Yao-House

Yao-House

China has 56 minority groups, and the main differences between each are culture and life style. Yao is a Chinese minority group with 2.8 Million members in the world, the significant population distributed in China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and the United States1. Guangyan is a small county in South of China. It is the birthplace of Yao people2. Yao people have lived in the mountains for a thousand years to escape wars and exactions. Today, China is seeing big improvements in its economy, and rapid urbanization, as many millions of people move from the country side to the city. Many Yao people have chosen to pursue a modern life and have moved to city as well. The traditional Yao village doesn’t have enough resources to support Yao people’s desires for a richer life.
The traditional Yao house, through many experiences, has been adapted to the topography, culture, weather, technology, and life style of south China. When Yao people move to the city, they have to acclimatize a new culture, a new topography, a new life. Thus, the new characteristics and traditional Yao characteristics mix together. However, the Yao neighborhood in Guangyan doesn’t show any of the positive features of Yao village life. The buildings in Guangyan have high density, are isolated from each other, promote little or no communication between neighbors, and separate work and living space. However, city has many benefits as well—that residents can have well-paying work (even if many supplements it with their small neighborhood shops), access to convenient transportation including automobiles, more cultural diversity, etc. Consequently, to find a better way to design housing for Yao people in the city is a challenge of great significance.
The contemporary Yao neighborhood in the city should express both Yao village characteristics and city features together. In the City-Village model proposed here, a small community space is composed of five units. Three units share a courtyard, and the other two share a courtyard and a living room. Each unit has its own working space at home. This small community connects to other small communities within the same development to create a larger village within the city, all sharing a common piazza and retail space. The Yao City-Village encourages people to live as a community, and gather together as they had in the village. Neighbors can easily invite people to their houses to have traditional oil tea together, to drop in and visit, to sing folk songs, have square dancing, and play Taiji.

Detalis

• Designer: Huaming Wang
• Location: Guilin (unbuilt)
• Date: 2019
• Tags: Revit Model, Enscape Rendering, Basswood Physical Model
• Building: Project in high resolution