Study On The Defensive Issues For The Fort-type Settlements Of Nanzhang Area In Hubei, China

Nanzhang District shares the same mountain and river with Xiangfan, and guards the main road from Xiangfan to Jingzhou. With its unique geographical position, Nanzhang has been a place of strategic importance since ancient times. And the Nanzhang fort-type settlements were developed as military installations during the wars at that time; as a kind of constructions for army garrison and sheltering villagers, the fort-type settlements played an important role in defensive under certain historical circumstances. Under the actions of district surroundings and military defensive, Nanzhang has formed its own unique culture of fort-type settlements.Firstly I will analyze the background of the fort-type settlements from the historical circumstances of Xiangfan and Nanzhang, and will have a brief statement about their developing origin.In this thesis, I will have a key study on the distributing of the forts, their defensive features and the defensive space layout.From the prosperous of Military Geography, the article will have a study on the distributing of the fort-type settlements as military defensive installations, and the important role they played in the area defending.In the analysis on the architectural functions of the forts, I will pick up fort walls, doors, defensive constructions, watchtowers, sentry buildings, and military roads, laneways as military defensive facilities, and temple, meeting-halls, residential buildings, water-supplies as elements of living functions. Then I will have a discussion on their architectural features and the interferences between them.With the implement of the study method of Space Syntax, I will have an analysis on the space features of the typical forts, and explore their features in spiritual security from the domain sense of space of human beings. And then, on the study of the space characters of the fort-type settlements, I will point out the features of dangerous, solid and puzzling of its entire space and the features of mysterious, collective, locked and arranged of its inter space. Besides, I will have an analysis on the esthetic sense brought by the style characteristics of the fort-type settlements.The last part will draw a brief conclusion on the limitative of the fort-type settlements, and the historical tendency that they will disappear during the process, and will have an analysis on the existing problems on the site protection. And later I will demonstrate its enlightenment on the modern residential district plan from the stylistic and space features of the forts.