Fort-Like Dwelling

The ‘fort-like house’ in Barkam is a kind of high-rise dwelling built with flagstones. The gate is set on the ground floor, where livestock are reared in pens. There is no window on the wall, but left an air hole of small-outside and big-inside, and high-outside and low-inside when stairs are built.
Above the ground floor, the corridor, drying stage, hack, and toilet are built extendedly outside the house, in order to supply usable areas. Several wooden pillars are set on load-bearing walls to divide rooms, in which the living room should face sun and be given big area. The floor that storage room is on is set with an extremely steep ladder for getting things in convenience. There is a canoe stairs leading to the roof, which is removable and convenient to climb up and down.
Grains and preserved meat are stored on the second floor and above. There is a drying stage built in front of the roof, while the flat-roofed house on the left back is divided into a scripture hall and a bedroom for lamas, besides a place for burning aromatic plants are set outside the scripture hall; and on the right back is a open-styled room, making it easy to store in the period of threshing and drying. Mani stones are piled up in the corner, and prayer flags are hanged around them.