Root cellar redux

Root cellars have historically been used to store a wide range of food and drink, including vegetables, meat, dairy, home-made beverages, etc. Relatively stable ground temperatures keep food from spoiling in the heat or freezing in the cold.

Root cellars appeal to me not just because of their efficiency (theoretically reducing or eliminating one of the largest household energy requirements: refrigeration), but also because of their aesthetics. They are, by nature, well integrated into the environment where they almost never dominate the landscape as other types of structures often do. And they're generally built with natural materials such as stones found on property.

While most residences probably don't need a large dedicated root cellar like the abandoned one depicted below, given the land a smaller multi-purpose root/wine cellar or community cellar might make sense. It's also interesting to think of incorporating functional and/or aesthetic aspects of the root cellar into other structures.