A crack about 15cm wide and 1.5m long on the main ridge of the tent is specially designed for day-lighting, ventilating and letting out smoking. Along the crack hanging a number of small hooks which can be used to open or close the crack depending on the weather. The highland barley, butter bags and cow dung could be placed on a wall 40-50 cm in height built with straw earth bricks or adobes inside the tent. One direction of the tent has a door for people's passing in and out; during the daytime, the door curtain will be opened; while the door curtain will be fastened at night so that people inside the tent can enjoy their leisure life. Near the door curtain inside the tent stands the stone fire pit and behind of the fire pit is the place for worshiping Buddha images. Such a yak hair tent made from the coarse hair of the yak is suitable to a nomadic pastoral mode of production. They can be easily taken down and put up when moving camp. They keep out the rain and snows.

    Another most common dwelling is watchtower, which is built from earth or stone. It is usually called watchtower because it is shaped like a fort.

    The watchtower was usually two or three-storeyed building with stone exterior walls. The watchtowers for noblemen, slave owners and rich merchant were the constructions of more than three storeys, while the highest one even reached to five storeys. The plane of a watchtower was assembled with the column grid as its unit to form square rooms. In the plane, a big room was located at outside while two small rooms were constructed inside, the staggered rooms form an overlapping structure. Its structural system was a composite structure with walls made of timber and stone and columns of timber. One living room had one column, which was locally called "an umbrella" while the floors were paved with planks; the sun-dried mud bricks were 40-80 cm thick while the thickness of the stone walls would extend to 50-80 cm. The interior walls were kept in vertical posture while the exterior would be inclined to entasis. The ground floor of the watchtower was mainly used for animal breeding or for storage. The second or third floor was for people to live, while the balcony or sanitary room made from woods on the second floor was cantilevered. The sunny exposure of a building always had a big window or down-to-floor glass windows, which had advantages of good day- lighting. Moreover, window shad advantages of keeping the wind or cold in check, and making the rooms warm in winter and cool in summer because they were opened to the courtyard. Flat roof made of compacted weathered earth was commonly used for the roofing of a watchtower, while personal effects could bask on the roof balcony.

    In the courtyard of the one-courtyard watchtower usually laid a well and planted with flowers. The thick walls of buildings or courtyard were mainly for defense. There is usually a small yard for day lighting. A large-scale watchtower has many rooms, a high watchtower in 20-30 meters was for keeping valuables or for looking into the distance in defense battle. The shapes of the watchtowers varied in different regions. The vernacular dwellings of Lhasa were two or three-storeyed tetrastoa. Of course there were also independent bungalows. The opening bed room with side corridor was the common structure of vernacular dwellings in Shan'nan Prefecture because the people there prefer outdoor exercises.

    Many ethnic nationalities are living in the forest area of the southeast Tibet where there are numerous types of folk house. This area is abundant in environment resources while almost all main plant species from tropical to the frigid zones of northern hemisphere can be found here. People like to live in the folk house with a double-slope roof. In the forest area people prefer to live in the detached dwellings or one-courtyard houses. Most of the architectures are three-storied buildings. The first floor was used for animal breeding, the second floor was the dwelling space composed of living room(also served as kitchen), storage room, side corridor and toilets. The living room was separated into two parts by planks. In the middle part of the outer living room stood the fire pit (near the window) surrounded by beds and other furniture. The pediment space under the sloping roof on the third floor was used for storage of straw, fodder, odds and ends like a garret. The buildings were constructed with wood frame. The construction materials included crushed stone, rag-stone, cobblestone, rammed earth, plank, bamboo fence and wicker fence, etc.

    The pitched roof uses wood girders and rafters placed on the gable, while in the forest area the roofing was usually covered with wood tiles with heavy stones on them to prevent the wood tiles from being lifted by the strong wind. In the area of shale mountain, the roofs were covered with shale tiles against rains.

    In the dense forest area of the southeast Tibet the wood houses of Monbas and wood and bamboo houses of Lhobas set each other off. The wood houses of Monbas were built upon the tableland facing the valley. The house is off the ground and supported by many columns with 1.5-2 meters open space for animal breeding in the lower part. The upper part of the house was mainly designed for people's living and storage. The living room in the middle on the second floor has a small passage hall connected to the outer corridor. The two wings of the living room were storage houses. Almost all the building material from walling and flooring to roofing were woods, people can go upstairs or downstairs through the wood stairs. The detached dwellings of the Monbas usually have no walls surrounding them. The stone houses of Cuona County and the wood houses of Medog County belong to the folk house having no courtyard walls and form villages.

    The Lhobas have two kinds of distinct traditional dwellings. One is called long house, while the other is a small square dwelling. The long house, a unique dwelling is the embodiment of the primeval social form of the Lhoba tribe. The length of long house often reached several scores of meters. The long house for female to live in was always built on the outside of a village. Planks and bamboo mats were used to separate the long house into ten or several scores of living rooms. The long house for male to live in was often constructed in the middle of a village. Its interior space was not separated, which was a place for discussing the public affairs. The small square dwelling was the couple's dwelling which was a symbol of Lhoba family and was surrounded by warehouses. The raw timber often served as the building materials of the long house or small square dwelling. The wall of the living room was made of logs. There are wood columns for supporting at the lower part of the house while its upper part is covered with plantain leaves roof.

    The bamboo house of the Lhobas is in the shape of rectangle, about 6 m wide and 9 m long. A door was located at its entrance while windows were built on the opposite wall for ventilation. The bamboo house was built upon the stone foundation with a wood column every two meters, while double-skin bamboo clappers were used between columns as the wall body. The roof was also covered with bamboo clappers. Except for the floor, girders and column, the whole house was made of bamboos. In front or back of the bamboo house was always attached with standing grain storage.

    In the valley plains of Nagri Prefecture of western Tibet the tblk house is mainly a detached construction with wood frames. The majority of the vernacular dwellings are two-storied buildings. The first floor is the living place in winter while the second floor is for people to live in summer. The vernacular dwellings adjacent to the foot of a rocky mountain are mainly the combination of caves and houses. The house in front and the cave in the back form an integral residential. The plane of the caves in Nagri Prefecture is in square, circle or rectangle shapes. Among them, square cave 2m to 2.2m high is more popular. The cave dwelling is a rare living abode in the Tibet Plateau.

    The villas or estate of noblemen are special kind of plateau dwellings. A villa was usually composed of principal building and front courtyard. The plane was in shape of Chinese character "~"with a yard in the middle. The front courtyard was a two-storied building, while to the north of the front courtyard stood the three-storied principal building. The rooms of the principal building are bright with French window in the south. In the villa there were living rooms and reception room of the noblemen, family hall for worshipping Buddha, and a lot of functional rooms for hired laborers or storage. Along with the emergence of estate economy appeared a number of famous estate buildings. The principal building of an estate is as high as five stories while it is luxurious with garden surrounding it and has complete defense system including walls, ditches, and so on. it also had the prison for punishing serfs.

    The colorful types of the dwelling in the land of snow are not fixed model of dwellings of certain area or certain nationality. With the communication and mutual influences between the regions and nationalities every kind of vernacular dwelling had something mingled with each other and has made some variations, which gave rise to a mixture of different styles of building. The splendid culture in the land of snow has been enriching the culture of neighboring regions. And the colorful forms of the dwelling in Tibet had a tremendous influence on the architectural style of the Tibetan folk dwellings in other areas of China.