The old city of Yazd is a sight to behold, a rabbit warren of narrow curving lanes often covered over and made from adobe, with a rough finish that you can see hay stalks in.
The covered walk ways are often colorfully painted domes, with a hole in the middle to allow light in. The skyline is punctured by two very clever architectural innovations. The first is the badghir or wind catcher. A tall tower that has up to eight different faces, and draws in any passing breeze, then funnels it down through its chimney, where if often passes over a pool of water three of four stories under ground. This evaporative cooling method means that the underground rooms can be as much as 20 degrees cooler than the plus 40 degree temperatures outside.
The second innovation, to provide light to these underground rooms that are used to escape the heat of the day, is to create domes, and fill the top of them with coloured glass. As the sun moves through the sky the different parts of the dome allow the light to pass through, gently lighting up the rooms below. From on high in Yazd, looking down on rooftops, it looks as though there has been a Darlek invasion. But head in to the underground rooms and you immediately feel the cool.
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