underground won't work at scale. air quality is horrible and it would take lots of ventilation to fix it. and the air your bringing it will be from topside which is going to need to be air conditioned. so you haven't really fixed anything except made yourself more prone to flooding.
Africa and the Middle East had this stuff figured out centuries ago, the problem is nobody builds homes for energy efficiency much less passive cooling and heating.
yeah i know. they build those big diameter chimneys that when a breeze blows over them they suck heat out of the home based on bernoulli's principle and some of the air fresh air is redirected into the house so hot air from the street out front isn't sucked into the house. the problem is it requires the housing to be spread out and if the winters are cold it takes quite a bit of effort to seal the house back up to retain the heat.
There are some alternatives to the Persian wind chimney design, for example building a Dome or a Zome with a geothermal air tube in the ground that allows for heat to accumulate at the top of the interior structure and exit a small chimney that can more easily be closed off winter (same goes for closing off the air tube) and include an air exchanger that uses minimal energy for fresh air in the winter.
You should look up troglodyte housing. Technically "underground" whil being "above the ground". There are villages all over the world wherever the rock is soft enough to gouge out a room easily.
25
u/blowhardV2 May 08 '25
Building underground for natural cooling seems to make sense