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Reshaping Rural China

Submission deadline: 15 July 2023
Special Issue Editors
Gerardo Semprebon
Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Interests: Contemporary architecture and design strategies for the revitalization of rural territories in China and Italy
Special Issue Information

Rural and urban have for a long time represented opposite domains in China, mainly due to the dual social structure. Nevertheless, the goals to reduce inequalities and promote harmonious and coordinated planning are reshaping the city’s urbanity and the countryside’s ruralness toward new hybridized forms of living that put design disciplines at the fore to experiment with new settlements’ models and architectural projects. Keeping in mind the interconnectivity and complementarity of urban and rural, this special issue focuses on the countryside as a remarkable frontier of expression in Chinese vanguard architectural movements.

The Rural Revitalization Strategy is just the last step of an array of measures to ameliorate the conditions of the Chinese countryside and its inhabitants. The policy intersects with the Ecological Civilization ideology and, like other sustainable agendas around the world, calls for the invention and experimentation of new aesthetic dimensions, able to mirror technological innovations, cultural richnesses, socioeconomic values, and political narratives. We look at rural China as a fertile testing ground for contemporary design disciplines worldwide.

In 2018, the Chinese participation at the Biennale of Architecture of Venice entitled “Building a Future Countryside” marked a cornerstone in academic and professional circles, bringing contemporary rural architecture under an international spotlight. After five years, 2023 is the occasion to take stock of the situation, examine how architectural design has moved, and portray an updated panorama of Chinese design culture.

This special issue encourages contributions to identify contemporary design attitudes toward the pressuring questions of the present, such as mitigating rural-urban inequalities, implementing sustainable strategies and tactics, designing for resiliency, combatting climate change, and strengthening cultural distinctiveness.

Questions include, but are not limited to, the following.

How have theories and practices critically contributed to renovating the design culture since then? What lines of force have emerged in these years, tracing new paths of architectural and planning explorations? What impacts have reverberated on local communities? How has design culture allied with other disciplines to drive the change? What techniques have been implemented and how do they affect canonic and codified approaches to design?

Keywords
Architecture
design
village
urban-rural relationship
rural revitalization
ecological civilization
sustainable development
cultural diversity
innovation
climate change
circular economy
cross-disciplinarity.
Published Paper (6 Papers)
BOOK REVIEW

What we are studying when we are studying home: A book review of Home Beyond the House

Lingege Long
Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism 2023, 5(4), 0925 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0925
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reshaping Rural China)
28 Download 1179 Views
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Envisioning rural futures: Lishui and the Future Shan-Shui City competition

Leonardo Ramondetti
Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism 2023, 5(3), 0957 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0957
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reshaping Rural China)
56 Download 779 Views
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Ecosystem service value evaluation method for local-oriented rural water ecological governance: A case study on Shuiku Village in Shanghai

Nannan Dong, Luca Maria Francesco Fabris, Yongnan Wang, Xinyue Chen
Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism 2023, 5(3), 1055 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1055
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reshaping Rural China)
51 Download 785 Views
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Learning from the countryside: Designing in Chinese rural-urban areas

Maurizio Meriggi, Mao Lin, Xiao Chu, Kan Chen
Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism 2023, 5(4), 0981 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0981
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reshaping Rural China)
85 Download 893 Views
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Study on the development path of cultural tourism integration in Yubai Village in the context of rural revitalization

Mingyue Li, Mingjing Yang, Yihong Luo, Dehao Zheng, Matt Fu
Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism 2024, 6(1), 0953 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0953
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reshaping Rural China)
19 Download 276 Views
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Regenerating tradition: Empowering rural revitalization through Li culture and green infrastructure in a design case study of Yulong village, Hainan, China

Keshen Wu, Martin Bryant, Andrew Toland, Yong He, Bo Chen
Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, 1304 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1304
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reshaping Rural China)
10 Download 148 Views
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Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism, Electronic ISSN: 2717-5626 Published by AccScience Publishing