Weird one... whatcha think?

Went over to a life long brothers house the other day and got to talking about growing, and he takes me to his basement where I have been many times before. He goes over to a wood panel in the middle of the concrete wall and makes it move. Turns out his half basement is a full, but only half is concreted and usable. The other part on the other side of the wall is not a crawl space, but a fully dug out area roughly the same size as the finished side. This hidden area is equipped with lighting and what not. He takes me over to the area where the central heat and air system comes into the house and tells me he is going to build a grow box over there and use the heating and air system to ventilate the box. He mentioned building a carbon filter to keep the smell from filling his house since the heating and air system is a closed loop system.
Then he goes and tells me he intends to grow in soil. I look at the ground in there and it is red clay, and I ask if he meant he was going to grow in that. He said sort of... What he is looking at doing is laying red brick with vent holes in them along the bottom, and built it up on top of the brick with built soil, and make a "raised" soil box and grow about four plants in it. The guy is a long time grower, and knows soil.... He did some BC Bud last year in his back yard and the soil back there is dead almost. He replaced all the soil in the area where he was planting with his own mix and we got almost a pound per plant.
Anyway.... have you all seen anyone grow indoors in a bed instead of in a bucket or pot?

havent seen personally but have seen pictures..

I've seen picture of some ppl growing in a bed instead of pots... Every plants fight for there water and nutriments in that kind of setup, only the stronger plants survive. This other problem you can have is for diseases, if one get something all the other plants may get the same problem if the same strain/genetic. But it can also make great grow...

fighting for water isnt always a bad thing helps root growth as long as you keep an eye on it

thats just it... the roots would be in a bed, would not be able to see the roots...
but I dont think fighting for water would be much of an issue...

I once saw this guy grow a plant in the center hole of a three hole cinder block....
Put cow manure on one side in an outer hole, put soil in the center, and I dont remember what he put in the other outer hole. put a seed in the center, and watered the two outer holes. Had a very nice plant as I remember..... Kind of like my local gro god... LOL