YEARBOOK 2018 - 2019 | XJTLU DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

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BRIEF F
Resilience in the Countryside /
Critical Regeneration of the Old to Create
the New
2018-2019 YEARBOOK Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Department of Architecture 西 交 利 物 浦 大 学 建 筑 系
Since ancient times, the terms “urban” and “rural” have constituted both
opposite and complementary categories. This kind of phenomenon is a
global one, affecting different countries and regions around the world.
The tide of urbanisation has impacted the basic foundation of traditional
culture, typical rural settlements and their cultural landscapes: it has
caused the historical and geographic characteristics of those landscapes
to rapidly degenerate or even disappear. Those countries and regions
have to provide specific responses to address the various challenges;
in the case of China, it takes the form of a national strategy for rural
vitalisation.
In the last several decades, China has experienced a massive shift from
the rural and village to the urban. But what of the future? It’s the time to
explore the countryside and rethink about the built environment in rural
context. The rural landscape in China is being reimagined as a place of
leisure and of historical and cultural truth and at the same time it is also
a place of poverty and exploitation. Villages in China today constitute a
dynamic and evolving field, involving multiple stakeholders and from
many disciplines. Approaches mostly stem from the “rural revitalization
strategy,” proposed in the 19th CPC National Congress and included in
the revised version of the constitution of the CPC as one of the critical
measurements that can improve the economic development of China. As
a result, intensive attention and policies have been introduced into some
pilot villages.
The brief invites students to engage in the challenges of the built
environment in such a rural context. This studio focuses on Resilience
in the Countryside / Critical Regenerating the Old to Create the New
in Jukou County in Fujian Province. It is an opportunity to establish a
methodology from a “Revitalization” point of view of an existing rural
village community and the studio invites students to explore, imagine
and create new uses of buildings through research workshops and
analysis. Students have collaborated to analyse existing rural villages
through engagement with the village community and in Jukou County
in Fujian Province which is a National ecological county. The site(s) are
diversified and offer a rich cultural heritage and built environment.
At the same time the students have built an understanding of the
constraints and challenges surrounding the question of “Regenerating
the Old to Create the New” through the envisioning of programmatic
intervention, fabric and spatial organisation criticality, and with a view
to a new usage and identification of end users, linked to the land and
hence also the population.
TEACHING TEAM
Yiping Dong
Richard Hay