Exploring Houston’s Spatial Underground

Abstract

The subterranean exists in the popular imagination as a dark, damp space that is foreign and frightening. This research paper endeavors to explore if the claustrophobic can be made comfortable, by delving into the underground as an opportunity to rethink, re-imagine, and redefine what makes a space comfortable and welcoming. How can we inhabit the underground? How can the underground be made more inhabitable? By using a tripartite cumulative approach, this paper first looks at subterranean insect colonies, and then juxtaposes them with how humans inhabit the underground, and finally extracts a series of subversions leading to a catalog of architectural strategies that generate new perspectives and real-life applications to underground residences.

Introduction
Research Question

In popular media, the underground is often depicted as being home to villainous characters, with earthen colors and organic forms being used to visually represent the primitive “other” as the enemy. In contrast, sleek, brightly-lit, wide and white spaces are typically used to epitomize the technological achievements of the modern man, standing in as a representation of the protagonist’s “self”. An example would be the depiction of the Formics in the movie Enders’ Game as compared to that of human beings, with the Formics being the enemy residing in a natural landscape characterized by earthen mounds and mud tunnels, while the human protagonists train and thrive in a sterile, sleek, modern space. Similarly, in architecture, utopian ideals are depicted in clean white forms, as is the case in Super Studio’s Continuous Monument, while vernacular architecture comes up in scholarly discourse mostly as informal settlements or insalubrious housing, even though there exist many intelligent and highly efficient examples of vernacular architecture that operate on spatial organizations regionally optimized to best meet the needs of the area it serves. Why is this the case, and when has the comforting, natural associations with that which is organic and earthen, transition into them being synonymous with the villainous “other”? An obvious answer would be the introduction of technology and mankind’s relationship with machines and mechanical reproduction that fundamentally transformed entire societies and ways of living. But does, and should, negative stereotypes associated with the subterranean, continue to exist? Or is there something more?

This research paper explores if the claustrophobic can be made comfortable, by delving into the underground as an opportunity to rethink, re-imagine, and redefine what makes a space comfortable and welcoming. The following research questions are asked:

  • How can we inhabit the underground?
    What are the ways in which we can occupy subterranean spaces, and what are some existing technicalities of residing in underground spaces?
  • How can the underground be made more inhabitable?
    How can current modes of subterranean occupation be made more enjoyable? Are there perhaps new ways of looking at how we occupy the underground to improve its spatial qualities to ultimately culminate in more pleasant experiences?
Strategy

This study will take on a cumulative tripartite structure, moving from basic to compound analysis of the subject matter. As seen in the diagram above, the paper will begin with an overview of subterranean ant colonies and how spaces are navigated and created by various species of ants, as a literature review of a specific model of underground habitation. The paper will then move on to human modes of spatial underground occupation, specifically two case studies in Houston, that will be analyzed with the information uncovered in the first section about ant ecology, and constantly cross-referred and compared to allow for the two bodies of information to build on each other. The final section of the paper will focus on vacillation between the micro-world of ants and the macro-world of humans to arrive at “subversions”, or refreshed perspectives to derive strategies to spatially occupy the underground in new ways. This last section will culminate the study in fluid and dynamic compound analytic processes, moving back, forth and around all aspects of the study to synthesize and catalyze new paradigms of thought about the underground.

Methodology

The research was conducted through participant observation and interviews, as well as analysis of secondary source material.

Interviews were conducted on campus with Scott Solomon, a professor at Rice University’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, as well as Hugh Ton-That, Director of Plant Operations at Rice University. Participant observation was done through a visit to the Lamar Tunnel, one of the components of Houston’s Downtown Tunnel System, as well as three visits to Rice University’s Steam Tunnels, two being led by personnel and staff working at Central Plant, and one being an independent above-ground observation. A visit was also made to Houston’s Natural Science Museum to observe firsthand the famous plaster and aluminum cast models of ant colonies done by Walter Tschinkel.

Secondary research was done through extensive background reading on two leading ant biologists, E. O. Wilson, and Walter Tschinkel’s books, to obtain basic background biological knowledge of ant anatomies and social structures, which will be elaborated on in the next section.

The Underground at the Micro-Scale: Ants

The initial fascination with ants began from an examination of the extremely organized spatial hierarchy of a subterranean ant colony, that uncannily resembles diagrams of transportation networks at the human scale. Upon closer reading of the works of leading figures in the field of ant ecology, E. O. Wilson and Walter Tschinkel, one can uncover many fascinating facets of an ant’s life.

Planar View: Trunk Trails
Wilson, Edward O. and Holldobler, Bert. The Ants. (USA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Pg 285.

Even from a planar and external view, ants are hierarchical. Trunk trails are transportation routes, or “highways”, used by ants that are marked out by pheromones emitted from the bodies of the worker ants. An ant is more likely to follow a stronger pheromone trail as opposed to a weaker one, meaning that the roads more traversed become reinforced with each new traveler leaving behind more pheromones. Hence, the “dendritic”1 form of trunk trails, which starts as a “single thick pathway that splits first into branches and then into twigs”, represents an aggregation of the collective, resulting in a logic that is highly efficient and leverages upon the intelligence of the ant colony as a collective whole.

E. O. Wilson writes that “ants, like other social insects, have a universal tendency to aggregate”, with carbon dioxide being the “simplest chemical signal used in any known animal communication system”, and that “carbon dioxide gradients are used by the ants for orientation in the immediate vicinity of their nests.” Such use of a basic, elemental system that results in a network that is quite complex, is uncannily reminiscent of the bottom-up organization of informal settlements and some examples of vernacular urbanism. Perhaps the planar aggregation of ants, powered by pheromones and resulting in trunk trails, can be seen as bottom-up urban planning in its finest and purest iteration.

Sectional View: Casts and Castes
Tschinkel, Walter R. The Fire Ants. (USA: Harvard University Press. 2006) 

Things get fascinating in the sectional view, as can be seen from these plaster and aluminum casts by Walter Tschinkel of ant colonies, that help us to visualize the cavities of ant nests by turning them into positive space2. My interview with Scott Solomon, a Rice University Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor specializing in the study of ants, revealed that ants are biologically dramatically different from human beings due to their eusociality. Ants exist with an intricate division of labor which is similar to humans, but that extends to a reproductive division of labor that is not present in human society. In Solomon’s words, “humans are social, but not eusocial.”3 The implications of eusociality are that kin selection and relatedness lead to an altruism in the division of labor rarely seen in other organisms, as each individual ant has less impetus to reproduce and create offspring than to contribute to the colony as a sterile worker.

In an ant colony, social heterarchy translates to physical hierarchy. There is a vertical movement up the nest as can be seen from the clear hierarchy in the plaster cast, which parallels the life cycle of an ant. In the particular ant species of whose colonies Tschinkel’s casts depict, each ant’s life begins in the lowest chambers of the nest as larvae and workers, and slowly ascends toward the surface to the upper chambers. Hence, “the average age of workers increases steadily from the bottom to the top of the nest”4. Tschinkel writes that “in keeping with a centrifugal pattern found throughout most ant species, workers drift gradually away from the brood as they age. This vertical distribution assures the young workers engage primarily in brood care and as they age and drift upward out of the brood zone, their work will change appropriately to transport, seed care, and maintenance.” Hence, the social structures of ant colonies directly translate to the physical hierarchy of the nest itself in terms of how tunnels and chambers are dug out by different classes of ants, each going about their specialized role.

A Play in Scale: Collective vs. Individual
Wilson (1990) Pg 355 “Social homeostatis and flexibility”

On social hierarchy, or rather, heterarchy, Wilson writes that “an ant colony differs in basic organization from the ‘partitioned’ hierarchies of human armies and factories, in which instructions flow down parallel, independent groups of members through two or more levels of command. The colony is also a heterarchy, a hierarchy-like system of two or more levels of units with activity in the lower units feeding back to influence the higher levels. Finally, the highest level of the ant colony is the totality of its membership rather than a particular set of superordinate individuals who direct the activity of members at lower levels.”5

Indeed, notions of the collective and the individual become false dichotomies in an ant’s world, as they vacillate seamlessly from the scale of the individual to that of the collective. As can be seen from the drawing of a leaf-cutter ant’s nest, each fungus-growing chamber is massive even at the human scale, much less at the minute scale of an ant.

Symbiosis

Ants therefore exist in symbiosis both within their internal social structures and external physical environment. There are constantly seamless vacillations between the physical and the social, at different scales. At the scale of the individual, ants have biological developments such as specialized body parts and pheromones that correspond to their larger social role. At the scale of the collective, the physical hierarchy of the colony as well as physical manifestations of how the colony is thermoregulated and protected against external threats are accurate reflections of eusociality and the division of labor.

The Underground at the Macro-Scale: Humans
Downtown Tunnel System

The Downtown Tunnel System (DTS) is a comfortable respite from the heat of Houston, especially during the day. It replicates man-made conditions found above-ground that are commonly perceived to be pleasant, such as bright lighting, open spaces, and easy accessibility. In fact, the interior of DTS very much resembles that of a mall. During my visit, I started from the street entrance on 1000 Main to get into Lamar Tunnel, one of the many networks that comprise the Downtown Tunnel Systems, as can be seen from these maps:

As I took photographs documenting the different spaces within those tunnels, I discovered that much like the arteries and veins of the human circulatory network, the Downtown Tunnel System expands and contracts with the volume of pedestrian circulation that runs through it. There are moments of exceptionally spacious openings and moments of shrunken, tube-like tunnels depending on the program that is immediately in proximity.

Wide, High Ceiling: Public Space

The entrance to the tunnels has a visible connection to the street level while simultaneously being connected to the basement level. The double height space is key for allowing multiple levels to read, offering a clear view of the street level which also doubles up as clerestory-like windows for the underground level. Those skylights also allow for plenty of illumination, making the space feel very similar to any ground-floor space with an immediate connection to the street. Other similarly public spaces appear throughout Lamar Tunnel in the form of smaller pockets of connection to the above ground, such as escalators and elevators. These spaces are characterized by the high level of human flow as well as being extremely spacious vertically.

Wide, Single Height: Semi-Public Space

As one moves further into the tunnel, the ceiling becomes lower than the high ceilings at junctions and entrances, since it only serves a single direction of traffic flow rather than multiple, branched-out networks. This section of the tunnel contains restaurants and shops and still maintains a generous, albeit not double-story, ceiling height, since it is still heavily populated by people working downtown, especially during lunch hour. Hence, such spaces can be considered semi-public spaces, accessed not by all Houstonians, but by those privy to the amenities of DTS and those who choose to descend into the tunnels to enjoy lunch away from the surface heat.

Narrow, Single Height: Semi-Private Space

Branching off the main row of restaurants are individual tunnels that lead to office spaces. These spaces are well-renovated, nicely decorated, and brightly-lit, but do not offer any function other than for commuting purposes to specific offices. Therefore, these tunnels are utilized by a significantly smaller number of people as compared to the tunnels containing restaurants and shops. The semi-private quality of these spaces is clearly reflected in how they are much narrower.

Narrow, Low Ceiling: Private Space

If one wanders far enough along one of those semi-private tunnels, the ceilings get lower and the tunnels get even narrower. The finishing details on the walls and ceiling become less refined, for flaking paint and exposed woodwork suggest ongoing renovation. Lighting is simple and harsh, as opposed to the better-designed, nuanced, and soft lighting of other tunnels. Such spaces are likely to be private spaces that lead to more individual office spaces accessed by very few individuals.

Rice University Steam Tunnels

Three visits were made to Rice University’s Steam Tunnels – an introductory one led by Hugh Ton That, a self-guided aboveground to reconnect what I saw underground to infrastructural signs aboveground, and a final one guided by Richard for further observation.

The steam tunnels at Rice University were constructed as part of the Central Plant to lower maintenance costs in the long run, as utilities located in tunnels are easier to fix and modify than conventional buried pipes, which together with the health risks of asbestos which is typically used as a burying material, might be cheaper in the short run but ultimately costs more in the long run. Rice University is unique as steam tunnels are not conventional solutions to utilities on most other campuses. The efficiency of the steam tunnels is epitomized by how it only requires three people to man the entire operation of Rice University’s utilities, as the steam tunnels facilitate highly efficient centralized control.

The visits to the steam tunnels were focused on the human experience of the underground and how it differs from the above ground, to obtain a better picture of how the underground is experienced by personnel who are used to working in such spaces.

During our visit, we encountered an extremely loud rumbling sound from above our heads that sounded sufficiently threatening. Hugh reassured us that they were “just cars passing by”. The reverberations caused by cars driving over manholes seem mundane enough, but when experienced in the context of the underground, start to sound strange and defamiliarized.

Hugh affirms that he experienced an initial disorientation when first working down in the steam tunnels, saying that “it is like another world down here.”6 There was a constant need to draw references from infrastructure and buildings above ground to truly get a sense of where one was underground, for the tunnels were a rather homogenous looking space of endless tunnels that twined and winded, that had no indication of which roads it was located under.

Over time, however, Hugh reflected that he began to see the tunnels on their own terms and ceased to connect underground spaces to the aboveground – if any connections were made, they were effortless afterthoughts rather than meticulous markers of direction. Indeed, spatial conceptions of the above ground become largely obsolete in the world of underground tunnels, except those concerning the technical functions of different components underground. Even so, the linear relationship between objects in the tunnels and what is directly above is far less important than the functional and most often non-linear relationship between objects in the tunnels and what buildings and regions above ground are served by said objects. For example, a chiller in the steam tunnels might serve a building several blocks away from the plot directly above it. Connections between the above and below ground are hence redefined and re-prioritized, and a new cartography of the spatial underground can be mapped out based on infrastructural function.

While walking through the steam tunnels, it also became abundantly clear how sounds and echoes of the spaces become more important to one’s overall spatial experience than is the case above ground. Steam pipes and chilled water pipes emitted steady flowing sounds while our footsteps created echoes that seemed to correspond to the depth of a tunnel. There are moments of extreme noise and exquisite silence that vacillate with the type and density of machinery in the space experienced. For example, earplugs were needed in the noisy boiler room but one could hear a pin drop in many of the steam tunnels. Given the general uniformity of how the steam tunnels looked aesthetically and the lack of referentiality to the above ground, the significance of the aural experience becomes amplified.

Touring the steam tunnels through the lens of personnel who worked there was an eye-opening glimpse into the interim experience of people who are not as unfamiliar with occupying underground spaces as laymen. From speaking with Hugh and Richard, it was clear that although the steam tunnels were a different environment, it was not a hostile one. Our eyes adjust to the low lighting easily, and our ears adjust to the intense noise of machinery and the quiet solitude of the tunnels after a while.

If ants and their colony-mates are symbiotic with the nature they live in, perhaps Man’s collaborative other is the machine, together with which they form a hybrid that can flourish in the underground.

Subversions

As seen in the diagram above, the third and final part of the analysis combines insights from the previous two bodies of knowledge to create polemics that generate new ideas through the thought experiment of “subversion”. When commonly held stereotypes about the underground are juxtaposed with new frames of reference brought about by knowledge of how ants occupy the subterranean, several alternative ways of thinking, or “subversions”, can be extracted with regard to how we experience and view the underground. These subversions are inherently binary views of the same, singular aspect of an underground experience, and hence can be shaped by specific strategies to reflect a perceptive bias towards one end of the binary. This means that through architectural strategies, we can begin to shift aspects of the underground experience that each affect a small part of how we perceive the underground, and hence create a catalog of how one can reinvent the subterranean experience.

For each subversion I will first identify the stereotype being broken down and present the subverted view, highlighting clearly what the process of subversion is. Then, I will devise an architectural solution that can reproduce the effects of the subverted view.

Additive Space → Subtractive Space → Non-Visual Space

When above ground, space is additive, for we build something from nothing. We move in positive space and our boundaries are defined by voids, i.e. the air around us. This is clear in how buildings, especially skyscrapers, protrude from the ground level and stretch into the sky, filling empty air with defined objects that become the space we inhabit.

In the underground however, the quality of space is fundamentally different, for it becomes subtractive – we build nothing from something. We move in negative space, and our boundaries are defined by solids (i.e. earth). Additive space is something we are so used to that we take it for granted, and often erroneously extend it to our perception and expectations of the underground, for we are inhabiting the underground in a way that essentially seeks to mimic the above ground, assuming the quality of additive space. Nonetheless, the subtractive quality of underground space has great potential that has yet to be exploited. Ivins (1946) talks about the “distinctions between the ‘tactile-muscular and visual intuitions’”, in that “when finding our ways about in completely dark rooms, tactile awareness for practical purposes is not accomplished by a gradual fading in and out of consciousness, but by catastrophic contacts and breaking of contacts.” Indeed, the overwhelmingly visual quality of above-ground space makes for a pre-emptive experience, where you see each path, wall, and object before actually encountering them . In a dark, underground space, however, you feel the limits of the space in the form of walls and floors, and each spatial experience is immediate and instant.

In a similar twist, we can begin to imagine a kind of non-visual space that is touch-friendly and audio-enhancing. To encourage real-time tactile exploration, perhaps we can make use of non-porous and rigid building materials that are consistent and pleasant to touch, such as chrome or plastic. These materials should be malleable enough to reflect the conditions of the space so that we can use our hands and feet to physically trace the vacillations and movements of the space through the dynamic weaving and variations integrated into the touch-friendly material, such as a constantly morphing wall surface, or even something as simple as a rope.

To introduce an aural experience, we can make use of walls that most efficiently and consistently produce echoes, which can reflect the expanse and shape of a space and hence, guide us through non-visual perception. We can generate a space that more dramatically demonstrates echolocation at a human frequency. For example, much like the earlier described echoing experience of being in Rice University’s Steam Tunnels, we can aim for a space in which when one speaks one can wait for the echo of their voice to determine the width of space, or one in which the volume at which one’s voice bounces back off the walls is directly correlated to the width of the space.

Surrounded → Protected → Walls

Underground spaces are frequently perceived to be claustrophobic, and a large part of it is due to the feeling of being in an enclosed space, surrounded by impermeable walls preventing escape.

The quality of space, however, can be perceived positively – that of being protective rather than being threatening. Erich Hoyt7 in “The Earth Dwellers” describes how ants make use of their physical proximity to walls to their advantage. They “feel steady vibrations coming through the ground” whenever there are external threats, be it rain or the approach of other enemy colonies, and hence are adequately forewarned of any danger, and able to respond accordingly. Therefore, being surrounded in this case actually ensures constant awareness of external danger, and hence contributes to the ants’ safety and general well-being.

In an inspired moment of subversion, two architectural strategies can be employed with the same architectural element – that of walls. Firstly, to reduce feelings of claustrophobia, high ceilings should be created so that for the same narrow space, a space with a higher ceiling can be less claustrophobic than one with low ceilings. Secondly, walls can also be constructed with materials that enhance their reflection of external environments or fitted with devices that measure the vibration in walls, and be used as a barometer for security personnel to monitor their surroundings and any impending threats to the safety of the underground space.

Frightening → Cosy → Lighting

Cant8 writes of the “tug of danger” of caves being due to a “fear of ‘extreme nature’”, namely “bottomless depths”. Shortland9 similarly describes how “danger, even terror, lurks in the primeval darkness.” Indeed, the most frightening of all is the unknown, and underground spaces often epitomize that. Darkness is a spatial quality that is not easily solved without compromising on visual quality, for the opposite of darkness is light, and underground spaces already conventionally utilize that to create brightly-lit artificial environments.

However, a different dichotomy can be extracted with regards to darkness – rather than just the level of darkness, there can be different types of, and therefore moods of darkness. Dim lighting is commonly used as ambient lighting in restaurants and bars to project either a cozy or sensual atmosphere that ultimately is comforting and soothing. The same light levels can be tweaked to become menacing when one uses harsh lighting to create jagged, angular shadows, as is frequently used in the lighting of haunted houses. Hence, we can begin to subvert the frightening notion of the underground into a cozy, comforting one, through manipulation of lighting. If subdued non-saturated lighting that produces soft, subtle shadows is used instead of saturated, harsh lighting that produces jagged shadows, we can begin to create comforting rather than frightening dark spaces.

The saturation of lighting can be determined based on the type of lighting used, since different types of lamps have different color temperatures. For some types of lighting, such as fluorescent gas discharge lamps, changes in triphosphoric levels can allow for precise control over color temperature, be it red, blue, or green. In pursuit of desaturated lighting, we can look to neutral colors. Different types of neutral lighting produce different moods, with warm rather than cool colors working better in achieving a calm and gentle atmosphere. Hence, we can try to use incandescent lamps since most of those types of light are produced at lower frequencies, producing a warm color. We can also make use of low-pressure sodium lamps typically used for street lighting, since they are low-energy and efficient lights that produce dim yellow lighting.

Collage → Symbiosis → HVAC Systems

Extensive air conditioning is employed in underground spaces to produce an ideal closed environment, carefully regulated and monitored by machines. The reliance on technology also becomes a vulnerable dependency that carries the risk of failure of an external support system, resulting in catastrophic chaos and helplessness. Hence, our heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems in the underground can best be described as a collage, made up of unrelated discrete components structurally independent of each other.

Ant colonies, however, operate by a much more symbiotic system. In the absence of technological interventions, ant colonies have a “primitive ventilation system” powered by the colony’s own metabolism. As E.O. Wilson observes of leafcutter ant nests, “Air is heated by metabolism more rapidly in the central zone of the nest, where the fungus gardens and ants are concentrated, and therefore tends to rise through the central galleries. The movement, in turn, draws air from the remaining galleries, which are located in the peripheral zones.”10 The choice of locating nests underground is also a strategic one, as they “exploit the universal circumstance that, at depths below a few centimeters, the temperature and humidity varies very little throughout the year.”11 Humidity controls are done through “wall-papering” and “water traps” in the form of “hygroscopic objects such as dead ants and bird feathers” to collect morning dew.12 Ants also make use of the “thermoregulatory properties” of rocks themselves for HVAC purposes.

We can then begin to extract a different approach to HVAC systems from the symbiotic manner in which ants ventilate their nests. The Eastgate Center in Harare13 is an office and shopping complex that utilizes biomimicry principles to stay thermally regulated without the use of conventional HVAC technology. The mid-rise building draws from self-cooling mounds of subterranean insect colonies as well as indigenous Zimbabwean masonry in its ecologically sensitive adaptation, resulting in much less energy being consumed. External air that is drawn in from the outside environment is either heated or cooled by the building mass depending on whichever is hotter, be it the building concrete itself or the surrounding air. This outside air is then vented into the building’s floors and offices before being released at the chimneys at the top. We can apply the same principles to the underground, and seek to rely more on natural ventilation to achieve a more well-integrated and less technologically- reliant way of creating air flow and regulating temperatures in the underground.

Cracks → Pathways → Circulation

In line with an earlier subversion about subtractive space, incisions into an object and cracks that appear on a surface are usually perceived as the static results of destruction and remnants of damage. Circulatory paths of the underground and hence often tunnel-like to reflect the linear, longitudinal “drilling” process of caving, and once again, are narrow and claustrophobic.

However, when these individual paths are connected in a larger network, as is the case in Houston’s interconnected Downtown Tunnel System as well as the intricate interactions between paths in an ant nest, a larger network reflecting the overall hierarchy of circulation can be created. In looking at cracks from this new perspective, cracks are dynamic opportunities, for they are both traces of past movements and pathways for future circulation.

Architecturally, this shift towards a new view of cracks can be achieved by making circulatory paths more visible. For example, stairs can be more exuberantly exhibited, so that circulation can be viewed more as part of a larger, expansive network and less through the narrow lens of tunnel vision. Increasing the visibility of stairs and other circulatory methods, such as elevators, escalators, and paths, will also create greater referentiality, and reduce the disorientation described by Hugh Ton That about the steam tunnels of Rice University. Another example would be Xaveer de Geyter’s “Place Rogier”, which creates a vertical incision into the horizontal underground transportation networks of Brussels. The architectural firm saw the site, Boulevard Botanique, as a square that is more than just a “knot of transport” where metro and bus lines came together, but a site with potential for vertical combination and compilation of various circulatory paths. The same strategy is used in another one of the firm’s projects, “Schuman Square”, which similarly creates an architectural “stent” through the heart of the city’s layered transportation networks. This architectural subversion acknowledges the visual nature of human experiences of spatiality, and could be opposed to an earlier subversion about a non-visual space. However, this strategy still seeks to rethink the way we perceive one aspect of underground spatiality – that of circulation.

Binary → False Dichotomy → Ground Surface

When thinking about the underground, there is a simultaneous implicit awareness of its opposite, the above-ground. This underlies the conventional view of there being a clear binary of the above and underground. This assumption is so entrenched that it permeates most popular media and scholastic literature about the underground, such as in Pike’s “The Walt Disney Underground” where striking differences are outlined with regards to the manicured above-ground of Disney characters and the shadier underground of Disneyland’s utilidors, where the underground life of Disneyland workers thrive at night.

However, the dividing line between the two is itself an entity worthy of consideration, even if only for its role in separating the above and below ground. Much of the intellectual discourse about the underground hovers around the surface, the interim, the liminal, and the interstitial spaces. As Anthea Buys and Leora Farber so eloquently wrote, other than the “surface life of the city and its wealth-deriving underground spaces”, there is a “third, liminal space – ‘the edges’”.14 In fact, “the underground, the surface, and the edge are at once identifiable modalities which emerge coherently in the works we and selected and interconnected inflections of a singular urban phenomenon. They are folds in the same fabric of the city.” Gass elaborates on this further by writing that “Surfaces, with a single spreading gesture, at once constitute, cover, and reveal.”15 Indeed, the interim space as a third entity is potentially more intriguing and complex than the two categories it polarizes, both spatially and conceptually.

In pursuit of this, we can then seek to activate the ground surface as an important interim space with its innate typology, rather than referring to explicitly above or underground spatial precedents. The ground floor and/or the first basement should be seen as fundamentally different from other floors and basement levels, and be regarded in their own terms. Gensler’s Town Square Initiative came up with “Tunnel Loop Square”, a park-sized tunnel entrance to Houston’s Downtown Tunnel systems. The previously mentioned projects by Xaveer de Geyter architects, Place Rogier and Schuman Square, are also good precedents for activating the ground surface, for in exposing the networks of underground transport to circulation above ground through a glorified ground-level entrance, the two projects essentially created a new spatial typology of the interim space.

Conclusion

The process of subversion shows that the use of binaries is a good way to generate relative truths that lie in between. Polemics serve as markers of extreme ends of the spectrum of thought for any topic, and while are often too singular to entirely encapsulate everything truly, are provocative material for thought experiments that can refresh and renew old perspectives. The outcomes of this research is in the form of a catalog that is by no means exhaustive, but serves to illustrate how we might begin to start create an alternative type of subterranean space. By not didactically projecting a single model of a new underground but by highlighting a list of criteria and strategies that can contribute to new models of the underground, this research paper hopes to generate multiple rather than singular solutions and hopes that the conversation about underground spaces can continue to be undermined, challenged, and revamped.

References
  1. Wilson, Edward O. and Holldobler, Bert. The Ants. (USA: Harvard University Press, 1990). Pg 285. ↩︎
  2. Tschinkel, Walter R. The Fire Ants. (USA: Harvard University Press. 2006) ↩︎
  3. Scott Solomon, Interview by He Yutian, Rice University Anderson Biological Lab 135C, 20 Feb 2014. ↩︎
  4. Tschinkel (2006) Pg 292 “Moving up in a harvester ant colony” ↩︎
  5. Wilson (1990) Pg 355 “Social homeostatis and flexibility” ↩︎
  6. Hugh Ton-That, Interview by He Yutian, Rice University Central Plant, 25 Feb 2014. ↩︎
  7. Hoyt, Eric. The Earth Dwellers: Adventures in the Land of Ants. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Pg 148 “The Flood”. ↩︎
  8. Cant, Sarah G.“’The Tug of Danger with the Magnetism of Mystery’: Descents into ‘the Comprehensive, Poetic- Sensuous Appeal of Caves’.” Tourist Studies 3 (1) (2003): Pg 67-81. ↩︎
  9. Shortland, Michael. “Darkness Visible: Underground Culture in the Golden Age of Geology.” Hist. Sci., xxxii (1994): Pg 13. ↩︎
  10. Wilson (1990) Pg 602 ↩︎
  11. Wilson (1990) Pg 371 ↩︎
  12. Wilson (1990) Pg 375-376 ↩︎
  13. https://inhabitat.com/building-modelled-on-termites-eastgate-centre-in-zimbabwe/ ↩︎
  14. Buys, A. and Farber, L. “The Underground, the Surface and the Edges: A Hauntology of Johannesburg.” Pg 3. ↩︎
  15. Gass, W. “The Face of the City”. Harpers Magazine, March, (1986). Pg 38. ↩︎

Adapted from He Yutian’s 2014 anthropological study for the research course “Exploring the Underground Through Ethnography.