Dwarvish Architecture

Settlement layout

One central hall with halls connecting to personal rooms

Most dwarvish settlements build one large central dome-shaped hall. This hall is where they gather, eat, make music, socialize and much more. This hall is usually quite big. The main entrance of this hall usually faces away from the predominant wind direction. From this hall radiate out some narrow hallways without doors that lead to small rooms, called pods. In these rooms families, couples or individual dwarves sleep and relax. There usually aren't many items in these personal pods.

The central hall

• A round or slightly oval-shaped hall, with a domed roof.

This shape is carefully crafted to enhance the room's acoustics. Sounds produced at the centre are enhanced and echo back beautifully throughout the hall.

• The central hot water well.

This well is connected to a lower reservoir that is heated by the ambient heat of the nearby underground magma chambers. The water up here is about 40 degrees Celsius. But this water is not clean enough to drink. From this well, the water flows down through pipes under the floors, heating all the rooms of the settlement. The pipes converge at the front entrance, flowing underneath the stairs and the path leading up to it, using the last of its warmth to warm the path. From here the cold water sinks to the lower reservoir and heats up again. From where it flows back up to the central well.

• The well-drum

A dome-shaped metal plate is placed over the well. This plate is used as a communal drum. This plate has specific dents put into it to create different notes on different parts of the plate. With enough practice, whole families can work together and play on the well-drum to create truly mesmerizing and fast-paced music. This drum is fixed on bolts and placed slightly abóve the wall of the well. This allows some warm air (and steam in case of a problem underground) to escape through the sides.

Heating system

At first, the dwarves just built their homes right next to the lava fissures, and they hung soapstones, pots of water, or buckets of sand over the fissures. Which heated up, and were collected every few hours, and placed in the homes that needed heating. There they slowly radiated their heat over a few hours, after which, the cooled-down block had to be swapped with the now-heated one above the fissure. Over time, however, the dwarves started building an automated system for this:

Using the thermosyphon effect, coupled with magma-heat, for a floor water heating system.

The dwarves use the magma chambers in the lava rifts to heat water reservoirs built right next to them. This water reservoir then heats up and is connected in a closed system to another reservoir, located júst above the floor level of the dwarvish buildings. As the water in the magma reservoir heats, it rises to the second reservoir due to the thermosyphon effect. From the top of this distribution reservoir, a series of small pipes run through the buildings of the dwarves, underneath the floors. This floor heating warms the homes and cools the water in the pipes. This cool water is then directed through a return pipe, often running underneath the roads back into the lower end of the magma reservoir. Where it will warm up again and rise to the distribution reservoir. If the circulation stops for whatever reason, the magma reservoir water could boil. To release excess pressure and prevent explosions the well-drum is elevated slightly above the wall of the well.

Doorways

Dwarvish doorways are not completely vertical but are slightly slanted inward. This way the heavy doors will automatically fall shut keeping the cold and other unwanted dangers out. As the doors are made of heavy wood, and open slightly upward, opening the doors takes quite a lot of force. A cylindrical rock is often kept nearby as a strut to keep the door open for short periods. If the door needs to stay open for longer, there are hooks on the wall where the doors can latch on to when opened all the way.

Dwarvish archway 3D by nicemustangart

This type of design serves a few purposes:

• The doors fall shut automatically keeping out
• The cold wind, snow or rain
• Dangerous animals

The door-handles

Originally the doors only had handles on the outside. When going outside, you just push the door open to go through it. However, if the outside door handle ever broke off, it isn't easy to open the door again from the outside.

Risks

Due to the force required to open the doors, it would become nearly impossible to push open the door if heavy snow fell during the night.

To combat this, the home is built slightly higher than the ground level, leading up to it by steps. Over the steps a roofed overhang is constructed to keep the snow from blocking the doorway.

Core principles

Dwarvish architecture has a couple of core principles

• The number 6, after their history with the 6-legged Ancients protector
• Ice, snow, or symbols resembling these. In honour of the 6-legged one.
• Domes; Also a remnant of their history with the 6-legged one.
• Stone; since the dwarves lived for centuries underground, they have become masters of stone carving
• Hidden passages. Not meant to be hidden, but due to their mastery of stone, they are often invisible to non-dwarves.
• Cold protection; Due to them living for centuries in a very cold climate, they have focussed on keeping the cold out
• Wild animal protection; Due to the many dangerous animals roaming around, keeping them out became another core principle
• Community; They focus more of their energy on their communal buildings than on their personal ones
• Acoustics; Their community buildings are built with careful attention to the acoustics of the place.

Dwarvish archway line drawing by nicemustangart