A Preliminary Study On Transformation Of Rural Residence Characterstics And Building System In Urbanization China

Under the condition of urbanization, the structure of society, culture tradition, modeof production and lifestyle has been strongly affected. Especially in the past twodecades, the residence houses, is regarded as the symbol of prosperous for a family,meanwhile, stands for the meaning of abundance life and status. Great numbers of ruralresidence houses was built under the condition of culture exchange between urban andrural, the influence of modernism and industrial products, and the needs of youngfamers for their own space to live without their parents. As the result of social change,the rural residence houses are likely to a silence text, which is telling the past andcurrent stories of the farmers.But, this extensive exiting building type is out of the sight of traditional architecturebecause of their low value of aesthetic and technology, the social meanings is ignoredobviously. The purpose and significance of this paper is to understand the history oftransformation, law of evolution and social value of rural houses, and explore thesystem of construction in rural society, furthermore, to discuss the value and way ofarchitects to participate in rural construction.There are6chapters in this thesis, including literature review and investigation.Chapter I clear and define the category of rural residence houses, and did a criticalliterature review, then explain the methods and contents. Chapter2is a developmenthistory review of rural society, reviewed the transformation of relationship betweenurban and rural area, correspond with the condition of economic and culture. Chapter3and chapter4are the analysis of case studies. Chapter3analyzes transformation aboutgeographical layout, public space, characteristic of building, plane of buildings. Arrivalsat the conclusion that dominate factors of evolution are family structure, mode of landuse, public building materials, constructing technologies and lifestyle. Chapter4focuseson the system of construction, analyzed the process of building, custom of building,craftsman, building materials and tools, conclude the stable and unstable factors in ruralconstruction. Chapter5has concluded two building systems: traditional building systemand industrial building system. Chapter6summarized the situation of rural constructioncritically, then clear and defined the value and way of architects to participant in therural construction after analyzed three building cases. At the end of this thesis raised theexpectation, building freely and tradition continue. The basic conclusions of this thesis are: in the transition of rural residence inmodern times, the layout, architecture form, planes were strongly affected by land usemode, mass building materials, building technologies and life style respectively. Whilethe building system is under the transition from tradition to industrialization, there arepushing both from the rural and the government. In the process of transformation, thereare factors which are changeable: mode of land use, family structure, mode ofproduction and lifestyle, building materials, building technologies and constructionpersonnel. Yet there is a constant factor: a construction system concludes craftsmen andhouseholders which are based on kinship and geopolitical relations.In the context of the inter-face, architects have to be cautious when they participatein rural development: respect the peasants, objective understanding of the role of localcraftsmen, protect and utilize the mutual construction system, avoid the rural getinvolved with industrial system, etc. Only when these things were paid attention to, therural won’t lose the environment of building freely and tradition continues, and fulfillsthe merge of tradition and modern.