Sunken Courtyard Dwellings

Sunken Courtyard Dwellings is an original illustration set in Southern Tunisia. It lies in the subtropics, where the climate is hot desert — evaporation far outruns rainfall.

A round courtyard pit is sunk below the desert surface, its walls pierced by whitewashed arched cave doorways. One small fig tree grows in the middle of the pit. The surrounding surface is barren and flat, and the noon sun falls straight into the hole.

Why would you dig a house down into the ground?

Digging down instead of building up puts the whole dwelling inside the earth's thermal mass — rooms cut into the pit walls stay cool through extreme summer heat and warm through cold desert nights. The courtyard is the light well and the rainwater catchment. It requires soft, self-supporting rock and a climate dry enough that it never floods.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.