1. Why the basement? The demands

1.1 Agricultural demand, from silo to underground warehouse

All agricultural civilizations have used natural or artificial cavities to keep perishable foodstuffs cool. Cool cellars have always been a family affair. Buried grain silos have been known in China for millennia, while the preservation of ice (winter or mountain) has been common practice in excavations called glacières (natural shafts in the limestone mountains of the Vercors or quarries in the Bièvre valley in Paris). Cheese and wine ripening also uses natural caves (in Roquefort, Aveyron) or specially dug galleries (in Champagne, but also in California). Rural housing uses a variety of solutions, depending on the relief and nature of the land. On flat ground, the cellar is dug under the house, but at the foot of a cliff,...