Time, space and people : the transformation of rural built environment in the Xiaqiao village (1644-2015)

Abstract

A new round of the regeneration of the rural built environment in China has begun in recent years. From 2005, rural issues have attracted sustained attention from three successive five-year programs enacted by the central authorities, the 11th (2006-2010), the 12th (2011-2015), and the 13th (2016-2020). These refer to the entire rural area, containing millions of villages and towns in the wide area of countryside in China. Thus, it is clearly a topical issue how to effectively upgrade the existing rural built environment in order to provide a better living environment and a sustainable future.

However, existing research has not proved sufficient to address the complex problems presented by the practices of rural development. There is considerable research that has focused more on formal studies of the scholarship of architecture, but there has been little or no discussion from a multi-dimensional research perspective that can integrate the factors of time, space, and people. The dynamic process of the transformation of the rural built environment at different spatial levels, as well as the similarly hierarchical system of governance agents, are absent from the existing dialogue.

Hence, this dissertation explores the transformation process of the built environment in rural China and further investigates the controlling agents which govern these changes on different spatial levels. A detailed case study of the Xiaqiao village (下橋, under bridge) is used for both morphological and typological methods. For the specific case, four socio-economic periods representing different development stages are included. These are the Qing dynasty (1616-1911), the Republican China (1912-1948), the Planned Economy PRC (1949-1979), and the Market Economy PRC (1980-2015). A seven-level spatial system is established to study the village comprehensively with the first three levels used to define and describe the spaces of settlement, namely region, settlement, and sub-settlement; and the last four levels are used to describe the building spaces, consisting of neighbourhood, block, building fabric (envelope, structure, and space), and infill (furnishing and equipment). Three groups of governance agents are discussed which are the government, the villagers (family and individual), and intermediate organizations.

This dissertation argues that the rural built environment is a dynamic complex. It assembles multi-dimensional variables of time, space, and people. It is the foundation of China, and the product of the giant administrative system built up over thousands of years. Today it is the major field of battle between tradition and modern life. In comparison with the city, the village appears to be a primitive organisation with a simple structure. Indeed, it is equally dynamic to the city and has experienced continuous transformation over a long time span and covers wide areas in spatial terms. These transformations are the result of a composition of various forces including official and folk powers rather than a single driver. Both the space and the forces of governance are hierarchical in the rural built environment. The changes of different built levels are controlled by different agent groups. Thus, this research will be significant as a source of knowledge needed both for theoretical thinking and practical use to provide direction for the positive intervention, creation, preservation and development of the rural built environment, especially in the background of the overall regeneration of rural China at present, affecting millions of towns and villages.