Cultural sustainability and vitality of Chinese vernacular architecture: A pedigree for the spatial art of traditional villages in Jiangnan region

Abstract

Presently, the rapid urbanization in contemporary cities in China has resulted in more buildings of low cultural value and high energy consumption. Many traditional Chinese villages exhibit special spaces that have been optimally adapted to the climatic and environmental features of the area using vernacular methods. The buildings in these villages can maintain the environment more sufficiently for the intended programs and consuming a lower level of resources. The construction technics and the artistic features in these spaces are invaluable and inspiring for contemporary architectural practices. This study aims to establish a pedigree of the artistic features exhibited in traditional Chinese villages to support sustainable development. This is to be achieved through thoroughly exploring the spatial design of these villages archived in a big-data resource. The pedigree integrates the dynamics (cultural changes over a certain period of time) and static (spatial features at a fixed time) of how the spaces in these villages have evolved. It is concluded that both a high level of sustainability and exceptional artistic quality have been achieved over a long history in many of these villages where traditional construction methods and design principals were employed.