caves

Desert inhabitants most often live in caves, and they do not need to roam in order to consider the cave option as their main shelter.

Troglodytes (Berbers) live in the Sahara, and it is on the slopes of the sandy peaks that they create their homes, digging caves right in the sands.

The main advantage of such a dwelling in a cave is the ability to stay cool during the heat, and to stay warm during the onset of cold.

The caves can easily have several floors, and you have to move between them using channels. Such buildings are dug quickly, and furniture, beds and shelves can be made by simply digging a hole in the wall.

Recently, such caves have been created not only by local residents, but also by those who want to make money. So, restaurants and hotels are now being built in a similar way.

Seeing a caravan of camels walking through the desert is a sign that foreshadows help at the very last moment, when you find yourself on the verge of collapse. Wandering through the desert in a dream with all your strength, exhausted from heat and thirst, means you will be overcome by doubt for which there is no basis. Meeting a white polar bear in the desert means misunderstanding at work, confusion in feelings and complete confusion in family affairs. Finding yourself in the desert at night and suffering from cold and hunger - in reality your reputation will be seriously tested. Coming across an oasis in the desert means that in reality you will act completely unpredictably.

Interpretation of dreams from the Dream Interpretation alphabetically

Dream Interpretation - Desert

To see in a dream a desert up to the horizon, unanimated by anything, means, after a long wait, to give up hope for something that was especially dear.

Wandering through the desert means doubts and failures in business.

Meeting a wanderer means poverty and hunger.

Feeling your loneliness in the desert in a dream means learning about a threat to your reputation in reality (if a young girl is having a dream).

Interpretation of dreams from

As is known, peoples of Africa are very diverse in shape, layout and materials used for construction. And if the shape and layout of dwellings most often depend on certain ethnic traditions, then the choice is dictated, as a rule, by natural and climatic conditions, as well as by the way of life of the African people ( sedentary or nomadic). So, in semi-deserts they use stone, clay, low grasses and shrubs; in savannas - palm trees, cotton and millet stalks; in forest areas - bamboo, raffia, rattan, ficus and banana leaves. Africans also use silt, manure, mats, fabrics and animal skins to furnish their homes.

Today, in African cities, the work is predominantly carried out by professionals, but in rural areas, the main work of building houses is still carried out by male heads of households, and it is completed by women, who cover the structure with straw and leaves, plaster it and decorate it.

The main part of African life is spent outdoors - this is where the hearth is located, women do household chores, and men do crafts and hunting. A house is needed mainly for lodging and shelter from bad weather. For this reason, the bulk of traditional African homes do not have windows. The only exceptions are some regions of Africa with a cooler climate (mountainous regions of Ethiopia, Cameroon and Nigeria), where houses are equipped not only with windows, but also with heated beds. This one consists of adobe benches with a firebox, decorated with stucco ornaments and painted with geometric patterns.

Round African houses

In Africa, the dominant shape is a cone with an oval or round base. In different regions, different round houses are built, which may differ from each other in the height of the walls, the slope of the roof, the presence of windows and decoration. In some places, houses are decorated with paintings and carvings, while in others the appearance of the houses is quite simple and monotonous. In the simplest type of house, the roof and walls are inseparable from each other: they are usually woven from tree branches or reeds, they have no windows and are equipped with only one low entrance. to his appearance such huts resemble bee hives. Similar structures are characteristic of tropical regions of Africa.

If we turn to the northern borders of Africa, we can see that here architectural art has reached much greater heights. Since time immemorial, huts have been built here with folding doors decorated with elaborate carvings and relief bronze plates. However, it should be noted that such houses belonged exclusively to African rulers. The common people lived in simpler houses.

One of the most famous representatives of the round ones is rondavel, which is mostly common in countries South Africa. Typically, a rondavel is made from materials that are available in nature. Most often, the walls are built from stone, and the “cement mortar” is made from earth, sand, or a mixture of both with manure. In order for the floor surface to be smooth, it is treated with a manure-containing mixture.

The frame of the rondavel is built using tree branches, cleared of knots, or beams made from round timber. The finished frame is covered with reeds, which are attached to the base using grass ropes. Depending on the complexity of the structure, making a roof can take from 1 day to a whole year, since the work is done from the bottom up, and only one section can be tied at a time.

Huts - African houses for nomadic peoples

The migrations and wandering lifestyle that some African peoples lead (for example, the Bushmen) do not require durable dwellings and permanent settlements. In this case, an ordinary hut or a primitive one, which most often has a traditional hemispherical shape, is sufficient. Natural caves or depressions in the ground often serve as shelter for nomads, if, of course, they are nearby.

In nomadic tribes, women have been involved in the construction of covered huts for centuries. Usually it takes no more than 1-2 hours to build a hut. First, a hemispherical frame is constructed from branches that are tied at the top, and then the structure is covered with reeds, grass or mats. Inside such huts there are small depressions in the ground that serve as a bed and a hearth. It is interesting that for many African nomads the symbol of home is fire, but not a hut. In the cool season, the fire in the hearth is maintained all night, and the next morning it is covered with ash.

Moving from one place to another, Africans often return to places rich in food and sources of water, but never live in their previous settlements, but build new ones. For parking, as a rule, those places where there are large trees are chosen - their shade can provide shelter from the hot sun. Most often, huts are located around trees. The average size of such a hut is 2 m in height and 2 m in diameter.

African caves are home to desert dwellers

In the Sahara, the housing issue is resolved somewhat differently than in other areas of Africa. here they look like deep earthen pits in which interior spaces and a courtyard are equipped. Today in the Sahara, on the hillsides there are many caves where Berbers (troglodytes) currently live.

The craters in which the caves are located can be quite large. In the middle of such a cave there is a courtyard - haush, the diameter of which is on average about 10 m, and around it there are rooms reaching up to 20 m in length. Berber dwellings often have several floors, and moving from one floor to another is often possible not according to the traditional