In the past 40 years of rapid urbanization, China has witnessed the large-scale destruction of millions of villages. The value of rural settlements with regard to the environment, culture, and suitability for human habitat has long been overlooked. The sustainable development of dilapidated villages demands more than budgets and blueprints. These decaying villages can only be revitalized through the development of new ways of living and working.
As result of the aging population, limited physical space, and big cities’ dependence on revenue from land sales, elder care in China is both inadequate and costly. Moreover, many villages on the outskirts of cities remain largely unoccupied and rural residents live in relative isolation. In light of this, homes for seniors can be built in these villages. While the young can live and work in the cities, the elderly can live in suburban villages. Cities and villages will thus be bound by the blood ties between the generations.
Please formulate a plan for a newly constructed house or a reconstructed house in-situ within a dilapidated village for your retired parents and grandparents. The renovation or reconstruction project must conform to the regulations on reconstruction and rural land designated for housing issued by the municipalities. You may also design a house that your friends and other relatives can live in on the condition that the original dwelling has enough space. In general it should be a space of love and a place you would like to visit on weekends to accompany your elder family members.
From Le Corbusier’s claim that a “house is a machine for living” and Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of organic architecture, to the consumeristic and human-centric present age and the futuristic belief that everything can be determined by an algorithm, the dominant ideas of different times have continuously reshaped the relation between man and space. The ever-changing needs of people have come to be the fundamental driving force of architecture, and architecture thus needs to address the shifting dynamics of the people in today’s world. But it should not stray away from the people-centered principles of architecture, as the harmonious relations among men and between man and nature is the ultimate need for the mankind, regardless of the developments in technology, culture and economy.
