A House for All Seasons
Shijia Village is located in the northern part of Shaanxi Province, near the city of Xi’an. The project was funded by the Luke Him Sau Charitable Trust with support from the Shaanxi Women’s Federation and The University of Hong Kong. Our project there looks at the idea of the vernacular village house and attempts to propose a contemporary prototype. Initially it began as an experiential learning workshop with students who documented and interviewed various families in the village, collectively compiling a portrait of the modern Chinese village house － a portrait not only of building types but of a lifestyle in transition.
All the houses in Shijia Village are originally of mud brick construction and occupy parcels of the same configuration: 10 m x 30 m. The houses are each in the midst of a long process of change as villagers gradually renovate and build upon the courtyard typology, traditional elements fused with new brick and concrete buildings. Apart from the identically defined parcel boundary, no two houses are alike.
In the Chinese context, rural livelihood is perhaps best expressed through the utilization of the domestic courtyard, where much of life takes place. Indeed, the majority of a village's open space is contained within the walls of the house. This sets up an intimate relationship between the courtyard and other interior rooms that is both visual and functional. Our prototype house design includes four functional courtyards as the primary element of the house. The courtyards are inserted throughout the house to relate to the main functional rooms: kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedrooms. Each courtyard is spatially unique. One could say the house is designed around the courtyards.
One of the main intentions of the prototype house is to resist the villagers’ increasing dependency on outside goods and services. The roof is multifunctional, providing a space for drying food, steps for seating and, in the rainy season, a means to collect and store rainwater so that it can be used during the long and dry summers. The house becomes an example of self-reliance. The courtyards house pigs and an underground biogas system produces energy for cooking. Smoke from the stove is channeled through the traditional kang or heated bed before it exits the chimney.
The structure of the house brings together old and new. A concrete column and roof structure is combined with mud brick infill walls ‒ mud brick being a traditional means of insulation in the continental climate. Unlike the traditional mud structure, however, the new hybrid satisfies criteria for earthquake resistance. The entire outside wall of the house is ‘wrapped’ in a brick screen. This not only serves to protect the mud walls, but also shades windows and openings. By combining vernacular ideas from other regions of China as well as traditional and new technologies, the design is a prototype for a modern Chinese mud brick courtyard house.
