TEST 3
SECTION 4-1

Good morning.In the last few lectures I've been talking about the history of domestic building construction.But today I want to begin looking at some contemporary,experimental designs for housing.So,I'm going to start with a house which is constructed more or less under the ground.And one of the interesting things about this project is that the owners - both professionals but not architects - wanted to be closely involved,so they decided to manage the project themselves.Their chief aim was to create somethere that was as environmentally-friendly as possible.But at the same time they wanted to live somewhere peaceful - they'd both grown up in a rural area and disliked urban life.

So the first thing they did was to look for a site.And they found a disused stone quarry in a beautiful area.The price was relatively low,and they liked the idea of recycling the land,as it were.As it was,the quarry was an ugly blot on the landscape,and it wasn't productive any longer,either.

They consulted various architects and looked at a number of designs before finally deciding on one.As I've said,it was a design for a sort of underground house,and it was built into the earth itself,with two storeys.The north,east and west sides were set in the earth,and only the sloping,south-facing side was exposed to light.That was made of a double layer of very strong glass.There were also photovoltaic tiles fixed to the top and bottom of this sloping wall.These are tiles that are designed to store energy from the sun.And the walls had a layer of foam around them too,to increase the insulation.