Sinicisation and ethnicity: spatial characteristics of Shui vernacular architecture in Guizhou, Southwest China

Abstract

The Shui people are an ethnic minority living in southern mountainous areas of Guizhou Province, China; they have retained many vernacular houses with a history of over a century. Using spatial analysis software depthmapX to perform visibility graph analysis and field-of-view analysis with space syntax, we examined the sequence, organisation, and hierarchy of the living space in Shui residences. We found that those residences were influenced by external cultures, resulting in two types of plan layout: front-middle-back (type A) and left-middle-right (type B). Those two types of spatial combination were evident in two different line-of-sight axes. With type A, the hearth was the core and served as the daily living space of the family. With type B, the ancestral altar was the core and served as the ritual space. The historical coexistence and changing relationship of the two axes reflect cultural exchange between the Shui and Han as well as with other foreign cultures. This study concludes that the diversity of spatial forms that developed in different historical periods is an important attribute of Shui houses and those of other ethnic minorities in Southwest China.