People often call the problem of combining Chinese traditionalism and modernism in architecture “the big roof controversy”. As a result of the global-swiping modernism trend as well as an increasing awareness of showing nationalism, contemporary Chinese architecture world found itself in an embarrassing situation: there are more and more buildings built in modernistic geometric boxes but were capped with Chinese traditional big roofs. This somewhat awkward combination gave rise to “the big roof controversy”: if simply adding some traditional structure on a modern architecture without truly introduce the structure’s underlying function can make the building “Chinese”? With a firm objection to the “big roof approach” and a belief that functions and appearance’s close relationship is best shown in vernacular architecture, I started my independent study with an ambition of finding the essence of Chinese vernacular architecture that is applicable to our modern living pattern.
I set off by reading Peter Rowe and Seng Kuan’s book, Architectural Encounters with Essence and Form in Modern China. This book gave me an overview of the development of Chinese modern architecture since mid 19th century, and how the problem of “keeping Chinese identity and embracing modernism at the same time” has plagued to Chinese architects ever since the introduce of modernism in China. Then, I looked into the major architectural styles of Chinese vernacular architecture, and sorted them into four categories according to their major features. Next, I mainly focused on the vernacular architecture forms of southeast China and studied their origin, features and mechanisms. Four major examples I studied are Huizhou vernacular architectures, the water system planning of the buffalo shaped village in Huizhou, Jiangnan water towns and waterfront preservation today, Fujian earthen houses (Tulou). Interestingly, each of these different topic gave me a different perspective to look into architecture and design. As a result, I have touched different aspects of shaping the built environment, including architecture, urban planning, landscape design, water system planning and communal housing issues. I want to especially thank my advisor Professor Michael Davis, whom gave this independent study an extraordinary width by providing me many cross-cultural perspectives. Under his help, I viewed each issue in a broad way by comparing each vernacular form with similar projects around the world. This blog served as a journal to record my research process, where I’ve posted the pictures I took or collected, articles I like, drawings and analysis diagram I did, as well as the writings from my each sub research topic.
Through this independent study, I got a deeper understanding of the social, historical and functional context of different vernacular architecture design. I was also constantly amazed by the cleverness of people in the ancient time, how they could utilize the force of nature to achieve something that we need to achieve by machines today. I was taught an important lesson that a good architecture design is always based on a throughout understanding of the site and the nature.
At the same time, my study also gave rise to another question: when we can achieve the same thing by nature and by machine, should use machine or let nature to do it? I think there is no absolute answer to this question. Personally I believe that we should not object the use of machines if they can make the process quicker and more efficient, but if the efficiency is based on the sacrifice of nature resource and environmental pollution, we should really call the use of machine into question. Furthermore, there lies an even more complex question of how to calculate the cost and benefit of the “machine approach” and the “nature approach”. I guess that is also why those green building rate systems such as LEED are often put into big controversy today.
Furthermore, I feel the Modern Architecture class I took this semester also helped me a lot in finding an answer to the “big roof controversy”. By studying at the ideas, theories and projects of architects since late 19th century, I was excited to find that many architects, such as Antoni Gaudi, Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Khan, stand in the same line with me as turning to historical and vernacular architecture as their design inspiration. Meanwhile, I actually feel that the more I know, the less certain I am on my original view point that “big roof approach is superficial”. Le Corbusier, De Stiji and Bauhaus architects’ ardor in searching for a universal style should not be condemned simply because they were detached from history and localism; they are just some idealistic minds who want to bring human being a simpler, more equal and efficient. In the end, I found all my puzzles and wonders were best answered by Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture: architecture should look into history but borrowed them in a way that is suitable to the contemporary context. A big roof without particular function built in can still be considered useful as long as it can reminds people the historical meaning it wants to convey (the “vestigial elements” mentioned in Venturi’s book). Maybe in architecture, there is just no absolute cut line between right and wrong, and that’s exactly reason why architecture has been such an intriguing subject that constantly arouses people’s interest to seek for the “best possible answer”.
My final part of this independent study includes three recent projects in China which I personally believe that they combined traditionalism and modernism in a well-balanced way. They translated and abstracted the traditional elements into a beautiful modern language. I feel like I can’t wait to know more about architecture, both theoretically and practically, so that I could start my journey of searching my “best possible answer” to contemporary Chinese architecture.
p.s. It was a pity that I only got to looked into 4 out of 12 major forms of Chinese vernacular architecture in depth due to the time limit, but I was glad that I made a good start. After this semester’s independent study, I am more and more certain that there is actually a lot of research value in Chinese vernacular architecture. I think there is still much to improve in my current research and I am also thinking about turning this topic into my senior thesis topic.
Showing posts with label writings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writings. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
When Chinese Tulou Meets the Unité d’Habitation
I. A brief overview of Tulou Houses
War and conflict often bring about the destruction of architecture. However, to the Hakka people in southern China, these forces result in new constructions that define a cultural identity and place. In the southeastern Fujian Province of China, Hakka people built many fortresses like communal living buildings known as Tulou. Tulou can be in either square or round shapes, and they usually share the following features:
Concentric Geometric Forms: A Toulou is composed of several concentric circles or squares, with the outmost one tallest and the inner ones have decreasing number of stories.
Natural Material: The walls of Tulous are built with rammed earth and the structure of the building is built with wood. The maximum strength of the rammed earth is achieved by mixing the earth with sand, sticky rice and brown sugar. The whole structure is not built with a single metal nail; conjunctions are all achieved by wooden or bamboo nails.
Defense Purpose: In order to keep the residents of Tulou away from bandits and outside intruders, Tulou typically has only one entrance way, and the thick wooden entrance door is covered with iron. There are no windows at ground level and only very few windows are placed at the upper levels of the exterior wall. There are many small gun ports at upper level of the exterior wall which were used for shooting guns from inside. A building could withstand a protracted siege by being well-equipped with food and an internal source of water; Tulou also has its own sophisticated sewage system. The exterior earthen wall is extremely thick, usually up to six feet.
Family Communal Living Pattern: Each tulou houses a big family clan, with up to 80-100 families and as many as 500-600 inhabitants spanning three or four generations. The largest Tulou found today covered over 430,000 sq feet. Each sub-family owns a vertical unit. Each tulou is an amazing self-sustaining micro-community sufficient with food storage, space for livestock, living quarters, school, temple, armories and more. Typically, the outmost circular building is for private living space while the central buildings are public space. When the population of the clan grew, the housing expanded radially by adding another outer concentric ring, or by building another tulou close by in a cluster.
Building Plan Reflects Family Order and Social Belief: The interior layout of Tulou rigorously follows the family order and ethical codes Hakka people believe. Hakka people pay high respect to the elders; they build ancestral hall to commemorate their ancestors. The ancestral hall is placed at the innermost loop of the concentric circles and is also on the central axis of the building. In history, Hakka people were forced to move several times from the central plain area of China due to warfare, scarcity of resources and famine. The severe living conditions and constant moving experiences made Hakka people extremely united. This sense of unity and equality is reflected in tulou in that the high condensed private bedrooms are all uniform. People get same housing regardless gender, age and family status. Hakka people values study and knowledge a lot, so there is school built in each tulou community, and the school is put at the inner circles. All branches of a family clan shared a single roof, symbolizing unity and protection under a clan; all the family houses face the central ancestral hall, symbolizing worship of ancestry and solidarity of the clan.
The exact period in which tulou first appeared is not known. It is believed that they originate from the 13th or 14th century or even earlier, but most tulou we can see today were built in 19th century and early 20th century. Because of their mountainous and sometimes secluded locations, Tulou is not widely known to the architecture world until 1980s, and it was once seem as UFO from outer space and China’s secret nuclear base. In 2008, UNESCO granted the Tulou “apartments” World Heritage Status. The change in historical and social context made the Hakka people no longer need to build a building with such defensive purpose, but tulou is still of great research valuable. First, the building material is totally organic, it is taken from nature and is degradable by nature. The rammed earth material is also good at adjust the temperature and humidity of the interior environment, serving as a natural cooling system. Second, Tulou proposed possible way of the communal living pattern, which may be very helpful to our increasing need of high-density communal living structure.
II. Comparison: Solution to the Communal Living Problem--Unité d’Habitation vs. Tulou
Both the Unite d’Habitation in Marseille by architect Le Corbusier and the Tulou dwellings by Hakka people in China provide a unique way to solve the question of communal living structure. Although the two structures are extremely far away from each other in terms of time and geographical location, the shared some common approaches yet possess their own philosophy. I’m going to compare these two structures from the following aspects:
Social and Natural Reasons for A Communal Living Structure
The Unité d’Habitation and the Tulou arise from a similar social need for a high density communal dwelling with less space. Le Corbusier once argued his favor of a vertical city as follow:
Man has become a slave to his environment, which owes its origins to circumstances rather than to human design. The ideal city would cover less ground, accommodate more people and yet, 85 percent of its area would be open space. How? By building it upwards as a vertical garden city.
Despite Le Corbusier’s desire to experiment his great vision for a vertical city, the Unité d’Habitation was built because of a historically acute housing shortage in Marseille. In 1945, World War II made 50,000 people in Marseilles homeless, so there was an urgent need for a communal housing structure. Similarly, the origin of Tulou was a reaction to the much restricted local landscape and an increasing number of peoples need to be housed.
The landscape and site conditions in these two projects are also very similar. Both places share the same strip-like landscaped (see figure 1). Southwestern Fujian is enclosed by mountains, while Marseilles is a city sprawls outwards from a harbor and shaped by ocean and mountains. The limited land also requires the building to take an upward form.
The Living Cellular
One major big difference in these two approaches to communal living structures is the plan of individual living spaces, namely, the “cellular” in the buildings. In the Unité d’Habitation, Le Corbusier designed 26 variations of apartment forms, and all of them are based on the same concept of “interlocking flats”: a long, narrow two-storey apartments run the entire width of the Unité at one level, and half its width on the next, and in this way apartments in two successive floors are interlocked together, living a open central space in the middle served as “la rue intérieur”, or interior road. In this way, the living rooms are extended up through two stories. At each end of the room, the external walls are completely glazed behind brise soleil, which can be folded back to form a shallow balconies. The reveals of the balconies are painted in different colors. This polychrome character creates an illusion of spaciousness. For the viewer who standing in front of the huge building blocks and looking at the building, a polychronmy façade breaks up the over-large surface and create an effect of kaleidoscope.
In contrast, the tulou building’s individual living space is not that spacious compared to the Unité. Each person only get a one-story private bedroom, and the common family space such as living room, kitchen and dinning room is shared by the people who lives in the same vertical unit. The staircase in tulou takes up the space of a vertical unit, instead of interpenetrating in the apartments. People moves within the same floor through a circular verandah facing the central courtyard of the building. The space of private living cellular in tulou is less than the Unité partly because the inhabitants in tulou are all members of the same big family, so they may feel more comfortable with sharing a single big living room with the people in the same vertical unit.
Public Spaces and Communal living Facilities
Part of Le Corbusier’s vision of the vertical city is that, “with our modern techniques, mankind must be rehabilitated in conditions of nature. Sun, space and trees are essential joys.” He achieved this point by building a lot of public green space around the Unité for people to enjoy the nature. Another spotlight of the Unité is its roof garden, where a swimming pool and many other public facilities are placed. Given tulou’s defensive purpose, it is hard to exploit nearby space to build public garden like the Unité. The inside of tulou seems lack of green space either, since the floor of the public open space are all paved pebble roads. But the amount of sunlight, fresh air and rainwater is still ensured by the central open space, or tianjing (skywell).
One of the most controversial design in the Unité is its placement of the shop and restaurants in the middle floor. Many people argue that by enclose the shops in the middle of the building instead of open them at the ground floor, the shops become exclusive to the only residents of Unité, and these shops are also unlikely to pay their way. It sealed off outside customers and failed to facilitate the social integration between the Unité and the neighborhood communities. In contrast, although the placement of public gathering space at the center of the tulou is determined by traditional belief and social value, it nevertheless seems to be a good design solution. A central placement avoid unnecessary interruption of the upper private living floors and may create a community centripetal force by utilize the central space.
III. A Corbusian Tulou
After looking at the good design concepts in the Unité, I come up with a Corbusian plan for tulou, aiming at improve the living quality of the residents in tulou with modern design approach. Details please see the section diagram for the Corbusian Tulou.
(click image to enlarge)IV. Some Final Thoughts: The Practicality of Unité and Tulou-like communal dwellings in the future
It is true that with an increasing population growth and less and less available lands, we will need more communal living structures in the future. However, do we really need a self-contained form of communal dwelling like the Unité and Tulou? A self-contained dwelling may be convenient for the life of peoples inside, but it at the same makes the building become an insular island. A self-contained dwelling structure is not good for maximizing the use of public facilities, may cause a huge waste in resource, and will also be bad for fostering a sense of neighborhood with other nearby dwellings. Some left wing critics even argue that the Unité is going to be un palais pour snobs if it continue to develop in this exclusive way.
However, if this kind of self-contained communal dwelling is located in suburban areas where public living facilities are relatively scare, the well-equipped Unité does have some incomparable advantages. This makes me think about further develop the form of Unité into a prototype for a future home built in severe natural environment. We may enclose the whole building with a huge glass cover so that the interior temperature can be totally under control; we may also make it into a prefab house that is easy to assemble. In that way, we may build these houses to area such as desert and rainforest where is currently considered as places not suitable for human living. This also makes it possible to conduct long-term and big team scientific expenditure to the Antarctic and outer space.
Another thing that is worth pondering is that the well functioning of the Unité and tulou actually requires a strong community responsibility supported by all tenants living in. Unless the tenants are cooperative, the whole fabric of collective living is likely to collapse. In this sense, the plan for a Unité is somewhat like a proposal for a dwelling in a communism society, a utopian world. This problem of community responsibility is easier to solve in the case of tulou given its tenants are all from the same big family. In a Unité where tenants are all unfamiliar with each other, it takes everybody’s moral improvement to maintain the order of the Unité. Although it may be a little bit hard to realize at the moment, but it may not be a bad way to teach people how to live in high moral standard world. This point perfectly illustrated Le Corbusier’s idea that if you life in a chaos building structure, you will lead a chaos life; if you live in a building structure of good order, your morality will be improved by the building.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Jiangnan Water Towns and Its Potential Development in the Modern Time
Crisscrossed with countless canals, the Jiangnan or Yangtze Delta region in southeast China is dotted with water towns which are among China’s richest cities. Its remarkable hydrography makes the area’s traditional life pattern closely tight to the omnipresent water environment. During a time when waterway was the major transportation, the canals in Jiangnan provides the water towns more access to business. The built of the Grand Canal in Sui Dynasty (581-618 AD), which connects the capital Beijing to the Jiangnan water town Hangzhou, further pushed the economic trade and cultural exchange of the north and south China. Ever since the Sui Dynasty, the word “Jiangnan” has been closely associated with the word “prosperous”. Dwellings in Jiangnan water towns are usually two stories high, and are built right by the canals. The first floor is usually for residence shops, while the upper floor is for private residences. The architectural style of the buildings in Jiangnan water towns is very similar to that of the Huizhou area, with black tile roofs, white plaster walls and central skywells. However Jiangnan residences don’t have the high perimeter walls that envelope the whole building. Instead, they open the buildings right to the waterborne environment around.The scale of the buildings in Jiangnan is also smaller compared with that of Huizhou, since the landscape in Jiangnan is largely confined by the canals. Various elegant waterfront structures, such as stone docks, waterside pavilions, teahouses and stone bridges are the hubs of the daily activities of the Jiangnan water towns.
Jiangnan watertowns, in some ways, are very similar to the world’s famous water town Venice, Italy. Stretches across 118 small islands in the Venetian Lagoon, Venice’s daily life if largely depend on water-traffics. The city has 117 canals and 401 bridges, with the major canal, Grand Canal running through the center of the city as the major traffic corridor. Jiangnan water towns are similar to Venice in that they are also run through by a central canal, the Grand Canal of China, and crisscrossed by hundreds of small canal branches. Similar to Venice, Jiangnan water towns’ major traffic is also water way. What’s more interesting, Jiangnan water towns even have a counterpart of the Gondola, which is called black-awning boat. The architecture of Venice and Jiangnan water towns is slightly different. Although both used the form of stilt houses, Venice’s houses are often in direct contact with water. Also strikingly similar are the economies of Jiangnan water towns and Venice. They were both the leading commerce centers of their local area in about a thousand years ago. Given the similarity in their waterborne environment and prosperous economy, Jiangnan water towns were often called as “Venice in the East”.
Venice and Gondola vs. Jiangnan water towns and black-awning boat
However, with the rapid development of highways, automobiles, railways and other landway traffics, the role of water traffic played in trade and commerce is weakening. In recent decades, in a rush to modernize and industrialize, far too many traditional water towns hastily sacrificed their past forms in the process of building new houses and factories, filling in canals and the constructing roads. As a result, the formerly vibrant Jiangnan canal network is in very bad conservation, may tributaries of the Grand Canal faced the problems of clogging, water pollution, and may parts of the Grand Canal is even no longer navigable. How to conserve, redevelop and rediscover the potential use of waterfronts became a great challenge to Jiangnan water towns.
The Grand Canal and Jiangnan watertown
Building and redeveloping a great waterfront to serve for a better urban public space is not just a problem faced by old water towns like Hangzhou, but is also the shared questions of many waterside cities in the world. Having looked into several successful cases of waterfront redevelopment in the world, I summarized several major points of how to build a successful waterfront.
1) The planning of the redevelopment of water front should start with looking at the big picture of the city—what role is the waterfront going to play in the city? Do we want it to be the central artery of the city where the city unfolds and radiates from, or we want it to be only a center of a part of the city? The answer to this question largely depends on the natural location of the waterway. For example, the Seine River runs through the center of Paris, so the central location of the river enables the waterfront to become the focal point of the city. In contrast, the Brooklyn Bridge Park, which lies in the east side of Brooklyn, would be better planned as a local community gathering space. The Grand Canal runs through the north part of Hangzhou city, where used to be the industrial region of the city, and ends at the downtown district of Hangzhou. This location may let us plan the waterfront as have dual roles: in the northern industrial district it may serve as the public green space for local communities, while in the downtown part it may serve as the cultural and commercial center of the city.
2) Public goals should be set as the primary goal. Avoiding the waterfront from becoming seclude to a small community is the key of keeping the dynamic and liveliness of the waterfront. A negative lesson can be draw from the planning of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Several high residential towers inside the park and at the entrance of the park made the Brooklyn Bridge Park unfriendly to the larger community, because people tend to think the park is only open to the upscale residents of adjacent Brooklyn Heights. Therefore, a great waterfront should not be dominated by residential development, because a high concentration of residential development undermines the diversity of waterfront use by creating pressure to prevent nighttime activity from flourishing.
3) Integrate the waterfront to the city’s overall transportation system. Although the status of water traffic is supplanted by railways, automobiles and metros, it is still a good alternative of the often over-crowded landway. Therefore, Hangzhou’s step in opening up waterbus lines is a really good idea to revitalize the water traffic. Meanwhile, it is also helpful to build other public transportation lines and stops cross the waterway or at the waterfront. For example, the Paris metro system goes along and across the Seine, which brings people to the waterfront from all over the city.
4) Avoid building a uniform waterfront; different parts of the waterfront should have its own characteristics. The characteristic of different waterfront parts should relate to its existing assets and the context of neighborhood. This means that the waterfront in a certain region should strive to showcase the local identity. How to revitalize the waterfront relationship with the northern industrial district of Hangzhou can draw a lesson from the design and planning of Granville Island, Vancouver, Canada. Originally shaped for industrial use in 1913, the buildings on Granville Island deteriorated until a planning process for the island's redevelopment in the 1970s, where many vestiges of the industrial past were still retained, but transformed into an inviting public activity space by welcoming the move in of art community. Actually the idea of transforming former industrial buildings into art community is no longer novel, and Hangzhou is already taking this step. The former factory building of Hangzhou Silk Company now becomes the studio space for artists and musicians. All that we need to do is to further increase the popularity of the place to create a bigger influence in the city of Hangzhou.
5) Creating destinations or point of attractions. The linear shape of canals and rivers is very likely to make the waterfront become a prosaic pathway to a destination somewhere else. In order to avoid this, the waterfront itself should become a destination, a centerpiece for programming and activities. PPS (Project for Public Spaces), a New York based nonprofit organization dedicated to creating successful public places for communities calls the process of creating ten (or several) great destinations along a waterfront the "Power of Ten." This focus on destinations, rather than "open space" or parks, enables genuine community-led stakeholders such as business, residences and institutions to take root.
6) Balance Environmental Benefits with Human Needs. While a wide variety of social uses can flourish on a waterfront, successful destinations usually embrace their natural surroundings by creating a close connection between human and natural needs. This requires a tight work with marine biologists and environmentalists in planning of what to plant along shorelines, devising a method to improve water quality and revive fish and wildlife habitat. Boardwalks, waterside playgrounds and picnic areas can be incorporated into the shoreline design without sacrificing environmental and social benefits.
7) Last but not least, a good preservation by both the government and the public.
To sum up, we can see that the problem of how to build a better waterfront is confined by the existing landscape and urban layout, but a successful planning of waterfront can also shape the existing environment. Although the traditional waterborne life pattern is no longer applicable to the change in technology and modern lifestyle, there’s still potential to maximize the use of traditional waterways, and I believe this everlasting changing and adaptation just shows what we mean by sustainability.
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Water System Planning of the Buffalo-Shaped Hong Village
Hong Village is one of the Huizhou villages with the most representative residential architectures and landscape planning. Besides all the shared features of traditional Huizhou architecture, Hong Village distinguished itself among its neighbors by its unique buffalo-shaped village and water system planning. Its water system planning took advantage of its hilly landscape, and combined the existing waterway with the man-excavated ponds and waterways. This smartly planned water system has been providing every household in the village clean, fresh running water since 500 years ago, a time long before the modern tap water system was invented. Due to its unique water system planning, Hong Village was enlisted as the UNESCO World Heritage in 2000.
The village’s history can date back to as early as 1190 A.D. It was a family village owned by the Wang family. Originally, the only waterway near the village was the XiXi River, which ran from the northwest side of the village to the southeast. The direction of watercourse changed greatly at around 1276 due to a huge mountain flood. This mountain flood caused the river flows from the northwest to the south, which is also the direction today. In the 15th century, the Wang family’s social and economical status remarkably rose due to their success in business. As a result, the family started to put more attention on the fengshui of their family village because they believe that an auspicious planning can bring good luck to the family. They hired the most famous fengshui planner at the time to reshape their village. The fengshui planner came up with a comprehensive plan which dealt with the issues of the using water, drainage system, fireproof methods and irrigation.
What is more interesting, the village formed a crounching buffalo-like shape with the mountain and river around it. The Mount Leigang at the north side of the village is the head of the buffalo; the trees on the mountain are the horns of the buffalo; the dam controlling the water volume from the mountain is the mouth of the buffalo; hundreds of meandering streams are the intestines of the buffalo; the man-excavated Moon Pond at the center of the village is the stomach of the buffalo; the South Lake is the belly of the buffalo, since all waters finally converge to there; four bridges across the XiXi River are like the legs of the crouching buffalo. Overall, the Hong village is just like a relaxing buffalo crouching in the mid of the verdant mountain of Huizhou. The fengshui planner intentionally created this resemblance based on certain ecological, cultural implication. Buffalo is the major farming animal in Hong Village. The loyal, hard-working qualities of buffalo are what the Wang family valued and hope their offspring could pass down. Meanwhile, the villagers thought buffalo symbolized harvest and wealth, and they believed that by building their own village in this shape, it can bring them good luck. Despite the superstitious belief, building the village into a buffalo shape do has some ecological implications. Buffalos are famous for their unique digestive system, in which foods are fully digested through two stomach’s rumination. The Moon Pond and the South Lake can be viewed as the first and the second stomachs of the buffalo, where waters coming from hundreds of “intestines” (internal streams) were purified and precipitated first by the Moon Pond and then converge to the South Lake. Although not totally conform to a actual cow digestive system, the planning of Hong Village can be seen as one of the early exploration on bionics.
The existing landscape of the village was high at the north and low in the south. The planner took advantage of the elevation drop and used it to enhance the velocity of waterflow in the man-made streams in the villages. The average velocity of waterflow was as high as 21.6 meters per minute; this high velocity ensured the freshness and cleanness of the stream water. At the foot of the northern mountain, the fengshui planner designed several flood diversion channel, which can channel the mountain flood smoothly to the village. The most remarkable part of the Hong Village water system is its internal man-made water system. This system consists of a half-moon shaped Moon Pond at the center of the village and hundreds of winding streams that go alone every single streets and alleys of the village. These small streams measure 1260 m in total, 700m out of which are relatively wider streams and 500m out of which are the narrower streams. The wider streams are along the main streets of the village and therefore the water flows more rapidly in them, while the narrower streams are located in minor alleys and the water flows slower. The wider streams are seen as the large intestine of the buffalo while the narrower streams are the small intestine. Other components of the internal man-made water system are 8 wells and 22 fish ponds scattered in different residences. They connect the water system with underground water, which provides another source of water to the village. The underground water can also compensate for the river and stream water when they are dry. At the northwest of the village where the Yangzhan River and XiXi River meet, the planner designed a stone dame to separate the internal water system with the external, which can control the volume of water and ensure the smooth flow of the internal system even at the time when the external rivers has high volumes of water.
There were also many smartly planned gadgets in the waterway that maintain the cleanness and freshness of the water system. There were several water outlets at the south side of the South Lake. These outlets can channel water to the farmland in the south of the village to serve as irrigation water. Every internal stream has a wooden filter at the turns of the stream way that can block the trash in the river and prevent children from falling along the stream. Furthermore, the whole internal water system can be totally drained to clean the watercourse regularly. To drain the whole system actually doesn’t need to use any modern pump at all. All that need to do is to closed the dam at the northwest of the village and open the outlets in the south river. In this way the water is naturally drained up because the source is blocked and water converges to the South Lake and XiXi Lake following the gravity.
The village’s custom and water usage rules also played an important role in maintaining the cleanness of the water. There were unwritten rules among the villagers regarding fetching water, using water and disposing water. For example, the water before 8am can only be used for drinking because it is the cleanest water of the day after a night’s precipitation. After 8am, water is allowed to use for laundry and vegetable washing. Water is usually reused and recycled in this process: it is first used for rice and vegetable washing, and then used for watering plants and feeding stock, and then the remaining water goes to the notch in the skywell where it is filtered and transported to the outside water system. Dirty water is not allowed to be disposed to the stream since it requires longer time to filter and purify them. Instead, the villagers disposed dirty water to some clearings and let the soil to filter the water, and then finally became part of the underground water system. Furthermore, the Wang family values the preservation of trees a lot. Trees on Mount Leigang are not allowed to cut at all, and if there were people in the family were found cutting a tree, they will be expelled from family permanently.
I am deeply amazed by the cleverness of people in the 500 years ago after looking into the mechanism of Hong Village’s water system. I am so impressed by how they carefully studied the nature and came up with a series of methods that took the most advantage out of the existing environment without going against the rules and harmony of nature. I guess people in 500 years ago did this partly because they have no other choice—they didn’t have too much technology, and nature is all that they could rely on. They have the strong awareness of taking care of nature because they know if they didn’t do that they cannot live long. Contrary to that, the industrialization made us more and more neglect nature since we believe that technology can achieve anything. It may be no exaggeration to say that modernity made us lazier and more reliant to technology in some ways; we tend to solve a problem by turning to the machines for help without even thinking about if there’s easier natural way. By doing that, we overlooked the original meaning of technology, which is to simplify question rather than complicate it.
However, although the water system and living pattern in Hong Village is highly environmentally friendly, we still could not totally copy and apply it to our current design problems, because many mechanisms may not be applicable to our fast-paced, highly-efficient modern life. Therefore, I guess one inner question of sustainability we should look into today is how to avoid becoming too reliant on technology when we can save energy and do it by nature, while still ensure, or even improve the quality of our life. I believe the answer to this question lies in a better and deeper und
The village’s history can date back to as early as 1190 A.D. It was a family village owned by the Wang family. Originally, the only waterway near the village was the XiXi River, which ran from the northwest side of the village to the southeast. The direction of watercourse changed greatly at around 1276 due to a huge mountain flood. This mountain flood caused the river flows from the northwest to the south, which is also the direction today. In the 15th century, the Wang family’s social and economical status remarkably rose due to their success in business. As a result, the family started to put more attention on the fengshui of their family village because they believe that an auspicious planning can bring good luck to the family. They hired the most famous fengshui planner at the time to reshape their village. The fengshui planner came up with a comprehensive plan which dealt with the issues of the using water, drainage system, fireproof methods and irrigation.
What is more interesting, the village formed a crounching buffalo-like shape with the mountain and river around it. The Mount Leigang at the north side of the village is the head of the buffalo; the trees on the mountain are the horns of the buffalo; the dam controlling the water volume from the mountain is the mouth of the buffalo; hundreds of meandering streams are the intestines of the buffalo; the man-excavated Moon Pond at the center of the village is the stomach of the buffalo; the South Lake is the belly of the buffalo, since all waters finally converge to there; four bridges across the XiXi River are like the legs of the crouching buffalo. Overall, the Hong village is just like a relaxing buffalo crouching in the mid of the verdant mountain of Huizhou. The fengshui planner intentionally created this resemblance based on certain ecological, cultural implication. Buffalo is the major farming animal in Hong Village. The loyal, hard-working qualities of buffalo are what the Wang family valued and hope their offspring could pass down. Meanwhile, the villagers thought buffalo symbolized harvest and wealth, and they believed that by building their own village in this shape, it can bring them good luck. Despite the superstitious belief, building the village into a buffalo shape do has some ecological implications. Buffalos are famous for their unique digestive system, in which foods are fully digested through two stomach’s rumination. The Moon Pond and the South Lake can be viewed as the first and the second stomachs of the buffalo, where waters coming from hundreds of “intestines” (internal streams) were purified and precipitated first by the Moon Pond and then converge to the South Lake. Although not totally conform to a actual cow digestive system, the planning of Hong Village can be seen as one of the early exploration on bionics.
The existing landscape of the village was high at the north and low in the south. The planner took advantage of the elevation drop and used it to enhance the velocity of waterflow in the man-made streams in the villages. The average velocity of waterflow was as high as 21.6 meters per minute; this high velocity ensured the freshness and cleanness of the stream water. At the foot of the northern mountain, the fengshui planner designed several flood diversion channel, which can channel the mountain flood smoothly to the village. The most remarkable part of the Hong Village water system is its internal man-made water system. This system consists of a half-moon shaped Moon Pond at the center of the village and hundreds of winding streams that go alone every single streets and alleys of the village. These small streams measure 1260 m in total, 700m out of which are relatively wider streams and 500m out of which are the narrower streams. The wider streams are along the main streets of the village and therefore the water flows more rapidly in them, while the narrower streams are located in minor alleys and the water flows slower. The wider streams are seen as the large intestine of the buffalo while the narrower streams are the small intestine. Other components of the internal man-made water system are 8 wells and 22 fish ponds scattered in different residences. They connect the water system with underground water, which provides another source of water to the village. The underground water can also compensate for the river and stream water when they are dry. At the northwest of the village where the Yangzhan River and XiXi River meet, the planner designed a stone dame to separate the internal water system with the external, which can control the volume of water and ensure the smooth flow of the internal system even at the time when the external rivers has high volumes of water.
There were also many smartly planned gadgets in the waterway that maintain the cleanness and freshness of the water system. There were several water outlets at the south side of the South Lake. These outlets can channel water to the farmland in the south of the village to serve as irrigation water. Every internal stream has a wooden filter at the turns of the stream way that can block the trash in the river and prevent children from falling along the stream. Furthermore, the whole internal water system can be totally drained to clean the watercourse regularly. To drain the whole system actually doesn’t need to use any modern pump at all. All that need to do is to closed the dam at the northwest of the village and open the outlets in the south river. In this way the water is naturally drained up because the source is blocked and water converges to the South Lake and XiXi Lake following the gravity.
The village’s custom and water usage rules also played an important role in maintaining the cleanness of the water. There were unwritten rules among the villagers regarding fetching water, using water and disposing water. For example, the water before 8am can only be used for drinking because it is the cleanest water of the day after a night’s precipitation. After 8am, water is allowed to use for laundry and vegetable washing. Water is usually reused and recycled in this process: it is first used for rice and vegetable washing, and then used for watering plants and feeding stock, and then the remaining water goes to the notch in the skywell where it is filtered and transported to the outside water system. Dirty water is not allowed to be disposed to the stream since it requires longer time to filter and purify them. Instead, the villagers disposed dirty water to some clearings and let the soil to filter the water, and then finally became part of the underground water system. Furthermore, the Wang family values the preservation of trees a lot. Trees on Mount Leigang are not allowed to cut at all, and if there were people in the family were found cutting a tree, they will be expelled from family permanently.
I am deeply amazed by the cleverness of people in the 500 years ago after looking into the mechanism of Hong Village’s water system. I am so impressed by how they carefully studied the nature and came up with a series of methods that took the most advantage out of the existing environment without going against the rules and harmony of nature. I guess people in 500 years ago did this partly because they have no other choice—they didn’t have too much technology, and nature is all that they could rely on. They have the strong awareness of taking care of nature because they know if they didn’t do that they cannot live long. Contrary to that, the industrialization made us more and more neglect nature since we believe that technology can achieve anything. It may be no exaggeration to say that modernity made us lazier and more reliant to technology in some ways; we tend to solve a problem by turning to the machines for help without even thinking about if there’s easier natural way. By doing that, we overlooked the original meaning of technology, which is to simplify question rather than complicate it.
However, although the water system and living pattern in Hong Village is highly environmentally friendly, we still could not totally copy and apply it to our current design problems, because many mechanisms may not be applicable to our fast-paced, highly-efficient modern life. Therefore, I guess one inner question of sustainability we should look into today is how to avoid becoming too reliant on technology when we can save energy and do it by nature, while still ensure, or even improve the quality of our life. I believe the answer to this question lies in a better and deeper und
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Huizhou Vernacular Residences
Local Environment
Huizhou is located in the sinuous mountain area of southeast China. The climate in this area has a big temperature difference in winter and summer, and the average humidity is very high throughout the year.
The villages in Huizhou usually are situated with their backs and sides embraced by overlapping ranges of verdant mountains and their front facing east towards meandering streams. This setting is considered auspicious according to fengshui, for that this topographic configuration shelters the village from the cold winter winds blowing from the northwest and also facilitates good drainage, while providing an orderly arrangement allows individual dwellings to access to fresh air and warmth of the winter sun.
Social and Historical Background
Since Ming dynasty, Huizhou has been famous for its merchants. They are shrewd, smart and hard-working people, amassing profit from trade and pawnshops. Due to the limitations of the transportation and lack of arable land in their hometown area, Huizhou merchants usually led a sojourning life by doing business in the wealthy cities of the fertile lower Yangtze valley. Always far away from home, Huizhou merchants came to appreciate fine homes, and invest lots of money on refining their ideal home environment. Their life experience in the outside world enabled them to bring cosmopolitan values and patterns back to their tranquil rural villages where they build house as their own retirement sanctuaries. Huizhou merchants especially value the importance of education and respect to ancestors. As a result, the best locations in a village were usually given to schools and ancestor’s hall.
Major Features of Huizhou Residences
High perimeter walls
Limited by the rugged local terrain, Huizhou residences are usually in multistoried compact forms. Buildings are completely enveloped by high fortress-like outer walls. These brick perimeter walls are coated with white plaster and usually does not have any windows or opening to the interior building space except for a highly decorated symmetric front entrance. The high perimeter walls disguise the scale and magnificence of the dwellings inside. Therefore, when you look at a Huizhou residence from outside, it just looks like a big white box full of mystery and the unknown. The outer walls are designed in this way in order to provide security and privacy of the family members—women, children and the elderly—who were left alone by their sojourning husbands and elder brothers.
The large faceless perimeter walls are capped with stepped gables called “horse head walls”, because the rhythmic zig-zag shape of the stepped gables looks like the head of a horse. Horse head walls are stepped at different elevations and serve as a fireproof defensive function that protects the massive load-bearing timber frameworks.
The stepped silhouette of dark horse head gables and the crisp whiteness of the perimeter walls add simplicity, quietness and solemnity to the Huizhou residences. They are also the signature features of Huizhou architecture.
Tianjing (skywell)
The dwelling plan is punctuated with several tianjings or skywells, relatively narrow rectangular voids that open the interior to light, air and rain. Its ground is slightly recessed below the surrounding area, and the perimeter of the tianjing usually has a shallow indented catchment area for collecting rainwater as well as draining any surplus water outside the dwelling. These catchment areas are connected to a drainage system that leads to the larger exterior canal channel. The numbers of tianjings in a traditional Huizhou residence varies according to the size of the house, but the most common form of Huizhou residences has two tianjings—a front tianjing and rear tianjing.
Tianjings have both architectural and social significance. Architecturally, tianjings are the centers of each of their dominated area. The front tianjing and rear tianjing respectively represent the center of the front part and the back part of the house. A big spacious hall is usually facing the tianjing, and this hall has the most important role in the overall building. It is sometimes the main living room, the dining room or the ancestors’ hall where an altar and the portraits of ancestors are displayed. Other rooms are arranged around tianjings according to the order of their importance. The elder people’s bedrooms are usually placed on the second floor above the central hall, facing the tianjing, while the younger people’s bedroom and the guest rooms are placed at the sides of the central bedrooms. For other less important spaces such as kitchen, bathroom, barn house and storage room, there is a single story utility structure adjacent to the main building. This one story addition part has its own external side entrance connecting to the exterior. It is designed so because in traditional Chinese families, servants were usually not allowed to enter the building from the main entrance.
In the densely compact Huizhou residences, tianjings are the only place in the building that one can feel the outside changes in the nature. A small rectangular pool or large water vats are usually placed in the center of the tianjing. They served as rainwater collectors for domestic use as well as reservoirs in case of fire. The space tianjing creates is somewhat like the central courtyard garden in the four-fided courtyard residences in Beijing. However, tianjing is different from a central courtyard garden in that, its ground is typically paved with inlaid dressed stone while courtyard gardens have soil on the ground which can directly plant plants. However, even without soil and as many plants as the garden in Beijing residences, tianjing still creats an elegant microcosm of nature with potted plants and fishes in the pools. Compared with the courtyard gardens in Beijing courtyard residences, tianjing creates a beauty that is more subtle, controlled and elegant, which is somewhat like the concept of Japanese zen garden.
In a larger residence there may have as many as nine tianjings, such as the case in the most famous Huizhou residence, Chen Zhi Tang (Hall of Inheriting Ambition). Besides the central tianjings which serve as the same central layout purpose as in small scale residences, there are small tianjings scatter around the sides of the house. These small tianjings sometimes include a pool of water that is connected to the drainage system outside, and surrounding overhanging benches which provide an area for relaxation and contemplation. Small tianjing sometimes may simply be a square of clearing with nothing in it, or a small clearing area with a big potted plant. The different ways tianjing spaces are untilized reflect different personalities of this relative space .
On the third level, the roofs have the intersecting layers of clay tiles. Each of the four roof slopes surrounding the tianjing leads water into the tianjing where it falls to the ground, in the process affirming the local fengshui maxim “si shui gui tang” or “the four waters return to the hall.” Like a tall container of water, the house metaphorically express that wealth will accumulate in the residence and not be dissipated by flowing outward.
Tianjings are also activity hubs of the family. The front tianjing are sometimes used as large banquet and ceremony space, while the rear tianjing is a more private family gathering space where children played, woman worked, and old family members enjoy the warm sunlight.
Decoration
Stone, brick and wood carvings are three kinds of major decorations in Huizhou residences. Stone and brick carvings are typically seen in the entrance spandrels, partition walls and screens. Wood carvings can be found in the supporting beams of building. Since the buildings are all wooden structure, the richly carved wooden beams served dual functions of supporting and decoration. The contents of the carving usually include some Chinese traditional tales with auspicious meanings.
The partition door panels and windows are also skillfully crafted. They not only enhance the ornamentation of the building but also control the flow of air and light into the enclosed spaces. Also worth mentioning is that these intricately carved wooden doors can be removed in order to integrate the interior and exterior spaces, which enhances the versatility of the interior space.
The central corridor around the tianjing on the second floor is not directly exposed to the central opening space, but closed by carved lattice windows. This design provides multiple options to the residents in controlling the sunlight, wind and rain at a time when glass windows were very rare. Even in the winter time when the windows are totally closed in order to resist the cold, the small apertures in the windows can allow the exchange of fresh air and sunlight.
Huizhou is located in the sinuous mountain area of southeast China. The climate in this area has a big temperature difference in winter and summer, and the average humidity is very high throughout the year.
The villages in Huizhou usually are situated with their backs and sides embraced by overlapping ranges of verdant mountains and their front facing east towards meandering streams. This setting is considered auspicious according to fengshui, for that this topographic configuration shelters the village from the cold winter winds blowing from the northwest and also facilitates good drainage, while providing an orderly arrangement allows individual dwellings to access to fresh air and warmth of the winter sun.Social and Historical Background
Since Ming dynasty, Huizhou has been famous for its merchants. They are shrewd, smart and hard-working people, amassing profit from trade and pawnshops. Due to the limitations of the transportation and lack of arable land in their hometown area, Huizhou merchants usually led a sojourning life by doing business in the wealthy cities of the fertile lower Yangtze valley. Always far away from home, Huizhou merchants came to appreciate fine homes, and invest lots of money on refining their ideal home environment. Their life experience in the outside world enabled them to bring cosmopolitan values and patterns back to their tranquil rural villages where they build house as their own retirement sanctuaries. Huizhou merchants especially value the importance of education and respect to ancestors. As a result, the best locations in a village were usually given to schools and ancestor’s hall.
Major Features of Huizhou Residences
High perimeter walls
Limited by the rugged local terrain, Huizhou residences are usually in multistoried compact forms. Buildings are completely enveloped by high fortress-like outer walls. These brick perimeter walls are coated with white plaster and usually does not have any windows or opening to the interior building space except for a highly decorated symmetric front entrance. The high perimeter walls disguise the scale and magnificence of the dwellings inside. Therefore, when you look at a Huizhou residence from outside, it just looks like a big white box full of mystery and the unknown. The outer walls are designed in this way in order to provide security and privacy of the family members—women, children and the elderly—who were left alone by their sojourning husbands and elder brothers.The large faceless perimeter walls are capped with stepped gables called “horse head walls”, because the rhythmic zig-zag shape of the stepped gables looks like the head of a horse. Horse head walls are stepped at different elevations and serve as a fireproof defensive function that protects the massive load-bearing timber frameworks.
The stepped silhouette of dark horse head gables and the crisp whiteness of the perimeter walls add simplicity, quietness and solemnity to the Huizhou residences. They are also the signature features of Huizhou architecture.
Tianjing (skywell)
The dwelling plan is punctuated with several tianjings or skywells, relatively narrow rectangular voids that open the interior to light, air and rain. Its ground is slightly recessed below the surrounding area, and the perimeter of the tianjing usually has a shallow indented catchment area for collecting rainwater as well as draining any surplus water outside the dwelling. These catchment areas are connected to a drainage system that leads to the larger exterior canal channel. The numbers of tianjings in a traditional Huizhou residence varies according to the size of the house, but the most common form of Huizhou residences has two tianjings—a front tianjing and rear tianjing.
Tianjings have both architectural and social significance. Architecturally, tianjings are the centers of each of their dominated area. The front tianjing and rear tianjing respectively represent the center of the front part and the back part of the house. A big spacious hall is usually facing the tianjing, and this hall has the most important role in the overall building. It is sometimes the main living room, the dining room or the ancestors’ hall where an altar and the portraits of ancestors are displayed. Other rooms are arranged around tianjings according to the order of their importance. The elder people’s bedrooms are usually placed on the second floor above the central hall, facing the tianjing, while the younger people’s bedroom and the guest rooms are placed at the sides of the central bedrooms. For other less important spaces such as kitchen, bathroom, barn house and storage room, there is a single story utility structure adjacent to the main building. This one story addition part has its own external side entrance connecting to the exterior. It is designed so because in traditional Chinese families, servants were usually not allowed to enter the building from the main entrance.
In the densely compact Huizhou residences, tianjings are the only place in the building that one can feel the outside changes in the nature. A small rectangular pool or large water vats are usually placed in the center of the tianjing. They served as rainwater collectors for domestic use as well as reservoirs in case of fire. The space tianjing creates is somewhat like the central courtyard garden in the four-fided courtyard residences in Beijing. However, tianjing is different from a central courtyard garden in that, its ground is typically paved with inlaid dressed stone while courtyard gardens have soil on the ground which can directly plant plants. However, even without soil and as many plants as the garden in Beijing residences, tianjing still creats an elegant microcosm of nature with potted plants and fishes in the pools. Compared with the courtyard gardens in Beijing courtyard residences, tianjing creates a beauty that is more subtle, controlled and elegant, which is somewhat like the concept of Japanese zen garden.
In a larger residence there may have as many as nine tianjings, such as the case in the most famous Huizhou residence, Chen Zhi Tang (Hall of Inheriting Ambition). Besides the central tianjings which serve as the same central layout purpose as in small scale residences, there are small tianjings scatter around the sides of the house. These small tianjings sometimes include a pool of water that is connected to the drainage system outside, and surrounding overhanging benches which provide an area for relaxation and contemplation. Small tianjing sometimes may simply be a square of clearing with nothing in it, or a small clearing area with a big potted plant. The different ways tianjing spaces are untilized reflect different personalities of this relative space .On the third level, the roofs have the intersecting layers of clay tiles. Each of the four roof slopes surrounding the tianjing leads water into the tianjing where it falls to the ground, in the process affirming the local fengshui maxim “si shui gui tang” or “the four waters return to the hall.” Like a tall container of water, the house metaphorically express that wealth will accumulate in the residence and not be dissipated by flowing outward.
Tianjings are also activity hubs of the family. The front tianjing are sometimes used as large banquet and ceremony space, while the rear tianjing is a more private family gathering space where children played, woman worked, and old family members enjoy the warm sunlight.Decoration
Stone, brick and wood carvings are three kinds of major decorations in Huizhou residences. Stone and brick carvings are typically seen in the entrance spandrels, partition walls and screens. Wood carvings can be found in the supporting beams of building. Since the buildings are all wooden structure, the richly carved wooden beams served dual functions of supporting and decoration. The contents of the carving usually include some Chinese traditional tales with auspicious meanings.The partition door panels and windows are also skillfully crafted. They not only enhance the ornamentation of the building but also control the flow of air and light into the enclosed spaces. Also worth mentioning is that these intricately carved wooden doors can be removed in order to integrate the interior and exterior spaces, which enhances the versatility of the interior space.
The central corridor around the tianjing on the second floor is not directly exposed to the central opening space, but closed by carved lattice windows. This design provides multiple options to the residents in controlling the sunlight, wind and rain at a time when glass windows were very rare. Even in the winter time when the windows are totally closed in order to resist the cold, the small apertures in the windows can allow the exchange of fresh air and sunlight.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Four Major Categories of Chinese Vernacular Architecture
The following is my own categorizing of the various forms of Chinese vernacular residences.
I. Central Plain Courtyard Style
This category of vernacular residences usually situated in a relative mild and plain climate and landscape, which enables it to develop into a strong social order belief/philosophy. This philosophy is most obviously embodied in the layout of the architectures. Some common features of the layouts include: symmetric distribution of buildings along a central axis, rigorous rectangular courtyard with enclosed sidewalls, a sequential progression in the height of buildings, the distribution of the room purpose according to certain social order and fengshui.
This category includes residences of:
1. Courtyard Houses in Beijing
2. Shanxi Residences
3. Red-brick Dwellings in Quanzhou
4. Houses of Bai Nationality
The slight difference within this category is shown in decoration and local materials.
II. River/Lake Area Style
This category includes reidences of:
1. Huizhou Residential Buildings, Anhui Province
2. Jiangnan Canal Houses, Jiangsu Province & Zhejiang Province
3. Lijiang Residential Buildings, Yunnan Province
III. Defense Style in the Mountainous Areas
1. Earthen Buildings in Fujian Province
2. Fortified Compound in Southern Jiangxi Province
3. U-Shaped Fortified Compounds of the Hakka people
4. Kaiping Fortified Buildings, Guangdong Province
5. Tibetan Fortified Manor House
These houses all share a common trait in their high, tough and austere exterior which mainly serves for the defense purpose. Specific forms and materials vary according to local material and culture.
IV. Local Environment-Oriented Style
1. Cave Dwellings in Shaanxi Province
2. Flagstone Buildings in Guizhou Province
3. Korean Residential Buildings, Northeastern China
4. Mongolian Yurts
5. Uygurs Residential Buidings, Xinjiang Province
6. Houses on Stilts, Southwestern China
I. Central Plain Courtyard Style
This category of vernacular residences usually situated in a relative mild and plain climate and landscape, which enables it to develop into a strong social order belief/philosophy. This philosophy is most obviously embodied in the layout of the architectures. Some common features of the layouts include: symmetric distribution of buildings along a central axis, rigorous rectangular courtyard with enclosed sidewalls, a sequential progression in the height of buildings, the distribution of the room purpose according to certain social order and fengshui.
This category includes residences of:
1. Courtyard Houses in Beijing
2. Shanxi Residences
3. Red-brick Dwellings in Quanzhou
4. Houses of Bai Nationality
The slight difference within this category is shown in decoration and local materials.
II. River/Lake Area Style
This category includes reidences of:
1. Huizhou Residential Buildings, Anhui Province
2. Jiangnan Canal Houses, Jiangsu Province & Zhejiang Province
3. Lijiang Residential Buildings, Yunnan Province
III. Defense Style in the Mountainous Areas
1. Earthen Buildings in Fujian Province
2. Fortified Compound in Southern Jiangxi Province
3. U-Shaped Fortified Compounds of the Hakka people
4. Kaiping Fortified Buildings, Guangdong Province
5. Tibetan Fortified Manor House
These houses all share a common trait in their high, tough and austere exterior which mainly serves for the defense purpose. Specific forms and materials vary according to local material and culture.
IV. Local Environment-Oriented Style
1. Cave Dwellings in Shaanxi Province
2. Flagstone Buildings in Guizhou Province
3. Korean Residential Buildings, Northeastern China
4. Mongolian Yurts
5. Uygurs Residential Buidings, Xinjiang Province
6. Houses on Stilts, Southwestern China
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