Award: Documentary Award

Time: 1998-2004
Nationality: Tibetan

Tibetan dwelling houses are determined by its economic conditions and natural environment. Their houses are buildings made of local materials and closely combined with local landscape. Most Tibetan Folk houses are built on the slopes exposed to the sun with flat top cube as its character. Windows and doors, board as walls, staircases and exterior structures are made of wood; the rest of three sides are earthen or stony walls about two feet thick. The thickness of the walls increases with the height of houses, whose exterior walls shrink inward and whose interior walls are vertical.

To keep the floor dry, there are no windows on the ground floor for keeping livestock and storing fodders. Only a few windows are equipped on the second floor for family members to stay. Wooden beams are laid at the bottom of the second floor; in the middle there are wooden sticks, and thick solid wooden boards are laid on the top. On the third floor store feedstuff and sundries, under which laid small logs and Qi (a sort of thorn for corrosion resistance. Next, earthen palms are built with wooden horse as roof, mostly covered with wooden boards and cobbles pressed on the top.