Built in 2009 in the memory of a Korean poet, the Earth House in Seoul has two courtyards connecting six single rooms, a kitchen, a study, and a bathroom with a wooden tub and toilet.
Built into a rock, the Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki gets ample sunlight through a glazed dome. Those rough rock walls were left untouched by the designers for a reason: naturally great acoustics make the church a perfect venue for concerts.
The world's largest underground business hub in Toronto is home to nearly 1,200 stores employing more than 5,000 people across a 4 million square feet space — all weaved through a 29-km tunnel.
Built in 1996, this hobbit-like house in the Welsh countryside is a tunnel under a turf roof. The three-bedroom house with stunning ocean views resembles a home that featured in a famous British children’s TV show — locals call it the Teletubby house.
In this southern Tunisia village, locals live in traditional "troglodyte” dwellings — cave houses — created by scraping away rocks. There is even a subterranean hotel.
A spiral staircase leads you to Apple's iconic underground Fifth Avenue store in New York, topped with a giant glass cube. And the store is packed — all the time.
This 13-century church in northern Ethiopia is tucked inside an overhanging rock.
In Poland, you have to take 800 steps down a shaft to reach this art gallery, health resort, and massive halls that host weddings and conferences — all rolled into one. This 13-century marvel was once a salt mine.
The architect "buried" this museum on Japan's "art island" Naoshima. Small concrete openings and geometrical skylights dot the greenery.
This house on the Greek island of Antiparos sits right where two slopes meet. Two long stone walls bridge the hills, allowing the house to naturally blend in the space.
This subterranean bedroom in the Australian mining town of Coober Pedy is ideal for a desert where temperatures can climb to 122 degrees Fahrenheit in the day and fall to 30 at night. Half of the 3,500 residents have dug their homes into clay rocks.
The residents of Coober Pedy in Australia move underground to pray. The Serbian Orthodox Church, built in 1993, is carved in the sandstone and has a community hall, a parish house, and even a school.
