Living Heritage and Place Revitalisation:

A Study of Place Identity of Lili, a Rural Historic Canal Town in China

Xiaoxin Zhao

B Arch, M Arch

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at

The University of Queensland in 2019

School of Architecture
Abstract

China is confronting intractable challenges during the process of urbanisation. The urban-rural
binary structure that has developed since 1958 has led to a gap in development between urban
and rural China. Rapid urbanisation has exacerbated the gap between urban and rural areas and
has caused the outflow of rural residents seeking employment in cities, which has led to
‘hollowed villages’, that is, with decreasing populations, in rural China. These issues have
attracted much attention from the central Chinese government who have promulgated a series
of policies to support rural development, especially economically. In recent decades,
developers and governments have increased the economic profits from real estate and tourism
economies in rural areas, so that historic cultural landscapes have, in some places, been
replaced by modern residential apartments or pseudo-historic districts in rural historic towns
and villages. Under this situation, historic cultural landscapes with significant place identities,
attachment and collective memories have been impacted, and the cultural and social values
within these rural communities are gradually diminishing.

In consideration of these issues in rural China, in 2018, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed
the ‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’ for future rural redevelopment. This research examines how
such strategies are unfolding in rural China taking Lili, a Chinese rural historic canal as an
example. The motivation of this research is to devise principles and recommendations on how
revitalisation in China can incorporate place identity and heritage management to achieve
socially sustainable development in rural communities. The broad aim of the thesis is to
establish a framework for analysing rural historic towns and villages in China, and beyond,
within the context of rapid urbanisation and the need to respond to the threats to the social and
physical fabric of Chinese rural places.

To achieve this aim, Chapters 2 and 3 critically review the concepts of sustainable development,
heritage and place in both the Western and the Chinese contexts to develop a research
framework based on the three dimensions of place identity for research, namely physical
characteristics, social place attachment and psychological place attachment. Chapter 4 outlines
the methodology used in the thesis, explaining how the combination of digital technologies and
qualitative methods are applied to obtain data about both the physical and social environments
within Lili. Before the Lili-based studies, Chapter 5 examines the broad relationship between
urban and rural development in China and reviews the central government policies designed to
support rural revitalisation. Chapter 6 analyses how Chinese architects have attempted to shape

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and sustain the place identity of rural historic towns and villages during rural revitalisation.
This analysis leads to original term ‘semi-vernacular’, differentiating designs or developments
within which social as well as physical values are conserved, and establishing the advantage of
semi-vernacular over ‘neo-vernacular’ approaches to village revitalisation. Based on the three
dimensions, Chapter 7, 8 and 9 take Lili as a case to examine its place identity through
fieldwork analysis, which includes recording the physical characteristics (at the urban and
architectural scale), social and psychological place attachment. The data of physical
characteristics are collected by digital technologies (e.g., 3D scanning and photogrammetry)
and analysed by developing diagrams based on morphological and typological approaches. The
data about social and psychological place attachment are collected by observation and semi-
structured interview and analysed by thematic analysis.

In conclusion, this research innovatively incorporates sustainable community and place

identity considerations in rural revitalisation and proposes an original Sustainable Community
Model for the rural heritage setting in China. The Sustainable Community Model reveals that
retaining the place identity and making the rural place as living heritage, helps to sustain the
development of rural historic towns and villages.

At the detailed level, this research gives recommendations and principles to guide the
revitalisation of Lili; but more broadly, the Sustainable Community Model based on findings
from Lili helps architects, urban designers and the decision-makers to identify the significant
factors in design and management to create sustainable communities for rural revitalisation in
China. This model requires researchers to understand historic cultural landscapes
comprehensively and suggests architects should also take non-authorised heritage into
consideration, such as locally meaningful objects, local social networks and personal memories,
all of which contribute to the social and psychological place attachment that sustains
communities. This is applicable to similar rural historic towns and villages in China and even
other nations, facing similar challenges of declining rural populations and challenges to both
historic built fabric and morphology, and rural ways of life. From the perspective of
methodology, this research offers an original integrated application of digital technologies,
including mobile 3D scanning and photogrammetry, in the study of the historic cultural
landscape enabling both typological and morphological analysis, and demonstrates that it is a
valuable approach for future research and management in rural revitalisation in China and
elsewhere.

ii
Declaration by author

This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or
written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly
stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis.

I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical
assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial
advice, financial support and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis.
The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of
my higher degree by research candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that
has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university
or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been
submitted to qualify for another award.

I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library
and, subject to the policy and procedures of The University of Queensland, the thesis be made
available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968 unless a period of
embargo has been approved by the Dean of the Graduate School.

I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright
holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the
copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis and have sought permission from co-
authors for any jointly authored works included in the thesis.

iii
Publications included in this thesis

This thesis includes one published journal paper which have been incorporated as Chapter 6.
The original form in publication has been minor revised in this thesis to link to other chapters
fluently. The publication and contributions of all authors to the publications are indicated as
follows,

Zhao, X., & Greenop, K. (2019). From ‘neo-vernacular’ to ‘semi-vernacular’: a case study of
vernacular architecture representation and adaptation in rural Chinese village revitalization.
International Journal of Heritage Studies, 25(11), 1128–1147.
http://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2019.1570544

Contributor Statement of contribution

Xiaoxin Zhao (Candidate) The main conceptual ideas, terms and arguments, data and
material collection and writing the paper (75%)

Kelly Greenop Reorganising the structure and editing the paper (25%)

Submitted manuscripts included in this thesis

Zhao, X., Marnane, K., & Greenop, K. (2020). Digital technologies as opportunities for place
studies: Studying the physical, social and cultural significance of historic settlement in China
and informal settlement in India. Journal of Cultural Heritage.

Contributor Statement of contribution

Xiaoxin Zhao (Candidate) The main conceptual ideas and arguments, data and material
collection and writing the aim, introduction, theory,
methodology and results in China part (40%)

Kali Marnane The main argument, material collection and writing the
results in India part and conclusion (40%)

Kelly Greenop Reorganising the structure, discussion and conclusion; and

editing the paper (20%)

iv
Other publications during candidature
• Peer-reviewed journal papers

Zhao, X. (2019). Research on scholars with the international educational background in

contemporary architectural schools in China. Shijie jianzhu [World Architecture], (6), 110–113.
(in Chinese)

Zhao, X. (2018). Research on construction techniques of the vernacular dwellings in north

Fujian. Xiaochengzhen jianshe [Development of Small Cities and Towns], 2018, 36(12): 84-91.
(in Chinese)

Zhao, X. (2018). Lifting beams? Pillars and beams? Classification of Chinese traditional timber
structure: the principle of Chinese traditional timber framework (part one). Huazhong
Architecture, (6), 121–126. (in Chinese)

Zhao, X., & Cheng, L. (2018). Discussion on rural revitalization: a case study of Wencun in
Hangzhou. Xiandai chengshi yanjiu [Modern Urban Research], (4), 23–29. (in Chinese)

• Peer-reviewed conference papers

Marnane, K., & Zhao*, X. (2019). Digital places: revealing the physical, social and cultural
significance of settlements in China and India with digital technologies. In F. Han, C. Yang, C.
Landorf, & K. Greenop (Eds.), FUTURE VISIONS. Tongji Univiersity, Collage of Architecture
and Urban Planning, Shanghai.

Zhao, X., & Greenop, K. (2019). Qualitative research on place identity and place issues in Lili,
Suzhou, a historic canal town in China. In A. Beth, R. Wener, B. Yoon, R. A. Rae, & J. Morris
(Eds.), Proceedings from EDRA 50: Sustainable urban environments. New York, NY: EDRA.

Zhao, X., & Greenop, K. (2016). A preliminary investigation of the rammed earth houses in a
vernacular village in China. In L. D. Zuo & V. Soebarto (Eds.), 50th International Conference
of the Architectural Science Association 2016 (pp. 725–734). Adelaide.

Contributions by others to the thesis

No contributions by others.

v
Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree
No works submitted towards another degree have been included in this thesis.

Research Involving Human or Animal Subjects

This research complies with the provisions contained in the National Statement on Ethical
Conduct in Human Research and complies with the regulations governing experimentation on
humans. The research has obtained ethics approval from the Low and Negligible Risk Ethics
Sub-Committee representative Professor Deanna Kemp.

The ethics approval number is 2018000528. A copy of the ethics approval letter has been
included in the thesis Appendix A.

vi
Acknowledgements

When I start writing the acknowledgement, I have just realised that my PhD journey at the
University of Queensland (UQ) is coming to an end. These four years in UQ trained me to be
an early career researcher with generous support from my supervisors, colleagues, friends and
family. The thesis would not be possible to be accomplished without your help and I own my
deepest debt of gratitude to all of you!

I would like to initially express gratitude to my supervisors. Working with them is a great
fortune to me during the study at the UQ. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to
my principal supervisor Dr Kelly Greenop for her thoughtful and patient supervision, as well
as her encouragement whenever I felt confused in my study and life. I was so grateful to her
message that cheered me up when I failed in the first confirmation. I would also like to express
my gratitude to Associate Professor Chris Landorf, my associate supervisor. She has been
extraordinarily inspiring and informative for my research, offering professional guidance and
warm encouragement. I still remember the constructive recommendation notes on my thesis
chapters and other paper works that written carefully word by word. I also want to thank my
co-supervisor Professor John Macarthur who met me during my master study in Nanjing. His
professional suggestions and advice inspired me at some difficult stages of this thesis. I also
express my gratitude to all the friendly colleagues and staff at the UQ School of Architecture,
especially Dr Nicole Sully, Dr Manu P. Sobti, Dr Silvia Micheli. Thanks to Paul Matthew, Brant
Tate, Lloyd Johns, Kali Marnane, Paul Dielemans, Maryam Shafiei, and many other PhD
candidate comrades for their valuable comments and generous help.

Gratefulness is also given to Professor Zhao Chen, Professor Ding Wowo, Professor Lu
Andong and Associate Professor Dou Pingping, Associate Professor Hua Xiaoning from
Nanjing University, who gave me strong advice and support every time I went back Nanjing.
During the process of writing my first journal paper to International Journal of Heritage
Studies, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Laurajane Smith from Australian
National University and those anonymous reviewers gave me constructive advice.

This research would not have completed without the contributions of the many people who
guided the process of data collection. I want to thank all of the interviewed residents and leaders
for contributing their time and energy to this research, as well as Li Haimin who introduced the
history of Lili and gave me help during the fieldwork. I am also grateful for the assistance to
John P.C. Moffett, the Librarian of East Asian History of Science Library, Needham Research

vii
Institute for his help in sending the historic map of Lili as a significant material in my research.

I should thank my parents for their deep love, encouragement and support in my studies and
life. Wish them to enjoy their life in good health. Thanks to my friends Xie Anan, Liu Shasha,
Wang Zhechen and many other friends I met in Brisbane. I really appreciate the happy days
with you. Thanks to Jieqiong Wang, PhD candidate in University of Michigan, who gave me
support, encouragement and advice during the hard time. Good to see you in New York as an
unforgettable memory and wish your PhD journey with a happy ending soon. Appreciation also
gives to those kind-hearted and supportive friends online who I have met or even never met
yet.

Thanks to Yuxin for sharing her best two years with me. It was my great honour to have such
a life experience with you. Jacaranda season returns every year, but you left me silently. You
can never imagine how painful it was when you stepped out of my world. I can still clearly
remember the day when I drove to Gold Coast alone with tears and finally admitted that we
may never meet again in the rest of our lives. I truly believe we have to meet a few wrong
people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will
know how to be grateful.

At the end of the acknowledgement, I would lastly thank myself who compete with loneliness
and overcome every difficulty along with great passion and depression during the journey. I
believe that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger and be a better man.

viii
Financial support

This research was supported by the University of Queensland International Scholarship (UQI)
and China Scholarship Council (CSC)

Keywords

Living heritage, heritage management, cultural landscape, social sustainability, sustainable

community, place identity, place attachment, rural revitalisation, canal town, China

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Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC)

ANZSRC code: 120102, Architectural Heritage and Conservation, 60%

ANZSRC code: 120505, Regional Analysis and Development, 20%

ANZSRC code: 160403, Social and Cultural Geography, 20%

Fields of Research (FoR) Classification

FoR code: 1201, Architecture, 60%

FoR code: 1205, Urban and Regional Planning, 20%

FoR code: 1604, Human Geography, 20%

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Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... xi

List of Figures .................................................................................................................. xx

List of Tables ................................................................................................................. xxvi

List of Abbreviations used in the thesis .......................................................................xxvii

Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Research background ................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Locating the research field ........................................................................................... 5

1.3 Review of relevant research on rural revitalisation ..................................................... 8

1.3.1 Architect’s practices in rural revitalisation ....................................................... 8

1.3.2 Historic cultural landscape: urban form and house form .................................. 9

1.3.3 Rural economic revitalisation and social equity ............................................. 11

1.4 Research gap .............................................................................................................. 13

1.5 Research question ...................................................................................................... 14

1.6 Project aims................................................................................................................ 15

1.7 Significance and originality ....................................................................................... 16

1.8 Brief introduction of the methodology ...................................................................... 17

1.8.1 Documenting Lili’s physical characteristics ................................................... 17

1.8.2 Documenting the residents’ social and psychological place attachment ........ 18

1.9 Thesis structure and outline ....................................................................................... 19

Chapter 2: Sustainable Development and Comparative Analysis of Western and Chinese

Heritage management............................................................................................................ 23

2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 23

2.2 The evolution of sustainable development ................................................................ 24

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 2.2.1 Background information on sustainable development .................................... 24

2.2.2 Definition of sustainable development ........................................................... 24

2.2.3 Sustainable development in China .................................................................. 25

2.3 Social sustainability ................................................................................................... 29

2.3.1 Definitional ambiguity on social sustainability .............................................. 29

2.3.2 Components of social sustainability ............................................................... 30

2.3.3 Cultural background and place-based social sustainability ............................ 30

2.4 Sustainable communities ........................................................................................... 32

2.4.1 What is a ‘sustainable community’ ................................................................. 32

2.4.2 Community stability: a fundamental role to create a sustainable community 33

2.4.3 Social capitals helping to create a sustainable community ............................. 33

2.5 Heritage contributes to sustainable development ...................................................... 35

2.5.1 Conservation vs development ......................................................................... 36

2.6 Heritage and conservation philosophy ....................................................................... 38

2.6.1 Heritage and architectural conservation in China ........................................... 38

2.6.2 Liang Sicheng’s influence on the conservation of architectural heritage in China

.................................................................................................................................. 41

2.6.3 Nara Document and ‘authenticity’ .................................................................. 41

2.7 Evolution of the value system in conservation .......................................................... 43

2.7.1 International documents of conservation ........................................................ 43

2.7.2 The China Principles and associated issues .................................................... 44

2.8 The historic cultural landscape in heritage management ........................................... 46

2.9 Conclusion: from heritage conservation to place conservation ................................. 47

Chapter 3: The Role of Place in ‘Living Heritage’ ............................................................. 49

3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 49

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 3.2 What is ‘place’? ......................................................................................................... 50

3.2.1 Space: Physical setting of a place ................................................................... 53

3.2.2 Social place with activities and events............................................................ 54

3.2.3 Psychological place with feelings and memories ........................................... 57

3.2.4 Place is a living heritage ................................................................................. 58

3.3 What is ‘place identity’? ............................................................................................ 60

3.3.1 Identity and personal identity.......................................................................... 60

3.3.2 Place identity and its relevant terms ............................................................... 61

3.4 Physical characteristics .............................................................................................. 65

3.4.1 The role of ‘background context’ in physical characteristics ......................... 65

3.4.2 Vernacular architecture and vernacular in-between space .............................. 67

3.5 Collective place attachment ....................................................................................... 68

3.5.1 Social place attachment................................................................................... 69

3.5.2 Psychological place attachment ...................................................................... 69

3.6 Physical characteristics, the trigger for collective place attachment ......................... 72

3.7 Conclusion: Place is ‘living heritage’ ........................................................................ 73

Chapter 4: Methodology for the Study of Place Identity ................................................... 74

4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 74

4.2 Study design and strategy .......................................................................................... 75

4.2.1 Research through fieldwork and site selection ............................................... 76

4.2.2 Qualitative research and ethic clearance ......................................................... 77

4.2.3 Participants selection ...................................................................................... 77

4.3 Data collection ........................................................................................................... 80

4.3.1 Direct observation ........................................................................................... 80

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 4.3.2 Semi-structure interview with open-end questions ......................................... 81

4.3.3 Free talk .......................................................................................................... 83

4.4 Data storage ............................................................................................................... 83

4.5 Data analysis .............................................................................................................. 84

4.5.1 Context transferring for thematic analysis ...................................................... 84

4.5.2 Coding for thematic analysis .......................................................................... 84

4.5.3 Visual diagram: mapping ................................................................................ 88

4.6 Summary .................................................................................................................... 88

Chapter 5: From Urban Regeneration to Rural Revitalisation in China ......................... 89

5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 89

5.2 From urban renewal/regeneration to rural revitalisation ........................................... 90

5.2.1 The concept of urban renewal/regeneration .................................................... 90

5.2.2 Theories in urban regeneration ....................................................................... 91

5.3 Urbanisation and urban regeneration in China .......................................................... 92

5.4 Relationship between urban and rural China’s development ..................................... 95

5.4.1 Household assets ............................................................................................. 95

5.4.2 Urban and rural populations............................................................................ 97

5.5 Rural development after 2000 .................................................................................... 99

5.5.1 ‘Three rural issues’ ......................................................................................... 99

5.5.2 ‘New socialist countryside’ and ‘beautiful countryside plan’ ....................... 100

5.5.3 ‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’ ..................................................................... 103

5.5.4 Architects in rural revitalisation .................................................................... 104

5.6 Efforts in heritage management in rural China ........................................................ 107

5.6.1 Historical towns and villages and traditional villages .................................. 107

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 5.6.2 Heritage fever................................................................................................ 110

5.7 History of rural Jiangnan development in China ..................................................... 111

5.7.1 The 1920s to 1930s: the effect of urban industrialisation and the transportation
system .................................................................................................................... 112

5.7.2 The 1950s to 1970s: urban–rural binary structure ........................................ 114

5.7.3 The 1980s to 2000s: industry and cultural tourism ....................................... 116

5.8 Lili: A canal town in Jiangnan region ...................................................................... 118

5.8.1 Decreasing population and disappearing neighbourhood ............................. 118

5.9 Conclusion: Sustaining everyday place as ‘living heritage’ .................................... 122

Chapter 6: From ‘neo-vernacular’ to ‘semi-vernacular’: A case study of vernacular

architecture representation and adaptation in rural Chinese village revitalisation ...... 123

6.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 123

6.2 Research and preservation of Chinese vernacular architectural heritage ................ 124

6.2.1 Defining vernacular architecture over time .................................................. 124

6.2.2 Chinese research on vernacular architecture................................................. 125

6.2.3 Conservation and adaptive reuse of vernacular architecture ........................ 126

6.3 The vernacular architecture movement in China ..................................................... 128

6.3.1 The ‘vernacular frenzy’ and ‘neo-vernacular’ architecture ........................... 128

6.3.2 The vernacular frenzy, minsu tourism and neo-vernacular architecture ....... 128

6.3.3 ‘Semi-vernacular’ architecture in rural Chinese villages .............................. 130

6.4 Case study: renovating Wencun Village .................................................................. 131

6.4.1 Amateur Architecture Studio’s neo-vernacular work .................................... 131

6.4.2 Analysing the renovation of Wencun Village................................................ 132

6.5 Case study: renovating Shen’ao and Daijiashan Villages ........................................ 137

6.5.1 Zhang Lei’s two villages ............................................................................... 137

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 6.5.2 The project in Shen’ao Village...................................................................... 137

6.5.3 The projects in Daijiashan Village ................................................................ 140

6.5.4 Analysing Zhang Lei’s vernacular renovation projects ................................ 142

6.6 Conclusion: Rural revitalisation through ‘semi-vernacular’ ................................... 143

Chapter 7: Morphologic Study of the Historic Cultural Landscape in Lili ................... 146

7.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 146

7.2 Historic cultural landscape ....................................................................................... 147

7.3 Morphological research of the historic cultural landscape ...................................... 149

7.3.1 What is morphology ...................................................................................... 149

7.3.2 A brief review of studies on urban morphology............................................ 150

7.3.3 What morphology can tell us ........................................................................ 152

7.4 How to understand the physical characteristics of a historic cultural landscape ..... 152

7.4.1 Morphological research methods .................................................................. 152

7.4.2 Approaches for archiving historic cultural landscape ................................... 153

7.4.3 Advanced technology in the fieldwork of this research ................................ 156

7.5 Physical characteristics of Lili’s historic cultural landscape ................................... 157

7.5.1 Mapping the physical changes in Lili ........................................................... 158

7.5.2 Mapping the urban tissue of plots in Lili ...................................................... 171

7.5.3 Physical characteristics in public space in Lili ............................................. 178

7.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 195

Chapter 8: Typological Study of the House Form and Culture in Lili ........................... 197

8.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 197

8.2 House form in Lili.................................................................................................... 198

8.2.1 Plots, lanes and houses .................................................................................. 198

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 8.2.2 The plan of a Lili courtyard building in Lili ................................................. 199

8.2.3 The sections of a Lili courtyard building in Lili ........................................... 212

8.3 The culture and social life in Lili courtyard houses ................................................. 220

8.3.1 The division of the houses by families ......................................................... 220

8.3.2 Behaviour in houses ...................................................................................... 222

8.3.3 Architectural regeneration based on house form in Lili................................ 226

8.4 Conclusion: house form and social life sustain a place ........................................... 229

Chapter 9: Place Attachment and Sustainable Community in Lili ................................. 231

9.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 231

9.2 Community stability................................................................................................. 231

9.2.1 The outflow of younger generations and an aging society ........................... 232

9.2.2 Shrinking education and less vitality from students ..................................... 234

9.3 Social interaction/social networks and community participation ............................ 235

9.3.1 Disappearing socially active place in the historic area today ....................... 236

9.3.2 The decline of social interactions: Chengguan in Lili .................................. 238

9.3.3 Social interaction in virtual worlds ............................................................... 239

9.3.4 Adaptation to multi-use places ...................................................................... 241

9.3.5 Interactions from the historic area to the new apartment .............................. 244

9.4 Safety and security ................................................................................................... 247

9.5 Sense of place (place attachment) ............................................................................ 250

9.5.1 Mapping place attachment in Lili ................................................................. 250

9.5.2 Objects trigger place attachment ................................................................... 255

9.6 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 259

9.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 262

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Chapter 10: Discussion and Conclusion: A Sustainable Community Model for Rural
Revitalisation in China ........................................................................................................ 265

10.1 Review of the research ........................................................................................... 265

10.2 Contribution: Sustainable Community Model ....................................................... 270

10.2.1 Defining the Sustainable Community Model ............................................. 270

10.2.2 Significance and application of the Sustainable Community Model .......... 271

10.2.3 Other contributions: digital technologies in place studies .......................... 272

10.3 Recommendations for the Sustainable Community Model in practice ................. 273

10.3.1 Recommendations in design ....................................................................... 273

10.3.2 Recommendations in social events ............................................................. 274

10.3.3 Recommendations in governance ............................................................... 275

10.4 Concluding remarks ............................................................................................... 276

10.5 Limitations and future work................................................................................... 278

Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 280

Appendix A ........................................................................................................................... 320

Appendix B ........................................................................................................................... 321

Question Schedule – Interviews (For Residents) ........................................................... 321

Question Schedule – Interviews (For Tourists).............................................................. 323

Appendix C ........................................................................................................................... 325

Rural revitalization projects by architects...................................................................... 325

Appendix D ........................................................................................................................... 333

Point Cloud model of Lili (photogrammetry and 3D scanning) .................................... 333

Appendix E ........................................................................................................................... 334

Street Sections in Lili ..................................................................................................... 334

Appendix F ........................................................................................................................... 337

xviii
 Gradient of lanes in Lili ................................................................................................. 337

Appendix G ........................................................................................................................... 338

3D Scanning of the vernacular house ............................................................................ 338

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List of Figures
Figure 1. 1 Thesis structure.. .................................................................................................... 22

Figure 2.1 SDGs indicators for China...................................................................................... 28

Figure 2.2 Relations between the five factors of a sustainable community. ............................ 35

Figure 2.3 (a) Palimpsest; (b) architectural palimpsest; (c) urban palimpsest. ........................ 40

Figure 2.4 Three phases of the evolution of the values in conservation documents................ 43

Figure 3.1 Three factors of a place. ......................................................................................... 53

Figure 3.2 Geyu Road (left) and Geyu Road in Google Maps (right). .................................... 55

Figure 3.3 Four continuities in the living heritage approach. .................................................. 59

Figure 3.4 Scannell and Gifford's (2010) tripartite model of place attachment....................... 63

Figure 3.5 Diagram of ‘place identity’. ................................................................................... 64

Figure 3.6 The ‘statues of liberty’ around the world................................................................ 66

Figure 3.7 The real Church of Light (left) and a full-scale model (right)................................ 67

Figure 3.8 Negative association of recognisability between buildings and ‘in-between space’.
.................................................................................................................................................. 68

Figure 3.9 The Foguangsi Temple, Shanxi, China. .................................................................. 70

Figure 3.10 Kinkakuji temple in Kyoto (left) and a pavilion on Zixia Lake in Nanjing (right).
.................................................................................................................................................. 71

Figure 4.1 Methodology for capturing the physical environment in Chapter 7 and qualitative
analysis for place attachment in Chapter 4. ............................................................................. 74

Figure 4.2 Treepmap chart of word frequency for categorising interview materials............... 86

Figure 5.1 A building on an island of land amid construction in Chongqing (2007). ............. 93

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Figure 5.2 Property sales and investments in China, 2008–2017. ........................................... 94

Figure 5.3 Property price trends in China, 2008–2017. ........................................................... 95

Figure 5.4 Annual per capita disposable income of rural and urban households in China 2017.
.................................................................................................................................................. 96

Figure 5.5 China’s Gini coefficient, 2003–2017. ..................................................................... 97

Figure 5.6 Urban and rural population in China, 1950–2050. ................................................. 98

Figure 5.7 Percentage of urban population distribution in each province of China, 2015. ..... 98

Figure 5.8 A controversial peasant house in Ningbo. ............................................................ 102

Figure 5.9 Migrant workers’ new houses in rural Zhejiang, China. ...................................... 102

Figure 5.10 Number of research papers with the titles using the terms 建筑 (‘architecture’) and
乡村 (‘countryside’)............................................................................................................... 105

Figure 5.11 Chinese architects’ rural projects, 2004–2018. ................................................... 105

Figure 5.12 Distribution of 160 rural projects in China by architects. .................................. 106

Figure 5.13 Function of the architecture projects undertaken in rural China. ....................... 107

Figure 5.14 Famous historical villages in China until 2019. ................................................. 109

Figure 5.15 Famous historical towns in China until 2019. .................................................... 109

Figure 5.16 Traditional villages in China until 2016. ............................................................ 110

Figure 5.17 Network structure (above) and hierarchy structure (below) between villages, towns
and cities in the Jiangnan region. ........................................................................................... 113

Figure 5.18 Economic transformation before 1990 and after 2010 in JCTs. ......................... 117

Figure 5.19 Location of Lili in East China. ........................................................................... 119

Figure 5.20 Population of Lili from 1982 to 2017. ................................................................ 120

Figure 5.21 High vacancy of new apartments in Lili............................................................. 121

Figure 6.1 Similarities between Wencun Village renovations and buildings and Amateur

xxi
Architecture Studio’s pre-existing projects in China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. ............... 134

Figure 6.2 Tower cranes in Wencun village during AAS renovations. .................................. 135

Figure 6.3 Earth plasters (left) and brick facade (right) as surface. ....................................... 136

Figure 6.4 Seminar in the Library at Shen’ao Village. .......................................................... 138

Figure 6.5 Before and after the pigpen was demolished (left) and new entrance hall (right).
................................................................................................................................................ 138

Figure 6.6 An original cooking stove is preserved in the library project by AZL. ................ 139

Figure 6.7 A courtyard between the two renovated buildings in Daijiashan Village. ............ 140

Figure 6.8 A modern timber structure corridor before (left) and after (right)........................ 141

Figure 6.9 The construction process of the new ‘brick box’ as service space. ...................... 141

Figure 6.10 Sunshine, landscape and sunmao skills. ............................................................. 141

Figure 7.1 Component of place identity. ................................................................................ 147

Figure 7.2 The photo of Kurashiki (left) and Lili (right). ..................................................... 148

Figure 7.3 Changes to canals and water areas in Lili. ........................................................... 159

Figure 7.4 The change of 傅家浜 (Fujia bang) in 1982 (left) and 2017(middle, right). ......... 161

Figure 7.5 Canal system and waterways around Lili. ............................................................ 163

Figure 7.6 Qingping Highway across north Lili in 1969. ...................................................... 164

Figure 7.7 Road system around Lili in 2010.......................................................................... 164

Figure 7.8 Lili’s planned road system in 2020. ...................................................................... 165

Figure 7.9 Map of Lili in 1982............................................................................................... 168

Figure 7.10 Map of Lili in 2016............................................................................................. 169

Figure 7.11 Development of Lili and its surrounding areas from 1984 to 2016.................... 170

Figure 7.12 Hierarchy of the concepts in morphological studies. ......................................... 171

Figure 7.13 Relationship between Conzen’s street and a street block. .................................. 173

xxii
Figure 7.14 Hierarchy of urban tissue (buildings not included in urban tissue according to the
author’s restriction). ............................................................................................................... 173

Figure 7.15 Lili’s street block, plot series and plots. ............................................................. 174

Figure 7.16 Figure ground diagram of building patterns in five residential areas of Lili...... 175

Figure 7.17 One ‘family unit’ in different stages. .................................................................. 178

Figure 7.18 Positions of street sections.................................................................................. 180

Figure 7.19 Street section examples of open street path (A-A; K-K), corridor street path (E-E)
and inner street path (H-H). ................................................................................................... 180

Figure 7.20 A bright lane and partly- and fully-covered dark lanes. ..................................... 183

Figure 7.21 Covered lattice window, glass-roof tiled lane, electrical lighting and oil lamps in
the alcoves.............................................................................................................................. 183

Figure 7.22 Timber bolt to maintain the security of the neighbourhood. .............................. 184

Figure 7.23 Turning point in New Kuai-Jia Nong, Lili. ........................................................ 185

Figure 7.24 Combined use of scanning and photogrammetry technology to display the lanes in
Lili. ......................................................................................................................................... 186

Figure 7.25 Sections of lanes in Lili. ..................................................................................... 188

Figure 7.26 Distribution of dock steps in Lili. ....................................................................... 190

Figure 7.27 Typological research on dock steps in Lili. ........................................................ 191

Figure 7.28 The distribution of bridges in Lili. ..................................................................... 193

Figure 7.29 Three bridge types. ............................................................................................. 195

Figure 8.1 Relations between plots, lanes and Lili courtyard buildings. ............................... 198

Figure 8.2 'Room' and 'step' as the minimum unit of a traditional Chinese architecture. ...... 199

Figure 8.3 Prototype X1Y1 and its variations XnY1. ............................................................ 201

Figure 8.5 Different X values in one building. ...................................................................... 202

Figure 8.4 The number of ‘rooms’ (n) in ‘Xn’ does not equal the number of the ‘steps’ (m) in

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‘Ym’. ...................................................................................................................................... 202

Figure 8.6 Porches in single/multistorey buildings................................................................ 203

Figure 8.7 Possible positions of wrapping walls and porches. .............................................. 204

Figure 8.8 Forms of courtyards (*X means the type is not found in Lili). ............................ 206

Figure 8.9 Relations between Lili courtyard buildings and lanes. ......................................... 207

Figure 8.11 Side entrances to the courtyard buildings without porches. ............................... 208

Figure 8.10 Side entrances to the courtyard buildings with porches. .................................... 208

Figure 8.12 The roof type of buildings with single/double/triple xiangfang. ........................ 210

Figure 8.13 The roof type of detached xiangfang and the main house. ................................. 211

Figure 8.14 Names of components in traditional and vernacular architecture in the Jiangnan
area. ....................................................................................................................................... 212

Figure 8.15 The meaning of ‘step’ in ancient Chinese language. .......................................... 214

Figure 8.16 Timber truss with different ‘steps’. .................................................................... 215

Figure 8.17 Central truss and edge truss. ............................................................................... 215

Figure 8.18 Variations on the central truss and the edge truss in Lili (*Step = 6 is the commonest
type in Lili). ........................................................................................................................... 217

Figure 8.19 Position of the stairs. .......................................................................................... 218

Figure 8.20 A connecting space with stairs in reconstructed Lili courtyard buildings. ......... 219

Figure 8.21 The change of the use of the main hall in Lili courtyard buildings. ................... 220

Figure 8.22 The Lili courtyard building division by new families ........................................ 221

Figure 8.23 Courtyard, kitchen and porch in a typical house in Lili based on my fieldwork
experience. ............................................................................................................................. 223

Figure 8.24 Better sunlight and ventilation in the porch and the shadow in the courtyard. .. 224

Figure 8.25 Relocation from Lili historic core area to new apartment area. ......................... 225

Figure 8.26 Lili community centre designed by Archmixing Studio..................................... 226

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Figure 8.27 The Fund Courtyard in Lili................................................................................. 228

Figure 9.1 Age distribution in Lili 2017. ............................................................................... 233

Figure 9.2 Comparison of the population distribution by age between Lili (2017) and China
(2010). .................................................................................................................................... 233

Figure 9.3 Lili cinema (built in 1982). ................................................................................... 237

Figure 9.4 Kunqu opera group rehearsing in Dongbao Barbershop. ..................................... 242

Figure 9.5 Steelyard shop (top) and hoop shop (bottom) as a social interaction place. ........ 243

Figure 9.6 Side place and corner place. ................................................................................. 244

Figure 9.7 Garage used as a ‘socially active’ place in the new apartments. .......................... 247

Figure 9.8 The cobbler and barber in Lili. ............................................................................. 248

Figure 9.9 Snack food in Lili. ................................................................................................ 250

Figure 9.10 Mapping significant places in Lili with residents............................................... 251

Figure 9.11 Mapping ‘home’ and ‘significant places’ in Lili................................................. 252

Figure 9.12 Label of Lili soy sauce (left); a drawing of Zhongli Ge (since demolished) (middle);
and a photograph of Zhongli Ge (right). ................................................................................ 256

Figure 9.13 An image of the Deity of Wealth Zhao Gongming seated on a tiger (left) and
Guanyin (right)....................................................................................................................... 257

Figure 9.14 Entry ticket to the Liu Yazi Museum. ................................................................. 258

Figure 9.15 The magazine 新青年 , established by Chen Duxiu and the newspaper 新黎里,

established by Liu Yazi .......................................................................................................... 258

Figure 9.16 Photograph of Qinglong Bridge taken in the early 1980s (left) and 2018 (right).
................................................................................................................................................ 259

Figure 9.17 Framework for a sustainable community in Lili. ............................................... 262

Figure 10.1 Sustainable Community Model .......................................................................... 270

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List of Tables
Table 4.1 List of the participants.............................................................................................. 78

Table 4.2 Demographics of the resident participants. .............................................................. 79

Table 5.1 Number of Historical Towns and Villages in China. ............................................. 108

Table 6.1 Distinction between vernacular, semi-vernacular, and neo-vernacular. ................. 130

Table 7.1 Typological Analysis of Street Sections ................................................................. 181

Table 7.2 Statistics of Dock Steps.......................................................................................... 191

Table 7.3 Information about the Bridges in Lili. ................................................................... 193

Table 8.1 Name and size of each component in Yingzao Fayuan. ......................................... 213

Table 8.2 Residents’ evaluation on Lili courtyard houses and new apartments. ................... 225

Table 9.1 Population in different ages in Lili (2017). ............................................................ 232

Table 9.2 Attitudes of Lili residents relocated to the new apartments. .................................. 246

Table 9.3 Sense of safety and security in Lili. ....................................................................... 247

Table 9.4 Qualitative data on significant places for local residents. ...................................... 253

Table 9.5 Positive and negative place identity in Lili in response to indicators of sustainable
community.............................................................................................................................. 260

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List of Abbreviations used in the thesis

AAS Amateur Architecture Studio

AZL Atelier Zhang Lei

CPC China Communist Party

CNBS China National Bureau of Statistics

CNCHA China National Cultural Heritage Administration

ETH Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich [Swiss Federal Institute of

Technology Zurich]
GDP Gross Domestic Product

HUL Historic Urban Landscape

ICCROM International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of

ICOMOS Cultural Property

International Council on Monuments and Sites

JCT Jiangnan canal town

KMT Kuomintang

LHA Living Heritage Approach

MOHURD Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development

NIT Nanjing Institute of Technology

NSC New Socialist Countryside

QR Quick Response

SDGs Sustainable Development Goals

TLS Terrestrial Laser Scanning

UK United Kingdom

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

US United States

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Research background

Since the late 1990s, rapid urban development has become a highly debated feature of many
cities in China and among other developing countries. This growth has come with notable
advances in China’s living standards. Yet from the perspective of heritage management, it has
also resulted in conflict between the push for modernisation and the desire to conserve
historical districts with cultural significance. When China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism
highlighted the importance of protecting the architectural identity of historic areas, historic
districts that have been demolished are often reconstructed in vernacular-styled with modern
materials visually for further development, such as tourism or commercial activities, in urban
China. However, this modernisation frequently leads to the loss of original tangible heritage
(e.g., housing, public space, etc.) and intangible heritage (e.g., customs, traditions in
construction, handicrafts, etc.) of a built environment.

The conflict between modernisation (demolition and reconstruction) and conservation

(including building reuse and renovation) is also occurring in rural China. In rural historic
towns and villages, vernacular buildings and landscapes that embody cultural identities form
an important body of tangible heritage. However, conserving vernacular buildings and
landscapes conflicts with the residents’ needs to improve their quality of life. Typically, they
demolish their vernacular houses to build modern houses or apartments with larger rooms and
contemporary equipment or facilities that enable a more comfortable lifestyle. To address this
issue in the rural historic towns and villages, some local governments have built affordable
apartments nearby to relocate the residents as an approach to balancing their needs for a better
life while conserving the landscape for tourism (Si & Scott, 2016).

Other than the relocation to affordable apartments nearby, rural depopulation is becoming an
issue of concern as local residents are the keepers and carriers of intangible heritage in their

1
communities. During the period from the late 1950s to early 1990s, the hukou1 system in China
restricted the rural-to-urban population flow. When the hukou system underwent reform in the
mid-to-late 1990s, rural residents obtained their freedom to move to cities (Li Wang, 2012).
Since 2001, some 150 to 175 million working-aged rural residents in China who ‘cannot be
absorbed into agriculture and rural industries’ (X. L. Ding, 2002, p. 191) have left their towns
and villages for work opportunities and a better life in urban settings. This freedom to relocate
has led to rural depopulation. Despite improvements in the living standards in the rural areas,
such as better working opportunities and income, education, healthcare and other social
welfares, China still cannot meet the economic and social needs of the rural residents (Castree,
Kitchin, & Rogers, 2013, ‘rural depopulation’). Statistics illustrate that the rural population of
China decreased at rates of 0.867% and 1.306% annually from 1985 to 2000 and from 2000 to
2016, respectively (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2018).

The outflow of residents from rural historic towns and villages to the cities has caused the
disappearance of local intangible heritage and has also led to ‘hollowed villages’ becoming a
major social issue (Long, Li, Liu, Woods, & Zou, 2012). Rural hollowing, or hollowed
village[s], refers to ‘rural communities [that] are blighted by depopulation and the
abandonment of buildings and land’ (Long et al., 2012, p. 12). Hollowing is generally the result
of emigration by working-age adults to urban areas leading to the prevalence of aging families
without children or grandchildren located nearby (Y. Liu, Liu, Chen, & Long, 2010; N. J. Zhang,
Guo, & Zheng, 2012). Descriptive statistics have shown that the rural population outflow has
negatively influenced the availability for older generations (aged 60+) who still live in rural
areas to receive social support, including emotional, instrumental and financial support, from
their families and communities (Wu, Penning, Zeng, Li, & Chappell, 2016).

The hollowed village process in rural China has been caused by an imbalance in urban and
rural development, which can be traced back to the Maoist industrialisation strategy of the
1950s. This strategy aimed to make China an industrial global power and promoted the building
of modern cities that could compete with cities in Western countries (Day, 2008, p. 56). Thus,
the development focused on urban industries rather than rural needs, placing the city and
countryside in ‘antagonistic contradiction’, which caused the present imbalance in urban and

1
The hukou system is a governmental household registration system in China intended for population management. During
the period from the late 1950s to early 1990s, the hukou system strictly restricted the free movement of the population by
controlling access to schools, work permits, and so on.

2
rural development (Day, 2008, p. 56). During the second half of the twentieth century, cities in
China developed at a rapid pace, and the socio-economic gap between urban and rural
populations increased, further accelerating the rural-to-urban migration. In the late 1950s, to
restrict the rural-to-urban population flow, the government imposed an urban-rural binary
hukou system. According to some authors, this has increased the imbalance in social
infrastructure, unfair social welfare distribution and unequal income distribution between the
urban and rural areas (K. W. Chan & Zhang, 1999; H. Wang, 2011). The income gap between
rural and urban areas was further widened following the deregulation of population movement
during the 1990s (K. H. Zhang & Song, 2003).

Although there is an increasing number of hollowed villages appearing, according to the annual
report by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS), up until 2017 there were 576.6
million people (41.48% of China’s total population) who still lived in rural areas (CNBS, 2018).
A survey conducted by D. F. Lu and Dang (2015, pp. 208–209) has revealed that, as more
affordable apartments have been built to relocate residents in areas near to their original
communities, most rural residents have adapted to their new village life and have ‘become
increasingly urbanised through the relocation program’. Nevertheless, the negative aspects of
the relocation are those that ignore the conventional spatial needs of the traditional courtyard
handicraft-economies as a form of industry, intangible heritage, and also a way to enhance
social networks within the traditional space. In addition, radical changes in leisure consumption
also have been noted. These factors have accelerated the outflow of young people to nearby
cities, expanding the disadvantages that exist between urban and rural China (D. F. Lu & Dang,
2015; Tu & Long, 2017).

In 2017, to narrow the gap between the urban and rural standards of living, and to improve
rural infrastructure, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed 乡村振兴战略 (‘Rural Revitalisation
Strategy’) as the primary agenda for future rural redevelopment. Similar to Xi’s new strategy
for rural redevelopment, there were some rural revitalisation movements that had occurred
previously in China. During the 1930s, ‘Rural Reconstruction’ was a movement intended to
advance socio-economic development in the rural sector through increased production, saving
the nation and promoting better government and self-discipline (Hsu, 1937). In the late 1990s,
Professor Wen (1999), the economist and rural development expert, revealed the severity of
rural disadvantage in China and promoted the ‘New Rural Reconstruction Movement’ as a
revival of the Rural Reconstruction from the 1930s (Si & Scott, 2016). Rural reconstruction
means the rebuilding of rural social life and the (re-)organisation of rural residents (Day, 2008),

3
similar to ‘rural restructuring’ in a global context. Rural restructuring is a response to the rural
recession alongside developments in reshaping socio-economic models and spatial patterns in
the rural territory (Hoggart & Paniagua, 2001; Oncescu, 2015; Tu & Long, 2017; Tu, Long,
Zhang, Ge, & Qu, 2018). However, these works of literature above show that both rural
reconstruction and rural restructuring are dealing more with socio-economic issues, rather than
socio-cultural issues relating to heritage. In this rural depopulation and relocation process, we
can notice the interactions between rural residents and their vernacular environment have
reduced. Therefore, the connection between rural tangible heritage (e.g., vernacular housing,
public space, etc.) and intangible heritage (e.g., local culture and traditions in construction,
handicrafts, etc.) have changed drastically, which is unsustainable for the development of a
place from a socio-cultural perspective.

From a global perspective, heritage management has become increasingly integrated into rural
redevelopments in recent years. For example, the European Union has funded a 4-year heritage-
led regeneration project — RURITAGE (2018–2022) — that aims to create ‘a new paradigm
for rural regeneration based on Cultural and Natural Heritage, making a culture a driver for
sustainable development, contributing to economic growth, social inclusion and environmental
sustainability in rural areas’ (UNESCO, 2018). The RURITAGE program ‘identifies 6
Systemic Innovation Areas and 11 Cross-cutting Themes transversal which represent the ways
in which cultural heritage acts as driver for rural regeneration’ (UNESCO, 2018). In rural
heritage settlement, strategies for revitalising the abandoned rural heritage based on community
preferences offer new opportunities for ‘rural regeneration’ (Ferretti & Gandino, 2018). As
abandoned heritage contains important cultural and economic values, and offers potential
spaces for new activities, it may support sustainable development in future rural regeneration
processes (Zavadskas & Antucheviciene, 2007).

China is a country with numerous historic rural towns and villages that continue to
accommodate active community life or ‘living heritage’. The concept of living heritage is based
on continuity and characterised by communities who conduct everyday social activities within
a historic built environment. Other than previous rural reconstruction movements, China’s
latest Rural Revitalisation Strategy notes the value and significance of vernacular built heritage
in rural historic towns and villages. In addition to the emphasis placed on tangible heritage, this
strategy also articulates the significance of protecting rural vernacular architectural culture with
collective memories and regional and national characteristics, and promotes the value of
sustaining and revitalising intangible heritage along with the rural socio-economic

4
development (China State Council, 2018, p. 40). This progress offers Chinese architects and
heritage experts the opportunities to participate in current rural revitalisation. Therefore, from
the perspective of heritage management, the sustainable development in rural China meets
global trends in rural development and heritage management and also responds to the Rural
Revitalisation Strategy, which is the start point of my research. More detail on the concept of
sustainable development (with environmental, economic and social dimensions of
sustainability) and heritage management will be discussed in Chapter 2.

Locating the research field

The argument presented here is that the vernacular spatial forms, socio-economic structures
and cultural meanings in rural China have been fractured as a result of rapid urbanisation, and
there is need for a strategy on rural revitalisation (Y. Liu, 2018; Tu & Long, 2017). Given this
background, the study aims to define a paradigm for rural regeneration based on heritage for
sustainable development in the Chinese context. For the purposes of this research, rural historic
towns and villages in China have been selected for analysis. These can be defined in three
keywords:

• Rural: non-urban areas (both suburb/urban fringe and rural areas) that rely on multiple
economic incomes, while not limited to rural farmland areas that solely rely on
agricultural income.

• Historic: locations that must have a historic and vernacular built environment/landscape
that forms cultural heritage.

• Towns and villages: human settlements that still maintain a community life — a ‘living
heritage’ — rather than the abandoned human settlements.

These three keywords overlap to some extent and I use the words to narrow the subject of the
research. Not every rural area is historic, nor is every historic area rural. I wish to narrow the
research scope to cover both rural and historic towns and villages at the same time.

Historic cities also support living heritage. However, historic cities, such as Beijing and
Nanjing, have already undergone waves of urbanisation and modernisation. Recent
development has seen significant numbers of heritage and vernacular buildings in historic cities
either demolished or have had heritage features removed, especially in residential areas.
Therefore, conducting research in an urban historic place now will have limited impact on the

5
present situation. However, in rural historic towns and villages, there are still some well-
protected historic cultural landscapes with active local communities. Conducting research in
rural historic towns and villages may, therefore, still influence future development in these
areas. The Chinese government is also currently promoting the Rural Revitalisation Strategy
to protect rural heritage.

Based on these features, historic towns and villages in rural China are selected as the subject
of this research in response to this strategy. Rural historic towns and villages in this thesis are
defined as human settlements located in non-urban areas with historic cultural landscapes that
maintain active local communities, rather than being abandoned. The concept of historic
cultural landscape aligns with the concept of historic urban landscape defined by UNESCO:

The historic urban landscape is the urban area understood as the result of a
historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes, extending beyond
the notion of ‘historic centre’ or ‘ensemble’ to include the broader urban context
and its geographical setting. This wider context includes notably the site’s
topography, geomorphology, hydrology and natural features, its built
environment, both historic and contemporary, its infrastructures above and below
ground, its open spaces and gardens, its land use patterns and spatial organisation,
perceptions and visual relationships, as well as all other elements of the urban
structure. It also includes social and cultural practices and values, economic
processes and the intangible dimensions of heritage as related to diversity and
identity. (UNESCO, 2011, sec. Definition)

In addition to the urban landscape, rural areas also contain valuable landscapes, which have
been ignored for a long time. In 2017, the International Council on Monuments and Sites
(ICOMOS) defined the term ‘rural landscape’ as follows:

[Rural landscape] refers to the tangible and intangible heritage of rural areas.
Rural landscape as heritage encompasses physical attributes… as well as wider
physical, cultural, and environmental linkages and settings. Rural landscape as
heritage also includes associated cultural knowledge, traditions, practices,
expressions of local human communities’ identity and belonging, and the cultural
values and meanings attributed to those landscapes by past and contemporary
people and communities… (ICOMOS, 2017, pp. 2–3)

6
In the ICOMOS definition, the rural landscape becomes an expansive concept that relates not
only to the physical/tangible characteristics of rural areas, but also to intangible cultural values
and meanings, which is similar to the historic urban landscape but in rural areas.

Based on these definitions of the historic urban landscape and rural landscape, in this thesis I
will use the term ‘historic cultural landscape’ to broadly cover both urban and rural areas for
rural historic towns and villages as the boundary between urban and rural areas is not that clear
in the Chinese context. For example, within a Chinese precinct, some historic towns and
villages are located in the suburban or urban fringe areas, away from the city centre. Yet the
population and economy of these towns and villages can only be regarded as rural, rather than
urban.

Therefore, a historic cultural landscape can be defined as layers of the physical elements and
patterns that differentiate human settlements with local traditions, symbolic meanings, and
socio-cultural, spiritual and emotional attachments that contribute to a collective identity of the
place (see Landorf, 2019, p. 80). The term ‘historic cultural landscape’ in heritage discourse is
similar to the concept of ‘place’ (explained in Chapter 3) in a human geographic context, both
of which encompass the physical and human environment as heritage in both its tangible and
intangible forms.

Therefore, in this thesis, the research on the revitalisation of rural historic towns and villages
in China will be discussed in terms of both tangible and intangible heritage qualities.
Specifically, this thesis will take a rural historic canal town, Lili, located in the south of Suzhou,
as a case study. Lili is selected as a research example for the following reasons:

• Lili is a typical historic canal town with a well-protected historic cultural landscape.

• Lili is undergoing a process of touristic development and confronting the typical issues
between sustainable development and heritage management, which also occurs in many
rural historic towns and villages.

• Lili is located in the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone2 where rural depopulation is
a contentious social issue so that a paradigm for rural regeneration in this area is urgent.

2
The Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone is an economic region that lies in the heart of the Jiangnan region in
East China that encompasses Shanghai municipality, Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang province. In 2018, the Yangtze
Delta had a GDP of approximately US$2.2 trillion.

7
 • Some of the local residents still live in the historical area and they welcome outsiders
to visit Lili. The residents are willing to share their experience, memory and knowledge
of their hometown.

Review of relevant research on rural revitalisation

Architect practices in rural revitalisation

As a Chinese architect and researcher, I am pleased to see Chinese architects have participated
in rural revitalisation. Building design and construction in rural China is normally conducted
by local craftspeople and villagers rather than professional architects. With the development of
contemporary building techniques and materials, houses are built using concrete and brick
because these materials cost less and look modern and more fashionable than vernacular houses,
and this has changed the rural landscape in China.

Chinese architects have actively participated in the national Rural Revitalisation Strategy and
previous rural construction movements for some time. Based on existing rural projects by
architects, I classify these approaches into the following categories:

• Reusing or renovating existing vernacular houses and public buildings by combining

contemporary materials and techniques with vernacular construction methods (He et al.,
2017; K. Wang & Zhang, 2016a, 2016b; K. Wang, Zhou, & Zhang, 2017; Xu, 2017a).

• Constructing new contemporary houses and public buildings by combining

contemporary materials and techniques with vernacular construction methods (W. Jiang,
Mu, Zhou, & Li, 2019; Luo & Zhao, 2015; Zhuang, 2017).

• Constructing new contemporary houses and public buildings that imitate the vernacular
architectural language (Meng & Ding, 2019; S. Wang et al., 2017).

• Constructing contemporary architecture that adapts to a vernacular function without the

vernacular architectural language (Dong, 2017; Xu, 2017b).

• Innovatively and strictly using local materials to construct buildings with contemporary
designs or structures rather than the vernacular constructional traditions (H. Chen,
2015).

• Using prefabricated materials and light-weight structures to build contemporary

8
 architecture (J. Zhu, Han, & Xia, 2015; J. Zhu, Tan, & Xia, 2019).

• Using parametric design and robotic construction techniques in rural projects (Yuan,
Han, Kong, & Zhang, 2019; Yuan, Zhang, Han, He, & Jin, 2019).

However, the majority of these widely reported projects are designed by architects and not local
craftspeople using the most common techniques. And only a few projects consider rural
development from a comprehensive planning perspective, including the economic and social,
such as the revitalisation projects in Haotang Village in Henan (C. Li, 2017) and Northern
Village in Fujian (Luo & Zhao, 2015). Zhao Chen, a professor in vernacular architecture, was
invited to be the guest editor for a special issue (‘rural revitalisation in China’) of the Chinese
architectural journal Jianzhushi [The Architect]. In this special issue, Zhao (2016) articulates
four principles for rural revitalisation: (1) protect the ecological environment; (2) respect the
traditional culture and social relations; (3) develop local industry appropriately; and, (4)
discover the value of rural vernacular architecture; understand, inherit and develop the
vernacular constructional techniques. The point to ‘develop local industry appropriately’
contributes to both the economic and social revitalisation in rural China and Zhao’s four
principles integrate ecological, social and cultural dimensions in the Rural Revitalisation
Strategy while reflecting the increasing emphasis placed on sustainable development. In
Chapter 6, I will take two Chinese architects’ practices as examples to reveal the current state
of rural revitalisation in the field of architecture.

Historic cultural landscape: urban form and house form

A historic cultural landscape represents the local identity of a place and sense of place that is
embodied in the built environment. It provides historical evidence that links the past, present
and future of a place (Schofield & Szymanski, 2011, pp. 2–5). However, scholars on urban
morphology point out that redevelopment in Chinese cities since the 1980s has devastated and
created dramatically different historic cultural landscapes, which erase the culturally valuable
identity of the cities (F. Chen, 2011; F. Chen & Romice, 2009; J. W. R. Whitehand & Gu, 2007;
J. W. R. Whitehand, Gu, Whitehand, & Zhang, 2011).

Similarly, the loss of historic cultural landscapes is prevalent in rural China. Fortunately, the
2017 Rural Revitalisation Strategy has acknowledged the significance of cultural heritage and
historic cultural landscapes in rural China. Urban form and house form constitute the historic
cultural landscape in both tangible and intangible ways, illustrating the identity of a place. The

9
following sections will explain current research on urban and house form, respectively.

According to Marzot (2002), urban morphology is the study of urban form, and provides
continuity between the history of an area and its more recent developments. Morphology is
divided into two primary research fields: the Conzen School in Britain, which is based on
geographical research, and the Muratori School in Italy, which draws on typology. 3 The
Conzen School started research into town planning, building fabric and the patterns of land and
building utilisation (J. Whitehand, 2001, 2007). The Muratori School started research on urban
form and structure from the perspective of architectural types, and its practitioners believed
that the collection of verified architectural types comprised the historic urban fabrics (Caniggia
& Maffei, 2001; Cataldi, 2014; Cataldi, Maffei, & Vaccaro, 2002). Some scholars have
combined the two approaches to study urban morphology. For example, Karl Kropf (1997)
suggests that built forms and human activities are interrelated, but not fixed to each other by
hard rules. Detailed theories on urban morphology and how the theories applied to the analysis
of urban form in Lili will be further explained in Chapter 7.

In the context of vernacular architecture, a house form is an internal principle and a prototype
designed to fit with the cultural and social norms of a place. The house form guides the
vernacular building construction that further shapes the historic cultural landscape based on
local culture and traditions. Typology is a theory and an approach for defining a building type
that can be a useful framework for the analysis of vernacular house form. Type is dependent on
the existence of a series of similar buildings and ‘it has to be understood as the interior structure
of a form or a principle which contains the possibility of infinite formal variation and
modification of the “type” itself’ (Argan, 1963, pp. 564–565).4 Vernacular house form has been
studied by anthropologists, such as Rapoport (1969, 1980, 2006) and Oliver (1969, 1987, 1997,
2006), while Chinese vernacular house form has been studied by local scholars, such as Sun
(2004) and Ruan (2006) and by Western scholars, such as Knapp (1989, 1992, 2000). Their
research links the vernacular house form and local culture, which contributes to the identity of
place. My research will use the typological approach to analyse Lili’s house form and its culture

3
Another school, based in France, merges the British and Italian methods and widely relates to history, arts,
planning and other aspects.
4
The concept of ‘type’ was defined by Quatremère de Quincy in the 19th century and re-entered the architectural
debate during the 1960s to 1970s particularly because of the article ‘On the Typology of Architecture’ (Argan,
1963; Madrazo, 1995).

10
in Chapter 8.

Recent research has already considered urban form and house form in rural historic towns and
villages in China. For example, the architect Li Li (2007) has studied changing urban patterns
and historic cultural landscapes among rural settlements in Jiangnan region from the
perspective of agriculture, industry, economy and policy; while Bao (2007) has studied the
urban structure and architecture typology of a historic town Tongli in Jiangnan region to reveal
the historic characteristics and cultural values of the settlement. Research on historic cultural
landscapes and the development of rural settlement has also been conducted in other regions
in China from the combined perspectives of human geography, urban morphology and
vernacular architecture (S. Wei, 2014; Y. Wei, 2017; Yang, 2014; Zeng, 2016; Dayu Zhang,
2014; Dong Zhang, 2015). The research cited above is mostly conducted in architectural and
geographic schools, and thus the focus is mainly on the physical characteristics of historic
cultural landscapes. However, from a heritage perspective, sustaining the rural historic towns
and villages needs more than historic cultural landscapes with physical characteristics — it also
requires consideration of the economic and socio-cultural factors.

Rural economic revitalisation and social equity

To achieve rural revitalisation is to rebuild a sustainable development system in rural China

with consideration of its heritage, as well as its economic and socio-cultural aspects. The United
Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development proposes to ‘protect and safeguard the
world’s cultural and natural heritage’, with Goal 11 of the initiative designed to ‘support
positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas’
(United Nations, 2015, Goal 11). This goal informs us that the sustainable development of rural
China in economic and social areas is equally important to identifying and conserving the
tangible heritage of historic cultural landscapes. The sustainable development of rural China
requires progress on economic, social and cultural dimensions that keep pace with the times,
otherwise more rural historic towns and villages will become hollowed villages.

Many modes of economic revitalisation in rural China have been researched. With the
development of e-commerce, some rural villagers have opened their businesses to online
trading, becoming so-called ‘Taobao villages’5, rural villages that rely on e-commerce as their

5
‘Taobao’ is an online shopping platform owned by Alibaba, similar to eBay. According to Alibaba, a Taobao

11
primary industry (Leong, Pan, Newell, & Cui, 2016). However, A. H. F. Li (2017, p. 61) argues
that the development of rural e-commerce only provides short-term incentives for the economy
within a specific area, which is unsustainable because the e-commerce might ‘undermine the
culture of local community’ and ‘hamper efforts to poverty reduction’ in other rural areas. Some
rural historic towns and villages are catering to the tourism industry and its economy (Gao &
Wu, 2017; Gu & Ryan, 2008a). As part of the tourism-based development, villager committees
play a conflicting role with rural residents in their application for the title of world/national
heritage for tourism purposes, and the residents’ pursuit of the modern lifestyle (Liguo Wang
& Yotsumoto, 2019). In addition, in most rural tourism projects, rural residents have limited
decision-making and employment opportunities (P. Li, Ryan, & Cave, 2016). Due to these
conflicts, or due more to political structures and nepotism, cultural tourism brings profit to a
limited group of authorities and committee members, rather than to the majority of rural
residents. It has been suggested that tourism has driven out up to ninety per cent of local
residents in some rural historic towns and villages (Cros, 2006). This suggests that rural
revitalisation should not be limited to economic dimensions alone, and that it should consider
matters of power-sharing and stewardship.

In addition to the inequalities developed through economic strategies for revitalisation, some
scholars suggest that regional equity (i.e., equal payment and access to education, health care,
and other social welfare and infrastructure matters) is a significant driver for more balanced
social development between urban and rural China. The hukou system has caused inequality in
education (Y. Lu, 2012; Li Wang, 2012) and the allocation of health resources (Y. Chen, Yin,
& Xie, 2014) between urban and rural areas. Huang, Guo and Tang (2010), however, argue that
abolishing the existing hukou system would not be an effective way to solve the rural-to-urban
migration. Conversely, it may even accelerate the migration as the existing urban-rural divide
has established better urban infrastructure than in the rural areas, and this will constantly attract
the rural-to-urban migrants. Huang, Guo and Tang (2010) insist that market competition, rather
than hukou, plays the key role in the social exclusion of rural-urban migrants. This rural-urban
inequity is happening globally, causing populations to decrease in rural areas in most regions
of the world to the point in which rural-to-urban migration has become a mark of urbanisation.

village refers to a rural setting that 1) uses Taobao as the primary e-commerce platform, 2) where annual e-
commerce transactions exceed RMB 10 million, and 3) where at least 10% of villagers are engaged in e-commerce
activities, or have opened more than 100 online shops (A. H. F. Li, 2017).

12
However, uncontrolled immigration may also bring ‘urban poverty and risk’, such as high
levels of overcrowding with poor living conditions in urban informal settlements (Tacoli,
McGranahan, & Satterthwaite, 2015, pp. 18–19). To achieve greater regional equity between
urban and rural areas, Cai (2011) argues that the unification of urban and rural social welfare
and infrastructure can be achieved by offering basic pensions and insurance, working
opportunities, education and healthcare to both areas.

Apart from social welfare and infrastructure, social connection is another positive guiding
factor to occur in rural revitalisation because it positively influences the quality of life for rural
residents (Tian, Kong, Liu, & Wang, 2016). From this interpersonal perspective, building social
networks with rural community members is significant in creating places for social activities
and communication. Therefore, comprehensive approaches that integrate design, social
infrastructure, social welfare and community social capital to facilitate rural revitalisation are
needed for it to succeed (Cheng, 2018; Huang & Boshier, 2008; Leyden, 2003; Long & Liu,
2016).

Research gap

As illustrated in the research background statistics in Section 1.1, by 2018, the rural population
of China had decreased by 300 million as a product of urban migration (United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2018); therefore, rural revitalisation in China is
necessary and urgent. According to the above review of the relevant research on rural
revitalisation, there are three related research gaps.

First, the context outlined in Section 1.3 illustrates that the majority of rural revitalisation
projects aim to increase local economic activity and living standards by promoting the
construction of contemporary buildings and environments, while rarely observing the heritage
of rural historic towns and villages. The ICOMOS heritage guidelines Principles for the
Conservation of Heritage Sites in China (or simply China Principles), suggest that historic
towns and villages are heritage sites that ‘must not be conserved as if frozen in time’ but ‘adapt
to the needs of modern living’ (ICOMOS China, 2015, Article 39). The gap between China
Principles and current rural revitalisation projects reflects the dilemma between conservation
and development in rural China.

Second, some of the Chinese rural historic towns and villages are evaluated by heritage experts

13
and listed as ‘authorised heritage’6 (e.g., Xidi Village and Hongcun Village, China). While the
authorised heritage sites have been conserved, non-authorised locations and place-based
elements belonging to local residents that also socially and emotionally sustain the towns or
villages are usually ignored in government planning. These elements include local social
networks, social activities, emotional attachment and personal memories that have accumulated
over time and contributed to place identity (Schofield & Szymanski, 2011, pp. 3–5; Svensson,
2018). Rural historic towns and villages are heritage settlements that are more than a physical
anchor, they provide a geographically located sense of belonging because ‘a heritage place may
represent or stand in for a sense of identity and belonging for particular individuals or groups’
(Smith, 2006, pp. 75–77). Investigation of this relationship between place, heritage and rural
revitalisation needs to be addressed.

Third, the two points above indicate that rural development in China currently concentrates on
either development for living standards or museified conservation for heritage. Rarely does it
consider rural residents and the historic towns and villages as a unified ‘place’ that integrates
both tangible and intangible heritage, economic development and people’s social and emotional
needs. As Schofield (2015, p. 208) notes, ‘[p]laces define our lives, and in these places stories
are generated that become embedded in the landscape as memories’. Although research has
focused on the significance of heritage and place identity in urban areas (e.g., S. Ding, 2017;
Gu & Ryan, 2008; Shao, 2014), the concept of ‘place’ and place identity have rarely been
applied to rural revitalisation. Verdini, Frassoldati and Nolf (2017) argue that heritage
conservation and the role played by local communities can together provide greater
sustainability in rural China. Thus, the significance of the local community and heritage of the
place needs to be taken into consideration with the rural revitalisation process.

Due to these research gaps, the following section will present the research questions in this
thesis.

Research questions

To fill the research gap and respond to the national Rural Revitalisation Strategy, this study
will examine the relationship between urban and rural development in China. Specifically, I
will take a historic vernacular canal town, Lili, in Suzhou, as an example to assess the typical

6
‘Authorised heritage’ is ‘reliant on the power/knowledge claims of technical and aesthetic experts, and
institutionalised in state cultural agencies and amenity societies’ (Smith, 2006, p. 11).

14
issues that confront many rural historic towns and villages in China — i.e., demolition of
vernacular architectural heritage, loss of intangible heritage, and population outflow —to
examine and discuss the significance of place identity in sustaining the rural development and
heritage management.

This research will address the following primary question:

• How should the concepts of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘place’ be understood and
applied to the management of Chinese rural historic towns and villages, such as Lili?

To answer this question, the following secondary questions will be addressed:

• What are the dimensions of sustainable development and how are they understood in
heritage management? (Chapter 2)

• What are the dimensions of ‘place’ and ‘place identity’? What is the relationship
between these dimensions and how are they understood in heritage management
discourse? How to understand these dimensions and their relationship using the case
study of Lili? (Chapters 3 and 4)

• What are the issues, policies and approaches to rural revitalisation in China? (Chapter
5) What strategies are used by Chinese architects in rural revitalisation? And how
should these strategies be evaluated? (Chapter 6)

• What are the dimensions and their key factors of place identity in Lili? How do these
factors sustain the characteristics and contribute to the development of the historic town
of Lili? (Chapters 7–9)

Project aims

This project aims to:

• understand the significance of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘place’ in heritage

management of the rural historic place, especially from the social perspective (Chapters
2 and 3);

• understand the history, physical characteristics and transformational drivers that have
affected the morphological and social characteristics of the historic town of Lili
(Chapters 5 and 7–9);

15
 • establish a methodological framework for research into rural revitalisation in China for
architectural and urban scholars (Chapters 4 and 7–10); and

• devise principles for the revitalisation of Lili and similar rural historic towns and
villages in China that support the preservation of their place identity and contribute to
a sustainable community (Chapter 10).

Significance and originality

Since not every rural historic town or village is defined by heritage experts as ‘authorised
heritage’ (Smith, 2006, p. 11), this research applies u the concept of ‘place’ and ‘place identity’
innovatively in studying China’s rural revitalisation by placing rural historic towns and villages
in a non-authorised, but still living heritage discourse. For example, day-to-day objects, social
networks and personal memories that have never been considered as significant in authorised
heritage discourses, should be taken into consideration in strategies for rural revitalisation.
Based on the concept of ‘place’, and considering the current Chinese rural revitalisation
strategies that rely on the development of rural economies and built environments, this thesis
is unique in taking the idea of social sustainability and sustainable community, normally used
in urban areas, into the context of rural revitalisation.

From the perspective of terminology, this research (in Chapter 6) defines the term ‘semi-
vernacular’ as the ‘reuse or renovation of vernacular buildings in combination with modern and
traditional building techniques’. This original term bridges the gap between vernacular and
contemporary design, and enriches the architectural and heritage lexicon.

In terms of methodology, this research designs an integrated application of digital technologies,

including 3D scanning and photogrammetry into the study of the morphology and typology of
a rural historic town. This new and innovative approach is applicable also to future research
and management in rural revitalisation for similar rural historic towns and villages in China
and elsewhere.

At a more specific level, this study concludes with original recommendations and principles
that address the practical issues of revitalisation in Lili. These will contribute to the socially
sustainable revitalisation of Lili within current tourism-led economic regeneration strategies.

At a broader level, the research findings on Lili provide evidence to support an original
Sustainable Community Model that can be used to inform architects, urban designers and local

16
government decision-makers of the significant factors in design and heritage management in
rural historic towns and villages. In addition, the Sustainable Community Model is also
suggested for future development along with conserving the heritage and place identity that
sustain the communities responding to the Rural Revitalisation Strategy in China.

Brief introduction of the methodology

In Chapter 3, I argue that place identity is composed of physical characteristics and collective
(social and psychological) place attachments and assumes that it contributes to creating a
sustainable community. Thus, this study will interrogate both physical and human aspects of
these places, which needs a variety of methods working together, including documenting Lili’s
physical characteristics, and using a qualitative method to record and examine the human
aspects of Lili. In this section on methodology, I will briefly explain the relevance of all the
methods that will be used in this research and how they work together.

Documenting Lili’s physical characteristics

To discover how the physical characteristics of the historic cultural landscape trigger place
identity, this research takes Lili as an example to gain a comprehensive understanding of the
urban and house form of the town. To establish the context of the setting, I have collected
historical maps, choreographies, oral histories and literature to understand the history and
morphological development in Lili. In addition, a mobile hand-held 3D laser scanner and a
drone were used to capture the physical environment through the combination of 3D scanning
and photogrammetry technologies and export point cloud data (Grussenmeyer et al., 2012;
Kadobayashi et al., 2004; Yastikli, 2007; Zlot et al. 2014). The point clouds have been used to
make a large 3D map of Lili and export plans and sections for analysing the characteristics of
the street and lane layouts and house form as the place identity.

The GeoSLAM Zeb1, a handheld mobile 3D scanner, was used to record the spatial information
of the physical environment of Lili (see Zlot et al., 2014). The scanned data was processed into
point clouds and then visualised to produce accurate images to illustrate the physical features
of the main street in 1.2 kilometres and forty-three lanes over an area of approximately 25000
m2. Zeb1 collects spatial data along with the walking pathways. But it does not capture data on
the roofs, thus photogrammetry was applied as a compensational approach to capture that
information.

17
Photogrammetry is a more efficient solution for the urban scale than the manual survey for
large site modelling and mapping because it only needs continuous images or videos from an
unmanned aerial vehicle, which can be easily converted into point clouds to combine with
scanned data for modelling and mapping. Using these technologies in tandem, the physical
characteristics of Lili’s historic cultural landscape at both the urban and architectural scale were
captured to analyse the urban and house forms.

More details on how the digital technologies were applied in documenting the historic cultural
landscape will be explained in Chapter 7.

Documenting the residents’ social and psychological place attachment

The social and psychological attachment that the residents feel towards places within Lili was
documented as qualitative data. Fieldwork interview methods including direct observation,
open-ended question interview, and thematic analysis, were used for the research conducted in
the village during the periods from February 16th to March 9th 2017, and May 16th to June
10th 2018. I also asked residents to mark their important places on the maps (exported from
the photogrammetry) to make visual diagrams that illustrate connections between the physical
environment and the place attachment.

• Qualitative data collection: direct observation

The aim of the observational research was to examine the relationship between the physical
environment and the social activities conducted in those places. The observations aimed to
understand how residents used the public space. They were undertaken at several stages to
ensure the inclusion of observations from different times of the day and week, and under
different weather conditions.

• Qualitative data collection: semi-structured interview with open-end questions

Semi-structured interviews were used to give residents an opportunity to express their

attachment to the place through open-ended questions. Open-ended questions have the ability
to obtain not only meaningful and explanatory answers, but also unanticipated answers from
participants (Mack, Woodsong, Macqueen, Guest, & Namey, 2005). The interview questions
are included in Appendix B.

• Thematic analysis

Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and illustrate patterns within the qualitative

18
data obtained from the interviews. Coding was used to define themes from the qualitative
interview material by categorisation, labelling within categories, and counting segments of the
data (Charmaz, 2006, p. 43). Chapter 4 explains the approach to defining themes by using an
online word frequency analysis system for Chinese texts. This was used to build the coding
frame as a way of structuring the qualitative material about the participants’ memories and
opinions on the place identity and their neighbourhoods and communities. Additional details
on how the qualitative method was used is provided in Chapter 4.

Thesis structure and outline

The thesis is organised into five parts and ten chapters (Figure 1. 1).

Part One is the introduction (Chapter 1) that provides a brief review of the research
background, field of study, the gap in discipline knowledge, questions, aims, originality,
significance and thesis methods.

Part Two explains the theoretical framework and methodology relevant to the thesis. Part Two
comprises Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Chapter 2 [Sustainable Development and Comparative Analysis
of Western and Chinese Heritage Management] reviews theories of sustainable development
and heritage. In terms of sustainable development, social sustainability is the focus of this thesis.
Based on previous research (see Dempsey et al., 2011), a thematic and conceptual framework
is defined for the investigation of a place-based sustainable community in Lili. Chapter 2 also
considers three phases of heritage conservation and analyses the significance of heritage in
sustainable development. Chapter 3 [The Role of Place as ‘Living Heritage’] reviews the
concepts of ‘place’ and ‘place identity’ and identifies key components as physical
characteristics, social place attachment and psychological place attachment. This chapter also
argues that place can be regarded as a form of living heritage that sustains these three
components. Chapter 4 [Methodology: Examine Place Attachment] explains in detail the
qualitative methods used in the research, including the observational work and semi-structured
interviews for qualitative analysis. Other theories and methods used for the analysis of the
physical environment through mapping by 3D scanning and photogrammetry are explained in
Chapter 7 [Morphologic Study of the Historic Cultural Landscape in Lili].

Part Three provides background and context for urban and rural development in China in
Chapters 5 and 6, before the place-based studies in Part Four. Chapter 5 [From Urban
Regeneration to Rural Revitalisation in China] introduces the current state of urban and rural

19
development in China and explains the central government policies designed to support rural
revitalisation. Chapter 6 [From ‘Neo-Vernacular’ to ‘Semi-Vernacular’: Architects’ Rural
Revitalisation Practices in China] takes two Chinese architects’ work as examples to illustrate
two types of vernacular architectural practices in rural revitalisation, namely ‘neo-vernacular’
and ‘semi-vernacular’ to reshape and sustain the place identity in rural historic towns and
villages.

Part Four takes the historic town of Lili as an example and uses fieldwork to examine place
identity in Chapters 7, 8 and 9. After explaining the theories and methods of morphological
research, Chapter 7 [Morphologic Study of the Historic Cultural Landscape in Lili] examines
the physical characteristics of Lili’s historic cultural landscape. This is done at an urban scale
by mapping the village’s canal and road system, urban tissue, building patterns and other public
areas. Chapter 8 [Typological Study of the House Form and Culture in Lili] examines place
identity in Lili at an architectural scale through a typological study of the vernacular house
form using diagrams. Chapter 9 [Place Attachment and Sustainable Community in Lili] applies
Dempsey et al.’s (2011) five indicators of a sustainable community framework to Lili
(community stability, social networks, community participation, safety and security, and sense
of place), and explains the social and psychological place attachment of residents in Lili based
on fieldwork. The research collected the meanings of, and attachments to, specific places in
Lili from the residents by using qualitative research methods, such as interviews, mapping and
thematic analysis. Chapter 9 uses thematic analysis and mapping to reflect on how the
components of place identity (physical characteristics and collective place attachment)
contribute to the five indicators for creation of a sustainable community before revealing the
current issues in Lili.

Part Five is the conclusion chapter (Chapter 10) [Discussion and Conclusion: Sustainable
Community Model for Rural Revitalisation in China]. The chapter summarises what ‘place’
means to the residents of Lili, and examines the significance of place identity and heritage in
the historical settlement. In concluding and responding to the research aims, this thesis
examines the history, physical characteristics and the transformation of Lili’s urban and house
forms, and reveals the components of ‘place’ and heritage that contribute to a sustainable
community in Lili. The thesis concludes with a sustainable community model along with
revitalisation principles and recommendations. These findings will contribute to a better
understanding of how to approach revitalisation projects in Lili and other similar rural historic
towns and villages in China and elsewhere. In addition, the concluding chapter synthesises the

20
key points of discussion and links the research questions to outcomes and significance. The
research process is summarised, the weaknesses, limitations and obstacles during the research
are briefly explained, and areas for further development or extended research are tabled for
consideration.

21
Figure 1. 1 Thesis structure. Source: Drawn by the author.

22
Chapter 2: Sustainable Development and
Comparative Analysis of Western and Chinese
Heritage management

Introduction
According to the introductory chapter, the overlooking of sustainable development on the
social dimension (Mackerras, 2006) and heritage management with the ‘museification’
approach have caused social issues in rural China. Thus, this chapter examines the significance
of ‘sustainable development’ in heritage management discourse, especially from the social
perspective, and aims to build a thematic and conceptual framework for the following chapters.

The first half of the chapter starts with the concept of sustainable development by examining
the emergence of the concept and the evolution of its content to answer the secondary research
question ‘What are the dimensions of sustainable development?’. The chapter then discusses
social sustainability at the community level and emphasises the significance of heritage in
social sustainability.

The second half of the chapter reviews the changing ideas of ‘authenticity’ in heritage discourse
by comparing the conservation theory of the architect and historian Liang Sicheng in China
and the Western world. The chapter then discusses the evolution of the values in heritage
management frameworks to answer ‘How is sustainable development understood in heritage
management?’. The chapter argues that conservation philosophies and heritage management
have been turning from an object-centred to human-centred approach that focuses on
development.

In conclusion, the chapter argues that heritage contributes to social sustainability and
summarises the significance of protecting heritage as an evolving ‘place’, which
lays the groundwork for Chapter 3 to discuss the concept of ‘place’ and ‘place identity’ as a
framework to conduct the fieldwork studies in Lili presented in Chapters 7 to 9.

23
 The evolution of sustainable development

Background information on sustainable development

Our sense of sustainable development derives from an awareness of limited resources that
support human life and their basic needs. Early in the late 18th century, Malthus (1798) pointed
out that population growth was exponential and would stop growing in response to a shortage
of the food supply — this is known as the ‘Malthusian trap’.

After World War II, a sense of crisis facing the world’s limited resources developed intensively
so that critical academic debate on the sustainability of humankind and contemporary
development increased. For example, Osborn (1948) critiqued the environmental destruction
by humankind; Carson (1962) warned of the indiscriminate use of pesticides having adverse
effects on the environment and human beings; Brown (1954) discovered the potential issues of
resource depletion and exponential population exploding from a strictly scientific perspective,
which had also been mentioned in The Population Bomb (Ehrlich, 1968) and The Limits to
Growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, & Behrens, 1972). The sense of crisis contributed to a
growing awareness of sustainable development, which primarily focused on an expansion of
the human population and finite natural resources.

At the beginning of the 1980s, sustainable development was restricted to its ecological
dimensions in the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN, 1980). In this document, the proposed
objectives of conservation were to sustain the resources and genetic diversities that support the
ecosystems along with natural heritage, and to place emphasis on ecological and environmental
sustainability as the foundation for social and economic welfare (IUCN, 1980, p. I).

Definition of sustainable development

By 1983, when the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was
founded, environmental degradation was considered to be a matter of survival for developing
countries. By 1987, the Commission, then led by Gro Harlem Brundtland, proposed the concept
of sustainable development as an alternative approach based on economic growth. The
commission report titled Our Common Future defined sustainable development as
‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987, para. 27). This report highlighted
sustainable development in three fundamental categories: environmental protection, economic

24
growth and social development. From a social perspective, this document emphasises the
satisfaction of human needs as a condition for sustainable development and lists employment,
food, energy, housing, water supply, sanitation and healthcare as the essential life needs to
obtain livelihood opportunities (WCED, 1987, para. 43 Chapter 02). According to these
categories, Elkington (1999) proposed a ‘Triple Bottom Line’ model to describe sustainable
development as an approach that claims to promote economic and social advancement while
avoiding environmental degradation.

After considering Our Common Future, the UN General Assembly convened the Conference
on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Summit. The primary
goals of the Summit were to understand the concept of ‘development’ that would promote
socio-economic development and prevent the continued deterioration of the environment with
three major agreements: Agenda 21, The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
and The Statement of Forest Principles (United Nations, 1997). Agenda 21 strives to reconcile
people’s requirements for a high-quality environment and a healthy global economy. It is a
worldwide consensus document that introduces the structure of sustainable development: (a)
social and economic; (b) conservation and management of resources; (c) the role of major
groups; and, (d) implementation. Compared to Our Common Future, Agenda 21 elaborates on
the significance of the social dimension with the topics of ‘human settlement’, ‘rural
development’, ‘land use’ and ‘population’ intertwined with economic and ecologic dimensions
(UNCED, 1992). From the perspective of human beings, UN-Habitat proposed the concept of
‘human settlement’ in the Vancouver Declaration (UN-Habitat, 1976). The Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development supports Agenda 21 by defining the rights and responsibilities
of the nations and governments, and proposing that human beings are at the centre of concerns
for sustainable development (United Nations, 1992), which is also explained in The Habitat
Agenda (UN-Habitat, 1996). From this point onwards, more attention has been paid to the
social dimension in sustainable development, and the Chinese government adapted these UN
documents for its own circumstances.

Sustainable development in China

The China State Council published China Agenda 21 in 1994 based on Agenda 21. This
national agenda explained the general strategies and policies for sustainable development and
used three parts to introduce the social, economic and resources dimensions of sustainable
development (China State Council, 1994).

25
Although one of the parts is categorised as ‘socially sustainable development’, the text of the
China Agenda 21 suggests that the primary aim of this strategy was to enhance the national
economy by using ‘resources’ rather than ‘environmental’ factors as the key dimension in the
document. This is because resources are used for production and promoting the economy while
environmental factors only sustain development. Economic growth was designed to support a
national leading policy of ‘economic development as the central task’, first defined in the 1987
Constitution of the Communist Party of China (Communist Party of China, 1987). The so-
called ‘socially sustainable development’ in the China Agenda 21 was, therefore, a particularly
Chinese variation on the accepted Western concept of social sustainability, intended to support
a stronger focus on economic growth over social concerns in the pursuit of a longer-term
sustainable development balance. Chan and Ma (2004) argue that the idea of sustainable
development in China has been revised to sustainable economic development. As Wang (2011)
suggests, it was appropriate for the Chinese government to favour economic development over
social concerns in 1994, but with China’s current advances in GDP and other economic
measures, it is now appropriate for the government to swing back to a balance of economic,
environmental and social sustainability measures.

In 2015, the UN published 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) (United
Nations, 2015). The Agenda included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), 14 of which
directly contribute to the social dimension of sustainable development and also directly link
cultural heritage and urban sustainability for the first time. This reflects the changing emphasis
placed on sustainable development in the balance between economic, environmental and social
dimensions, and a shift from dimension-specific goals (i.e., economic, environmental or social),
to goals that integrate all three dimensions in more cohesive ambitions. As a member of the
UN, the Chinese government also regards the 2030 Agenda as an important guideline for
national and social development. This is evidenced by the integration of the 2030 Agenda into
the Chinese government’s 13th Five-Year Plan7 that aims to reduce poverty in rural China.

Since 2016, an independent foundation, Bertelsmann Stiftung, and the Sustainable

Development Solutions Network have produced The SDG Index and Dashboards Report to
indicate a country’s progress on a particular indicator and denote an increasing or decreasing
distance from SDG achievements. The SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2018 indicates that

7
The Five-Year Plan forms part of a series of social and economic development initiatives issued since 1953. In
2016, the Chinese government published the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).

26
China still has considerable social issues (J. Sachs, Schmidt-Traub, Kroll, Lafortune, & Fuller,
2018, p. 149), although it has been one of the leading economies in the world (“China GDP,”
2019). As the report indicates (Figure 2. 1), low subjective wellbeing in SDG3 (Good Health
and Well-Being) and an irrational Gini coefficient 8 in SDG10 (Reduced Inequalities), are
examples of persistent social issues.

In the following section, sustainable development from the social dimension with the concept
of ‘social sustainability’ will be discussed.

8
The Gini coefficient is an index commonly used to gauge economic inequality. It functions as an income
measurement index ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 implies that everyone has the same income and 1 signifies that
the wealthiest individual or household possesses all the available income. China’s Gini Coefficient data was
reported at 0.467 in Dec 2017, averaging at 0.477 from Dec 2003 to 2017. Internationally, experts and
governments view a Gini coefficient of 0.4 as an alarming line. Once the coefficient exceeds 0.4, there will be
severe issues of income inequality in society (X. L. Ding, 2002).

27
 Figure 2. 1 SDG indicators for China.
Source: SDG Index and Dashboard Report 2018.

28
 Social sustainability

Definitional ambiguity on social sustainability

Although the concept of social sustainability has been around since the 1980s, it was not until
the 2000s that its significance as an essential pillar of sustainable development started to be
recognised and debated. As Assefa and Frostell (2007) and Cuthill (2010) contend, social
sustainability is the final aim of development. While the former argues that economic and
environmental sustainability are both instruments to achieve that goal, the latter argues for
environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability being intertwined and reflected
within the framework of social sustainability.

While social sustainability is recognised as a useable concept, significant definitional

ambiguity and debate remains. For example, Sten and Polese (2000, pp. 15–16) focus on the
collective functioning of society and the individual’s quality of life:

Development (and/or growth) that is compatible with harmonious evolution of

civil society, fostering an environment conducive to the compatible cohabitation
of culturally and socially diverse groups while at the same time encouraging
social integration, with improvements in the quality of life for all segments of
the population.

While Chiu (2003) considers social sustainability to be influenced by social norms and values,
she also argues that social sustainability refers to sustaining or improving the well-being and
happiness of people in current and future generations. Vallance, Perkins, and Dixon (2011)
build a framework around three sub-categories (development/bridge/maintenance
sustainability) to define social sustainability. Development sustainability refers to basic needs
and includes social equity, employment, freedom, access to basic social services and
infrastructure. Bridge sustainability emphasises better connections between people and their
surrounding bio-physical environment, while maintenance sustainability refers to the
maintenance and improvement of socio-cultural factors of places. Other than focusing on
society, human rights and quality of life above all, Littig and Griebler (2005, p. 11) place
emphasis on the relationship between nature and society and social management of natural
resources and state that ‘social sustainability is a quality of societies’. They explain that when
the communal, institutional and societal efforts and arrangements meet human needs and
preserve natural resources, social sustainability emerges.

29
Social sustainability is a dynamic concept that remains ambiguous and has eluded agreement
in its definition. This ambiguity reminds us that social sustainability is a contextually specific
and multi-dimensional concept that must be defined accordingly.

Components of social sustainability

Rather than attempting to formulate a clear definition of social sustainability, scholars have
discussed themes or components and have analysed the main factors associated with social
sustainability. For example, to list comprehensive factors for social sustainability in detail,
Colantonio (2007) summarises 38 components within four thematic areas of social
sustainability and a plethora of sustainability indicators for assessment, such as happiness,
health, freedom and so on. Landorf (2011) contributes a framework to evaluate the components
of social sustainability in historic urban environments with three dimensions (social equity,
social coherence and basic needs). However, these indicators of social sustainability are
qualitative, which means they are difficult to measure and it is hard to transfer the indicators
into quantitative values with the same units and compare them on the same platform (Vanclay,
2004). Moreover, every place has the unique characteristics of its society and organises its
social sustainability in diverse ways, so that every indicator has a different weight coefficient
in different places. That is why social sustainability is difficult to promote and apply in practice.

Sachs (1999, p. 27) states that social sustainability should be determined by achieving equality
and democracy. Equity guarantees equal access to basic human needs and social welfare, while
democracy provides people with capacities to influence their government. An alternative
position is given by Cuthill (2010), who argues that social sustainability should include, but
not be limited to, four components: (1) social capital, (2) social infrastructure, (3) social justice
and equity, and (4) engaged governance. However, it seems that both Sachs and Cuthill explain
the components of social sustainability within purely social dimensions and ignore the
contribution of other non-social aspects, such as the cultural background.

Cultural background and place-based social sustainability

Although global culture is becoming more homogeneous, the traditional cultural background
is still usually considered a place-based concept. Different places have a specific culture, which
creates cultural diversity. The cultural background has an unconscious influence on social
development. Therefore, social sustainability is also a place-based concept that cannot be
considered independently of the social dimension without discussing the specific local context

30
(Weingaertner & Moberg, 2014). Low (2003) argues that social sustainability, including the
maintenance and preservation of social relations to strengthen a cultural system, is a subset of
cultural sustainability. Our social activities today are partly inherited from our culture, and
socio-cultural sustainability is the development and continuation of our life.

With their meta-analysis of the concept, Shirazi and Keivani (2017) argue that social
sustainability contains diverse qualitative indicators that should be subject to in-depth place-
specific studies. Heritage comprises a significant part of cultures in different places and helps
to stabilise social identity and sustain communities in the urban regeneration process
(Hosagrahar, Soule, Girard, & Potts, 2016; Opp, 2017). Therefore, heritage should be
associated with social sustainability, which was stated initially in the Budapest Declaration of
2002:

Ensure an appropriate and equitable balance between conservation, sustainability

and development, so that World Heritage properties can be protected through
appropriate activities contributing to the social and economic development and
the quality of life of our communities. (UNESCO, 2002)

Labadi (2018) critiques the point that the rich contribution of heritage was not reflected in the
2030 Agenda (United Nations, 2015), arguing that cultural heritage contributes to identity
construction, poverty eradication, local education, and neighbourhood participation. Smith
(2006, p. 83) argues that heritage ‘creates, and continually recreates (rather than simply
‘maintains’) social networks and relations’.

In historic settlements, social sustainability should be framed as a placed-based system along

with the cultural heritage, and its measurement should be defined according to a scale. Social
sustainability is a difficult concept to implement and progressively achieve at the world or
national scale with various socio-cultural backgrounds. McKenzie (2004, p. 23) defines social
sustainability from a community-level perspective as ‘a positive condition within communities,
and a process within communities that can achieve that condition’. Thus, the study of social
sustainability should be restricted to a small scale, for example, the community level, because
community members and their social networks form the living heritage that achieves the social
sustainability of a place.

31
2.4 Sustainable communities
The value of communities was sometimes excluded in the dynamic development of heritage
management (Labadi & Logan, 2015). A community-scaled and place-based heritage
management is a more practical and applicable approach for social sustainability and guide
future development in rural historic towns and villages. In 2014, ICOMOS adopted the
Florence Declaration on Heritage and Landscape as Human Values (ICOMOS, 2014, Article
4), identifying the essential role of local empowerment and community-driven conservation in
sustainable socio-economic development. The concept of ‘community’ acts as the central point
in urban regeneration when confronting issues of how to achieve sustainability in urban
environments (Andrea Colantonio & Dixon, 2011, p. 31). In other words, making a ‘sustainable
community’ is a prerequisite to achieving sustainable human settlements at the large, city scale.

What is a ‘sustainable community’

According to the Sustainable Communities: People, Places and Prosperity, the UK Office of
the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM, 2005, p. 56) defined the concept of sustainable
communities as:

…… places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They
meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their
environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive,
well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services
for all.

Similar to social sustainability, the definition of ‘sustainable community’ is also vague and
descriptive because it avoids asking what a sustainable community is composed of, and what
is the relationship between such components.

Illustrating the factors for sustainable communities is a practical way to achieve sustainable
development for a particular place. Dempsey, Bramley, Power, and Brown (2011) identify the
sustainability of a community and social equity as two of the overarching concepts of social
sustainability. In their discourse, social equity refers to fair access to jobs, housing, local
services and other infrastructure and resources between different communities or groups. Their
discussion on the sustainability of community includes five aspects that operate within the
community: (i) social interactions/social networks in the community; (ii) community

32
participation; (iii) pride/sense of place; (iv) community stability; and, (v) safety and security.
The five factors are correlated and contribute to a sustainable community at different levels,
which is explained in the next section.

Community stability: a fundamental role to create a sustainable

community

Among the five factors, community stability plays a fundamental role. Community stability
requires low residential turnover and a community composed of individual members and
institutions with established beliefs and long-term formal or informal social networks
(Dempsey et al., 2011). Residential turnover, including immigration and emigration, directly
influences community stability. Bramley and Morgan (2003) suggest resident turnover is an
index of the deconstruction of a community, producing reduced feelings of attachment to a
place because of outflows of familiar neighbours and inflows of new ones. Magis (2010),
however, supports another concept of ‘community resilience’ as a balance of in-and-out
residential turnover that sustains the development of a community. Lower residential turnover
contributes to a stronger sense of attachment to a place and the retention of social networks and
daily communication. A study on how patterns of residential mobility affect a person’s sense
of attachment concludes that people with low mobility have a stronger sense of attachment than
those with higher mobility (Vidal, Valera, & PERÓ, 2010).

This argument suggests that a stable community contributes to residents establishing strong
social networks and participating in community activities. And this, in turn, enhances the social
capital that helps to create a sustainable community. Through local enterprise development,
increasing skills in areas of enterprise and business capabilities may strengthen and stabilise
the economic vitality and capital of a community, supporting social capital as well (Landorf,
2019).

Social capital helping to create a sustainable community

The concept of social capital was proposed by Loury (1977, p. 176) as the outcome of social
position in facilitating the obtainment of human capital. From the perspective of social
networks, Coleman (1988) argued that social capital is constituted by individual and social
relations. From this perspective, social capital is supported by social networks, which as one
of Dempsey et al.’s (2011) five factors, enhance a sustainable community. In addition,
community participation, as a medium of empowerment (Nikkhah & Redzuan, 2009),

33
encourages residents’ involvement in the sustainable development of their community.

Social capital comprises more than social networks and community participation. As Putnam
argues, social capital is composed of valuable networks, the associated norms of reciprocity
and trust (Putnam, 2001). Frequent community interaction builds trust and forms social capital
that makes residents feel safe. For example, stemming from a crime prevention movement in
the US during the late 1960s, Neighbourhood Watch is a program now promoted in many
countries that call on community members to safeguard their neighbours (Bennett, Holloway,
& Farrington, 2008, 2006). However, Sherman and Eck (2002) argue that Neighbourhood
Watch is ineffective because those living in areas with the highest crime rates distrust their
neighbours and usually refuse to attend Neighbourhood Watch meetings, while middle-class
areas with higher levels of communal trust, generally have less crime to begin with.

Sense of place plays a key role in sustaining community development. Social capital also
contributes to creating a sense of place that attaches people to their community or
neighbourhood, and satisfies their desire to keep living there as a stable community, in a place
they call ‘home’ (Adam, 2018). The sense of place, in turn, supports community stability, which
creates a circular effect that sustains the healthy development of a community. This process is
a community-centred framework that sustains the development of a place with its communities
(Figure 2. 2), which will be used to guide my investigation during the fieldwork.

34
 Figure 2. 2 Relations between the five factors of a sustainable community.
Source: Drawn by the author based on Dempsey et al. (2011).

Heritage contributes to sustainable development

The World Heritage system represents the pinnacle of international heritage significance based
on universally agreed criteria. As such, sustainable developments at the World Heritage level
are particularly influential and relevant to this thesis.

Heritage was long absent from the mainstream sustainable development debate
despite its crucial importance to societies and the wide acknowledgment of its
great potential to contribute to social, economic and environmental goals.
(UNESCO, 2015)

Cultural heritage contributes to sustainable development. UNESCO articulated the term

‘cultural heritage’ in the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and
Natural Heritage (UNESCO, 1972) and defined tangible and intangible heritage in the
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO, 2003). A
relationship existing between cultural heritage and sustainable development was initially

35
proposed in the 2005 Operational Guidelines (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, 2005, para.
6). In 2016, in response to rapid urbanisation and increasing concern about sustainable
development, UN-Habitat reached a critical agreement on how cities might contribute to
solving global issues with the publication of the New Urban Agenda in Quito, Ecuador. The
document highlights a connection with the 2030 Agenda, especially on SDG11 ‘Sustainable
Cities and Communities’ (UN-Habitat, 2016). The New Urban Agenda suggests a correlation
between urbanisation and development, and articulates the significant role that cultural heritage
plays in supporting sustainable urban development and urban economies in the social
dimension (UN-Habitat, 2016).

More specifically, heritage enhances the social capital of communities and reinforces the sense
of community and sense of place (Australia Productivity Commission, 2006, p. 16; Smith, 2006,
p. 81) that contributes to sustainable communities.

Conservation vs development

If heritage enhances a sense of community and strengthens the social capital that contributes
to sustainable communities, how then should heritage be managed so as to best support this
system of interconnected parts becomes the initial question.

In heritage management, conservation was once considered the opposite of development.

Labadi and Logan (2015, p. 12) argue that,

One of the recurrent criticisms is that urban heritage conservation and sustainable
development, defined as entailing both economic growth and increasing social
equity, are paradoxical aggregations that attempt to bring together fields with
contradictory objectives and methods.

From an urban perspective of sustainable development, the Chinese architectural historian

Chen Mingda argued that there were thousands of historic cultural landscapes in Beijing but it
was impossible to conserve all of them at the expense of stopping urban development. He
insisted that if historic buildings shared similar values and characteristics, protecting some of
them would be acceptable. It was impossible and unnecessary, he argued, for the entire city of
Beijing to be conserved. As a result, some magnificent built heritage, such as the Forbidden
City, has been conserved. However, many other historic places, particularly those associated
with vernacular building practices, or ‘grassroots heritage’ (Labadi & Logan, 2015), have been
destroyed along with their associated community networks and intangible heritage traditions.

36
Conservation has, more recently, been associated with cultural tourism as a means of enhancing
local economies (Nasser, 2009; Su, 2011). However, like the relationship between conservation
and development, a paradoxical relationship exists between sustainable development and
tourism. Conservation gives priority to tourism over local needs (Nasser, 2009) so that cultural
tourism may easily be promoted to benefit a local economy, at the expense of local community
issues. These issues violate the sustainable development goals, especially in historical
settlements. For example, the local culture of Lijiang, a Chinese World Heritage-listed city, is
manufactured for and stimulated by tourism (Y. Zhu, 2015), causing nearly ninety per cent of
the original resident outflow (Cros, 2006). When heritage becomes the primary commodity,
social and cultural sustainability in communities can decline as businesses cater to tourist
preferences (Butler, 1997). To avoid these issues, heritage should be taken into consideration,
not only for cultural tourism but also for local communities.

In recent years, the significance of cultural heritage has increasingly been associated with
sustainable development in communities, a concept that was identified for the first time in the
Budapest Declaration:

We will seek to ensure an appropriate and equitable balance between

conservation, sustainability and development, so that World Heritage properties
can be protected while the quality of life of our communities is improved …
(UNESCO, 2002, p. 4)

Although heritage contributes to sustainable development, the SDGs do not mention this
contribution among the 17 goals. Labadi (2018) critiques the SDGs for overlooking the rich
contributions made by cultural heritage to sustainable development in areas such as
environmental sustainability, quality of life and wellbeing, gender equality, and peace and
security. Moreover, Labadi argues that cultural heritage contributes to social connections
(through community participation), poverty eradication (through tourism and income
generation), local education (through local knowledge) and mitigating the effects of climate
change (through traditional environmental management practices). Smith (2006, p. 83) argues
that heritage ‘creates, and continually recreates (rather than simply ‘maintains’) social
networks and relations’. Smith’s argument confirms the development of social networks as one
of the significant factors in a sustainable community being influenced by heritage.

The above arguments can be summarised to suggest that heritage conservation is not in conflict
with sustainable development, but contributes to the sustainable development of a place and its

37
community by enhancing a sense of community and social capital. Following that, ‘what kind
of heritage should be conserved?’, ‘how to conserve heritage?’ and ‘what are the values in
heritage?’ become the questions that lead to a different understanding of ‘authenticity’ as a
value in the conservation process.

2.6 Heritage and conservation philosophy

Different scholars have various understandings of the values in cultural heritage, which leads
to different understandings of ‘authenticity’ in the conservation process. The following section
will explain the architectural conservation philosophy in China and its relationship to Western
conservation theories, starting with the concept of ‘authenticity’.

Heritage and architectural conservation in China

Authenticity is one of the significant concepts in contemporary conservation that was first
mentioned in the Venice Charter with the universal claim that ‘It is our duty to hand them
[historic monuments] on in the full richness of their authenticity’ (ICOMOS, 1964)9.

The Venice Charter expressed the contemporary idea of authenticity as being a form of ‘respect
for original material and authentic documents’ (ICOMOS, 1964, Article 9). However, the
influence of the Charter on conservation philosophy in China was delayed until the 1980s
because of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which reduced external contact and influence
between China and other nations. Before the Venice Charter, the architect and historian Liang
Sicheng10 was believed to be a key figure who influenced Chinese architectural conservation
profoundly with his conservation theory and ideology.

Prior to Liang Sicheng proposing his conservation philosophy of ‘repair the old as it is’ (Y. Zhu,
2017), traditional architecture had never been considered as a permanent monument in China
and the conservation approaches to traditional architecture equated to ‘repairing to a new state’
(D. Lu, 2017). For example, a record of reconstruction was often carved on a stela located next

9
Although ‘authenticity’ was not promoted as a term in the conservation field before the Venice Charter, the
ideology had been debated for years with terms, such as ‘preservation of original models’ and ‘reinstate any
original fragments’ (ICOMOS, 1931), and ‘spirit of the original design’ (Conron, 1962).
10
Liang Sicheng graduated from University of Pennsylvania in 1927 and was one of the leading scholars to
establish architectural education in China and propose architectural heritage conservation.

38
to a building, and this was generally only initiated for imperial architecture.

In 1964, the same year that the Venice Charter was published, Liang Sicheng published the
paper 闲话文物建筑的重修与维护 [Discussion on the reconstruction and conservation of heritage
buildings] (Liang, 1964). In this paper, Liang critiqued the ideology of ‘repairing to a new state’
and argued,

I think repairing the ancient architecture to a new state seems like polishing the
cooking vessel in the Zhou Dynasty or a mirror in the Han Dynasty, and would
damage its historic and art value … I think we should take ‘repair the old as it is’
as the architectural conservation principle. (Liang, 1964, p. 6)

He explained two reasons for this thinking. First, he argued that in China, the public did not
appreciate the age value of architecture as equally as something like the ‘patina’ on bronze
ware. Second, he reasoned that the decay of timber structures required the regular replacement
of individual components.

From Liang’s words, we can infer his emphasis on the diachronic value of the buildings. This
viewpoint was similar to that of John Ruskin, the British art critic and social thinker, who was
a strong supporter of material authenticity and diachronic value, and promoted the classic
conservation theory that suggests limits to human intervention. In his Seven Lamps of
Architecture, Ruskin (1909) appreciated the value derived from time and natural forces 11 ,
arguing that ‘the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in
its Age’.

Italian architect and art critic Camillo Boito criticised Ruskin’s approach that has an
appreciation of romantic ruins by personal taste and Boito argued that every change of ancient
works should be conserved as the evidence of history (Jokilehto, 1986, p. 336). The idea that
every change as history is similar to Gustavo Giovannoni’s concept of the ‘palimpsest’.
Giovannoni considered the historical context and environment as equivalent to a historical
document, a palimpsest of the urban evolutional history (Marzot, 2002). Giovannoni’s
conservation philosophy on the urban scale influenced his students on later architectural and
urban research. This includes Saverio Muratori (Cataldi et al., 2002), whose urban typo-
morphological research methods and theories help to understand the built environment, an
approach applied in Chapters 7 and 8. From a heritage perspective, if patina is the time trace

11
This value was coined as ‘patina’ by Italian art critic and historian Cesare Brandi.

39
of a natural force, a palimpsest is the historic trace of a human force. Architectural façades and
urban fabric can be seen as an exposed sedimentary layer shaped by a long period (Min, 2009)
(Figure 2. 3).

(a)

(c) (b)

Figure 2. 3 (a) Palimpsest; (b) architectural palimpsest; (c) urban palimpsest.

Source: (a) Conference: New Light on Old Manuscripts; Recent Advances in Palimpsest Studies; (b)
http://www.sashrepairs.co.uk/info/glossary-p.html; (c) Collaged by the author from Google Earth.

Although Liang appreciated the diachronic value of buildings, he also emphasised the artistic
value of architecture, which should be conserved in a ‘complete and magnificent state’ as a
gorgeous artwork rather than the messy palimpsest to represent diachronic value. Writing in
1996, Liang used the analogy of a dentist who uses an ‘ivory coloured false tooth rather than
snow-white coloured false tooth’ as a parallel for his ‘repair the old as it is’ (Lin, 1996). This
pursuit of artistic value derived from Liang’s Beaux-Arts architectural education at the
University of Pennsylvania from 1924 to 1927 (S. Li, 2002). However, unlike Viollet-le-Duc’s
stylistic restoration to an ultimate state, Liang explained that his ‘complete and magnificent
state’ should be based on precise research and respect for history. In Liang’s conservation
philosophy, ‘repair the old as it is’ considers the current state as constituting authenticity
because this approach enhances the historic value. He compared this theory to ‘prolonging life’
rather than ‘rejuvenation’, which was previously his conservation philosophy at the beginning
of his career. From this perspective, Liang’s conservation philosophy equals the concept of
‘preservation’ in the Burra Charter (Australia ICOMOS, 1979).

40
 Liang Sicheng’s influence on the conservation of architectural
heritage in China

Owing to his education, Liang never regarded vernacular architecture as heritage. All his efforts
were made to protect ‘high’ architecture — the architecture of the elites, such as temples or
palaces (Zhao, 2000). His overlooking of the value of vernacular architecture, intangible
heritage and the inherent associative values of these for local communities, is one of the factors,
together with rapid urbanisation, that has resulted in the arbitrary demolition of vernacular
heritage in historic towns and villages.

To some extent, Liang’s conservation philosophy is based on the concept of visual authenticity
that influenced his urban design theories. During the 1950s, when considering historic cities as
heritage and responding to urban development, Liang proposed the image of the ‘big roof’ as
the architectural language to represent national identity and protect the cultural landscape with
Chinese characteristics instead of using Western cubic architecture (Lin, 1996, pp. 128–131).
Using architectural language to represent national identity was influenced by the Soviet
Union’s realism ideology (Ji, 2007).

As one of the significant concepts in contemporary heritage discourse, authenticity was

understood in different ways by different scholars and the Nara Document offered us a new
chance to rethink this concept from a global perspective.

Nara Document and ‘authenticity’

In the East Asian countries, such as Japan and China, timber structures were commonly
devastated by natural forces (lightning, fire and flood), or demolished by human forces based

on their needs or the reconstruction traditions. Therefore, in the East Asian countries, rebuilding
new buildings was common work, and there was no tradition in conservation, especially one
involving material authenticity. The reconstruction tradition is best illustrated by the example
of the shrines of Ise in Japan with its ritual of renewal that was reconstructed every 20 years
(Gutschow, 2017, pp. 45–48). In China, the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan was devastated and
rebuilt several times since AD 223 with its form and structure changed (X. Jiang & Zhang,
2007). The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests in Beijing has been rebuilt twice since 1420 with
changes to its size and roof tile colour (S. Liu, 2014, p. 62).

In this context, the Nara Document reminded us in 1994 to rethink ‘what authenticity is and

41
how to judge it’. The document emphasised the significance of cultural diversity and proposed
‘All cultures and societies are rooted in the particular forms and means of tangible and
intangible expression which constitute their heritage, and these should be respected’ (ICOMOS,
1994, Article 7). Among different cultural backgrounds, materials are not always the key point
for authenticity.

Authenticity judgements may be linked to the worth of a great variety of sources

of information … include form and design, materials and substance, use and
function, traditions and techniques, location and setting, and spirit and feeling,
and other internal and external factors. (ICOMOS, 1994, Article 13)

The Nara Document has influenced contemporary heritage theory by considering authenticity
from the perspective of local culture and traditions. The changing way that we view authenticity
has promoted the significance of intangible cultural heritage. In 2003, increased recognition of
the intangible dimensions of heritage prompted the adoption of the Convention for the
Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO, 2003, Article 2). Intangible
heritage was, for the first time, officially defined and categorised into five domains: (a) oral
traditions and expressions; (b) performing arts; (c) social practices, rituals and festive events;
(d) knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and, (e) traditional
craftsmanship.

Importantly, Cosgrove (1994) has argued that authenticity (origin and truth) has never existed
in conservation or restoration because conservation as a socially constructed concept depends
on decisions made by individuals and their cultural background rather than universal truths
known about the process. In offering his perspective on change and development in heritage
management, Cosgrove (1994; cited in Viñas, 2005, p. 148) suggests why not ‘seek to liberate
the fluidity of meaning inherent in the idea of art as utopia’. The next section will review the
evolution and changes of the values involved in conservation.

42
2.7 Evolution of the value system in conservation

International documents on conservation

Figure 2. 4 Three phases of the evolution of the values in conservation documents.

Source: Drawn by the author.

According to the sections above, authenticity is a kind of value used to discuss heritage.
Inspired by Ruskin, the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1903) contributed to building a
critical framework that helps to evaluate the values underpinning heritage. Riegl’s value-led
system has profoundly influenced the development of conservation philosophy since the late
19th century and is still relevant today.

ICOMOS, UNESCO and ICCROM have each published a series of charters and documents to
outline the rules and recommendations for a broad sense of ‘conservation’, which continue to
expand the scope of the concept. In general, the values-led conservation philosophy in
contemporary international heritage documents can be divided into three phases (Figure 2. 4).

1. Artistic, historic and scientific value: Before the 1980s, conservation instruments
focused primarily on the conservation of physical factors relevant to the artistic, historic
and scientific values of an object or place. For example, the Venice Charter notes that ‘the
intention in conserving and restoring monuments is to safeguard them no less as works of
art than as historical evidence’ (ICOMOS, 1964). The Venice Charter emphasised the
significance of undertaking scientific investigation and research on heritage, in opposition
to subjective restoration (ICOMOS, 1964).

2. Regional and local cultural value: Influenced by the research on cultural anthropology

43
 between the 1980s and the 1990s, the World Heritage Committee grew to appreciate the
significance of cultural diversity, namely the regional and local cultural values (Labadi,
2007) such as those embedded within the Burra Charter and the Nara Document. The
Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter introduced the significant concept of ‘place’ as a ‘site,
area, building or other work, group of buildings or other works together with pertinent
contents and surroundings’ (Australia ICOMOS, 1979, Article 1). In later versions, the
Burra Charter explained ‘cultural significance’ as a range of values embodied in place for
different individuals or groups in different generations (Australia ICOMOS, 1999, Article
1.2), adding that ‘place may have tangible and intangible dimensions’ (Australia ICOMOS,
2013, Article 1.1). The definitional change to the term ‘place’ in the later versions of the
Burra Charter implies that cultural difference varies across regions and that conservation
work should consider the tangible and the intangible heritage values associated with a
place.

3. Cultural, social, emotional and spiritual value: After 2000, intangible cultural values,
such as social, emotional and spiritual values, were promoted in conservation in addition
to the values associated with material heritage. The Xi’an Declaration (ICOMOS, 2005)
and the Quebec Declaration (ICOMOS Canada, 2008) both advanced the concept of
‘context’ and ‘spirit of place’ in heritage conservation. The Faro Convention, agreed by the
Council of Europe in 2005, emphasised and defined the value of cultural heritage for
society. Specifically, the convention emphasised the significance of a heritage community
and defined cultural heritage as including ‘all aspects of environment resulting from
interaction between people and places through time’ (Council of Europe, 2005). The
Valletta Principles warn that ‘the process of gentrification can affect communities and lead
to the loss of a place’s liveability’ (ICOMOS, 2011b, p. 7) and remind us that ‘cultural
traditions, traditional techniques, spirit of place and everything that contributes to the
identity of a place’ (ICOMOS, 2011b, p. 11) are significant in conservation, suggesting the
need to ‘protect a place’s identity without impeding its evolution’ (ICOMOS, 2011b, p.
16).

These three phases illustrate a trend in which conservation philosophies were turning from the
object-centred approach to the human-centred approach.

The China Principles and associated issues

Borrowing from other international instruments, such as the Burra Charter, Chinese heritage

44
departments commenced writing the Principles for the Conservation of Heritage Sites in China
(China Principles) in 1997 and officially launched them in 2000. The China Principles advocate
minimal intervention in the conservation process to retain material authenticity. This aligns
with similar concepts in the Venice Charter, the Burra Charter, and also Liang’s conservation
philosophy of ‘repair the old as it is’.

As with the Burra Charter, the China Principles start with an assessment of values of historic
cultural landscapes by investigating and researching the history and culture of a site (ICOMOS
China, 2015, Article 18).

In 2015, the revised version of the China Principles recognised social and cultural values in
heritage conservation. The China Principles take sustainable development into consideration,
view cultural heritage as a promoting force for social and economic sustainability, claim the
significance of place as heritage, and propose sustaining the vitality of cultural traditions and
promoting community well-being (ICOMOS China, 2015, Article 39,40). The China Principles
propose that ‘In China, one of the major issues for cultural heritage is how to deal with the
relationship between socio-economic development and heritage conservation’ (ICOMOS
China, 2015, p. 55).

Although sustainable development had already been considered in China’s cultural landscape
management, there are still three issues when applying the China Principles.

First, the China Principles are only guidelines and do not carry any legally enforceable status.
Therefore, the China Principles do not have the authority to promote the management
mechanisms if these conflict with the bureaucratic framework or operational protocols. On the
one hand, the China Principles advocate strict conservation rules to protect cultural significance
and to sustain historic cultural landscapes and maintain their attached values for communities.
On the other hand, without the legally enforceable status, the principles are flexible and
powerless in implementation when they run contrary to the government-backed projects that
aim to promote local economic development. For example, although the Three Gorges Dam
project would lead to the erasure of hundreds of villages and damage to local ecosystems, the
state government still promoted the project (Qian, 2007).

Second, China is a multi-ethnic country with a wide variety of tangible and intangible heritage
types and China ICOMOS and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage published one
standard document — the China Principles — to manage all the heritage problems in different
regions. Therefore, the China Principles are not contextualised in the place-based heritage

45
discourse and are difficult to operate countrywide.

Third, although the China Principles propose the significance of community participation in
heritage management, such participation is not favoured by local governments. The goal of
economic development is a political task for local governments in China. Thus, conserving
historic cultural landscapes becomes a business for local governments, which means every
investment should produce profits, including political promotion or grey income (Fan, 2014).
Involving the community within heritage management does not, however, bring profits but
obstacles. Therefore, the value of community is always ignored in China’s official heritage
management.

2.8 The historic cultural landscape in heritage management

The econo-centric urbanisation has caused globalised homogenisation and standardisation in
both urban and rural areas (Qian, 2007). The Nairobi Recommendation (UNESCO, 1976)
warned us decades ago that ‘a growing universality of building techniques and architectural
forms may create a uniform environment throughout the world’. Under such a context, heritage
may help us connect our identities to a particular social group and place in this urbanisation
process (Smith, 2006, p. 49). In a historic human settlement, these identities are normally
represented by the historic cultural landscape as ‘layers of the physical components and
patterns that distinguish cities, as well as the symbolic meanings, sociocultural values,
behaviours, and traditions that give rise to a collective local identity’ (Landorf, 2019).

Historic cultural landscapes include the townscape, architectural fabric and urban
structure/tissue. In contrast to the historic cultural landscape, the 1999–2008 ICOMOS
president Michael Petzet explained that the ‘townscape’ only refers to the street facades, not
the entire historic fabric (ICOMOS, 2010, p. 28). Therefore, the conservation of historic
cultural landscapes includes not only the street views of the townscape but also the urban
structure, namely how the land is divided. A historic cultural landscape is shaped by ‘the
evolution of a society and its cultural identity’ (ICOMOS, 2011b, p. 3). From this perspective,
historic cultural landscapes can be regarded in terms of Giovannoni’s palimpsest theory at the
urban development level, and the result that may be interpreted and represented in physical
space (Van Assche & Teampău, 2009). The European landscape convention set the importance
of landscape in heritage on its current path, which plays a vital role in the formation of local
cultures, human well-being and identity in both urban areas and the countryside (Council of

46
Europe, 2000). Similar to the urban landscape, the rural landscape is also defined as heritage
and a dynamic living system encompassing physical attributes with other social and cultural
settings, as well as community identities (ICOMOS, 2017). The community and the historical
or vernacular built environment comprise the heritage place along with the identity of a place.

Historic cultural landscapes usually act as a symbol based on their collective meaning for a
group of people. This collective meaning causes an identity to be attached to a region by local
acknowledgement. From a structuralist perspective, on the one hand, only when the objects
that convey common knowledge or social agreement along with messages and meanings in a
stabilised mode can transfer to be the become symbols. Once the symbol disappears or the
collective meaning changes, the identity will disappear as well. On the other hand, subjects
produce meanings of symbols and meanings of symbols rely on subjects, so these meanings
exist when subjects interpret them (Viñas, 2005, p. 152). In heritage management, the subjects
are people, especially people of a local place, who shared their common knowledge and social
agreement on symbols. That is why we should safeguard a place with both the historic cultural
landscape as objects and its community as subjects.

To protect the historic cultural landscape, UNESCO (2011) defined its ‘Historic Urban
Landscape’ (HUL) as an approach that integrates urban heritage conservation with dynamic
changes and constant social and economic development. HUL offers a new model of
contemporary urban development along with the conventional conservation approaches to
protect heritage values (Bandarin & van Oers, 2012, p. 200).

According to the arguments presented above, to understand the historic cultural landscape as
heritage in Lili, the thesis will analysis the historic change and development in its historic
cultural landscape in Chapter 7.

2.9 Conclusion: from heritage conservation to place conservation

This chapter contains two primary themes: sustainable development and heritage.

The first part of this chapter has reviewed the concept of sustainable development and argued
that social sustainability was embedded in heritage management. Since different places have
various socio-cultural conditions, social sustainability should be framed as a placed-based
system along with the cultural heritage, so that social sustainability at a community level is
suggested. As the Paris Declaration argues for ‘heritage as a driver of development’ (ICOMOS,

47
2011a), this chapter has discussed the relationship between heritage and sustainable
development.

The second half of the chapter has reviewed the theories and philosophies in heritage
management by critically discussing the concept of authenticity and the evolution of the
evaluation system. According to the review, the trend of conservation philosophy has
developed from an object-centred to human-centred approach, and prompts us not to restrict
the conservation of heritage to its physical authenticity, but to encompass other values,
especially the social and spiritual values.

Heritage should never be restricted to a single building or site anymore. Both tangible and
intangible values embedded in the heritage require to be conserved and sustained in an
integrated and complex system that we can call a ‘place’. Community is a significant and
valuable component of a place because community contributes to the development of a place
and sustains the dynamic social and cultural life of a place.

Places play a crucial role in the process of urbanisation as they not only satisfy the need for
identity and cultural landscapes to establish the identity of places in the regeneration process
(Hosagrahar et al., 2016), but because places also contribute to social sustainability in
communities (Opp, 2017).

In the next chapter, the concept of place will be reviewed and discussed to explore its value in
heritage conservation and living heritage within a sustainable community.

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Chapter 3: The Role of Place in ‘Living Heritage’

‘Without a complex knowledge of one’s place, and without the faithfulness

to one’s place on which such knowledge depends, it is inevitable that the
place will be used carelessly, and eventually destroyed’.

(Berry, 2007, p. 39)

Introduction
In the past decades of development in China, the Chinese government has focused on economic
development. Many local governments have conserved the physical environment in historic
settlements superficially for cultural tourism because of their commercial value, which
devastates the intangible value of heritage places (Shepherd & Yu, 2013, pp. 57–64; X. Su,
2015).

Chapter 2 explained that heritage is not restricted to the natural and built environment as a
physical setting, but also includes the synthetic concept of ‘place’ that is composed of social
and other human values. Following that, this chapter reviews and examines the concept of place
and its theories as groundwork for the research in later chapters and also determines the
methodology for this research.

To address the secondary questions ‘What are the dimensions of “place” and “place identity”?
What is the relationship between these dimensions and how are they understood in heritage
management discourse?’ this chapter discusses the concept of place with three dimensions:
physical, social and psychological. This chapter also explains ‘non-place’ and ‘placelessness’
theories, and the virtual place phenomenon. As argued in Chapter 2, heritage contributes to
sustainable development and the creation of a sustainable community. A sustainable
community would be supported by the living heritage approach (LHA) to conserving heritage
as a dynamic place with vitality and change over time (Wijesuriya, 2012). From this viewpoint,
heritage is considered more than a physical anchor to a place; it offers a complex sense of social
and cultural place and identities (Smith, 2006, p. 75).

Then this chapter examines the literature on the concept and theories of place identity, which

49
is composed of physical characteristics and collective place attachment (social and
psychological place attachment). I argued that is not landmarks but the background context and
in-between spaces of the environment that makes up the unique physical characteristics of a
place. I also further argued that physical characteristics act as a trigger for social and
psychological place attachment. In other words, the physical form of a place contributes to its
local social activities and raises peoples’ memories, along with their psychological attachments.

To summarise, this chapter contributes to discussions of the relationship between heritage and
place identity, providing support for rural historic towns and villages revitalisation in China.
Rural historic towns and villages represent both heritage and living places for local
communities and residents. Thus, the revitalisation of these rural historic towns and villages
should take the community into consideration and preserve such places as living heritage and
sustainable communities.

What is ‘place’?
This section explains the concept of place with a literature review and discussion, and lays the
groundwork for theories used to analyse place in the historic town Lili in Chapter 7–9. ‘Place’
is a complex concept with dynamic components. It is a unique position located in the universe
with a particular material form and meaning (Gieryn, 2000) with a broad scope that includes
natural and cultural features and may have tangible and intangible dimensions (Australia
ICOMOS, 2013). From the perspective of heritage management, the Burra Charter points out
it is the cultural significance or cultural significance value—including aesthetic, historic,
scientific, social and spiritual value for past, present and future generations—embodied in a
place that makes it unique to different individuals and groups (Australia ICOMOS, 2013,
Article 1).

Scholars from human geography argue that the critical factor of a place is the human-
environment relationship rather than the physical environment itself. For example, Relph (1976,
p. 29) argues that place does not necessarily fix to a particular location and location is not a
necessary condition of a place, citing the case that a ship or a gypsy camp often shifts its
location and creates a place. However, I argue that although the ship or camp does not
necessarily fix to a particular cartographic location, they are defined as particular locations
when human positioning themselves. Further, Relph states that ‘the essence of place lies in the
largely unselfconscious intentionality that defines places as profound centres of human

50
existence’ (Relph, 1976, p. 43); he identifies the characteristics of place as visuality, the sense
of community and the sense of time. Human geographer Yifu Tuan (1979, p. 408) explains that
place is one’s spatial location and social position in ordinary usage. He compares space and
place, and conveys space as a movement that place will generate when pausing during the
movement (Tuan, 1977, p. 6). In his book Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, he
describes place as ‘humanised space’ (Tuan, 1977, p. 54), ‘whatever stable object catches our
attention’ (Tuan, 1977, p. 161) and writes that ‘when space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it
has become place’ (Tuan, 1977, p. 73).

Dovey (2010b, p. 23) argues that place is an assemblage that stabilises housing but also
‘encompasses lines of movement and processes of becoming’. For a room, this assemblage
could be a collection of books, furniture, electronics, walls, windows and a door; for a street,
it could be composed of footpaths, trees, paved areas, passengers, shops, parkland and other
infrastructure. He further uses a neighbourhood as an example to explain that the assemblage
is not only a material assemblage (houses, shops and amenities) but is also a discursive
assemblage (building styles, forms and names) and embodies a social assemblage
(communications, conversations, networks and organisations). Dovey (2010b, p. 27) argues
that a place-as-assemblage is an intensive multiplicity rather than an extensive multiplicity. In
other words, a place is assembled and mixed by its components organically and permeably as
an overall ‘flavoured soup’ rather than ‘a bag of mixed jelly beans’. In addition, place
assemblage is not static but continuously changing. Any change would make a place unique
and differentiate it from the original place. Such changes range from massive (e.g., the
construction of a bridge) to incremental (e.g., the growth of a tree in front of a plaza) and tiny
changes (e.g., the moss patches on a wall’s corner). Time offers opportunities for change that
is continuous rather than sudden. This continuity makes a place recognisable because of its
unchanging aspect: for example, the canal under the bridge, the position of the tree and the
material of the wall. These unchanging aspects link the past and present of a place as a series,
albeit the past and present are not the same places.

Contrasting with the concept of place, Marc Augé defines the concept of ‘non-place’:

If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity,

then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned
with identity will be a non-place. The hypothesis advanced here is that
supermodernity produces non-places, meaning spaces which are not

51
 themselves anthropological places (Augé, 2008, p. 63).

Augé proposes that place is the well-organised assembly of elements, while space is the
‘animation of places by the motion of a moving body’, and argues that the opposition between
place and space causes the distinctions between place and non-place (Augé, 2008, pp. 64–65).
This non-place is the result of mobility resulting from the development of transportation and
capital. High mobility and communication travelling across space contribute to a ‘time-space
compression’ that causes the loss of local community and locality (Massey, 1991). To some
extent, Augé’s idea was inspired by the precursor Relph’s ‘placelessness’. Unlike place
destruction (through natural disasters or planning and urban renewal) and place annihilation
(place destroyed by the war or battle) (Hewitt, 1983), placelessness is a less authentic attitude
that removes the distinctiveness of places and creates a standardised landscape caused by ‘an
insensitivity to the significance of place’ (Relph, 1976, preface); it refers to the weakening of
the identity of a place and offering of a similar bland experience (Relph, 1976, p. 90). Identity
is a significant concept in place research explained in the later sections of this chapter.

Place is a multi-fold concept that will be used to analyse a Chinese rural historic town Lili in
this thesis. Geographer Agnew (1987, p. 28) provides a broad explanation that place contains
three levels of meaning: location, locale and sense of place. Location is the cartographic
description of the place—the latitude, longitude and altitude of a position. Locale is the
function of a place with social relationships, such as a park or market. Sociologist Anthony
Giddens (1990, p. 18) supports Agnew’s idea and argues that ‘place is best conceptualised by
the idea of “locale” which refers to the physical setting of social activity as situated
geographically’. Sense of place is the social and psychological attachment associated with a
specific place, which parallels the concept of place attachment and Genius Loci that explained
in later section 3.3.2. .

Agnew’s three levels of place correspond to the three dimensions of Canter’s model for a place:
form, activities and imaginations (Canter, 1977). Montgomery (1998) develops the original
Canter’s model and explains in a diagram the three factors that constitute good places, namely
form (physical), activity (social) and image (psychological) (see Figure 3.1). According to this
figure, a place first is a cartographic physical area with scale, intensity and other physical
attributes. Second, a place is created by social activities and interactions between a person and
physical space, or between a group of people within a space. Third, the same physical space
will be perceived as a different personal place in people’s minds based on their experiences.

52
 Figure 3.1 Three factors of a place.
Source: (Montgomery, 1998).

Based on the Canter–Montgomery model, the concept of place is investigated to establish a

framework along with the five factors of ‘sustainable community’ in Chapter 2 to offering
suggestions to the future development, conserving and revitalising rural historic towns and
villages in China. This significance relies on the physical characteristics, social activities and
psychological attachments to the place. These three aspects all contribute to the values of a
place.

Space: Physical setting of a place

According to the Canter–Montgomery model, form is one of the three components of place.
Form is objective, which I call it ‘space’ in this section; it needs to be sensed by a human. Place
and space are interrelated but different in that: space is the sense of the physical setting of a
place.

There are two answers to the question, ‘what is space?’. First, from a physical perspective,
space is conceived as a self-contained entity with the capacity to contain other things. Space is
abstract geometries separated from the material form and cultural interpretation (Hillier &
Hanson, 1984). It is the physical setting of a place that shapes human behaviour in that place
(Hosagrahar et al., 2016), but is more abstract than a place, which at least links to a myth, a

53
history or an event (Augé, 2008, p. 67). Second, from a humanistic perspective, space is the
spatial experience sensed by a human. Space is also a relationship that is created and
experienced through the interrelationships among objects (Arnheim, 1977, pp. 9–10). Tuan
(1977, p. 388) explains that space is a concept of people’s spatial feelings or perceptions. Vision,
touch and movement help us to sense the physical characteristics of space, as a significant
component of place.

As Relph argues, ‘space is not a void or a container’ that holds places:

Space is amorphous and intangible and not an entity that can be directly
described and analysed. Yet, however we feel or explain space, there is nearly
always some associated sense or concept of place. In general it seems that
space provides the context for places but derives its meaning from particular
places (Relph, 1976, p. 8).

Seamon and Sowers (2008, p. 44) conclude that Relph’s ideas show spaces can be categorised
into two types: perceptual space (instinctive and bodily spatial experience) and cognitive space
(cerebral and ideal spatial experience). For example, if a street is ‘narrow’, it is a perceptual
space, which is an objective12 perception of its physical attributes; while if a narrow street
makes one ‘depressed’, it is a cognitive space.

Social place with activities and events

Although space composes place, place is more than space, but coexists with a body (Tuan,
1979, p. 389). In Life Takes Place, Seamon (2018) defines places as spatial fields that gather,
identify, activate and build changing connections between human beings, things, social events,
experiences and meanings. From this perspective, space will convert to a place when people
invest meaning in a portion of space as a social activity in some way, such as naming. Tuan
(1991, p. 688) argues ‘Naming is power – the creative power to call something into being, to
render the invisible visible, to impart a certain character to things.’ This viewpoint inspired
Cresswell to suggest that naming is one of the ways of turning space into place (Cresswell,
2004, p. 10).

As a kind of human social event, naming connects people to specified space. When the given
name is accepted and becomes conventional, connection and meaning are constructed between

12
People may define ‘narrow’ as various sizes, which makes this objective.

54
the place and the given name. An example that explains this argument is when a recent graduate
葛宇路 (Ge Yulu) noticed in 2013 in an urban village in Beijing that a new road had no name so
it was confusing when he described the road to his friends. He decided to use his name as the
name of the road, 葛宇路 (Ge Yulu) [Geyu Road], because by coincidence the character 路 (lu)
in his name means [road] in Mandarin. After a year, Geyu Road was taken up by Google Maps
(Figure 3.2). Ge Yulu’s behaviour turned a nameless road into a place as a social event.

Figure 3.2 Geyu Road (left) and Geyu Road in Google Maps (right).
Source: Google Image (left) and Google Maps (right).

Place is a socialised space as the built form of a place is determined by the social force
(Rapoport, 1969, pp. 49–58). For example, the attached house is a particular house form usually
owned by brothers, sisters or cousins. In addition, from the perspective of linguistic studies,
the word 地位 (diwei) [status] with two characters 地 (di) [land] and 位 (wei) [position] was
initially used to indicate a location of a place, but this word retains social significance in
contemporary Chinese language and represents the social class of a person (Fei, 2012, pp. 140–
141). The change in language, from another perspective, also indicates that a place is associated
with and built on social relationships. These examples indicate place as a socialised space.

A place is a socialised space, but whether ‘place’ or ‘social’ comes first is debatable. Sack (1997,
p. 2) and Malpas (1999, pp. 35–36) argue that place comes before social activities because
humans can feel their existence and construct society only when they are in a place that brings
the social, cultural and natural together. Sack and Malpas agree that humans can construct
nothing without being in a place and experiencing their existence first. However, Harvey (1996,
p. 261) argues that place is a social construct and emphasises the importance of social factors

55
that construct place and make it meaningful (Harvey, 1993, p. 5). Both human-human and
human-environment relationships are social activities based on place. Therefore, I support
Harvey’s argument that once these relationships are established, places will emerge
spontaneously.

The process by which social attribution determines place will never be ‘finished’ but will
always develop new forms of place. The place is created and revised in everyday life as a
domestic event and ‘the raw materials for the creative production of identity, rather than an a
priori label of identity’ (Cresswell, 2004, p. 39). Daily life operates based on a publicly
accepted social norm and creates a collective identity (Hosagrahar et al., 2016). Structuralist
argue that our behaviours are determined neither by structures (social norm) nor by our free
will alone. The structure relies on our behaviour, and our behaviour is meaningful only when
it follows the structure (Cresswell, 2004, p. 35). Therefore, social norms are inherited, and
adapt and evolve from past norms. Thus, from the social perspective, a place is hierarchically
linked; inherited, developing and contingent.

A place is socially inherited. Our social behaviours must follow the social norms we inherited:
for example, walking or driving in China should be on the right side; while in Australia, it is
on the left.

A place is socially developing. Although change is not easy, a place is continuously evolving.
This feature is familiar and easy to understand when thinking of changes in our lives and the
surrounding environment over past decades, in the way we communicate, interact, entertain
and travel.

A place is socially contingent. This feature of place relies on contingent historical events (Pred,
1984). For example, when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, the function of
the Imperial Palace in Beijing was converted to a national museum in 1925; it was no longer a
place used as a royal palace.

Social activities and events shape a place from the past to today; a place also affects the
activities and events within the place. Thus, to understand the value of a heritage place, such
as Lili as my research case (see Chapter 7–9), we need to understand the place according to
how it inherits from the past and develops to today with any contingent events.

In addition to social significance, place also has psychological significance.

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 Psychological place with feelings and memories

Physical space can exist without humans, but place cannot. A place is a space filled with
psychological elements, such as human experiences, feelings, minds, thoughts or memories. A
place has physical and psychological attributes that can be classified into two categories—the
psychological perceived place and the psychological conceived place—similar to the
perceptual space and cognitive space as explained in the section 3.2.1 on ‘space’ from the
humanistic perspective.

The psychological perceived place is a direct reflection of our sense of defining a space. The
human feeling can reflect a perceived place by its physical attributes without former experience
but simply relying on senses—for example, whether it is dark or bright, narrow or wide—to
achieve a subjective understanding of the physical characteristics of a place.

A psychological conceived place relies on the human mind and thinking, which is based on
their previous experience (Manzo, 2005). For example, home is a conceived rather than a
perceived place. Bachelard (1994, p. 58) states that home is not just a physical thing, but is also
a place where our memories or thoughts gather. The sense of attachment and rootedness makes
home a place with psychological significance and memories. Home is an abstract concept
existing in our minds, even without a physical setting. We experience and define home after
we are born, and cultivate our minds to understand the outside world.

Our good or bad experiences and memories construct the psychological conceived place. Good
experiences or memories can bring us a sense of happiness and delight when we visit there
again. In contrast, bad experiences or memories may cause fearfulness and mawkishness when
we think of that place or visit there. Tuan coined terms to describe the link between the sense
of feelings and the place (Tuan, 1990). The former is ‘topophilia’, meaning positive affective
ties of people to the physical environment; the latter is ‘topophobia’, meaning a sense of hatred
or repulsion about a particular place.

Both ‘topophilia’ and ‘topophobia’ contribute to the familiarity of a place. This familiarity
makes a place as living heritage to the local residents that includes not only the physical
environment but also social activities and psychological attachment. The constant change of
place physically or perceptively plays a dominant and comprehensive role in heritage
management along with community life and their emotional attachment as living heritage in
the name of sustainability (Schofield & Szymanski, 2011, pp. 9–10).

57
 Place is a living heritage

Interactions between people and heritage make the heritage alive and create a place. Marks
(1991, p. 9) states that ‘What keeps a place alive is not the preservation of its past per se, but
the continual weaving of that past into the present’. From such a perspective, I argue that to
build a sustainable community in a rural historic town or village is to sustain the human–place
relationship that is contained by a stabilising persistence of place (Casey, 1987, pp. 186–187).
Therefore, the place is required to be understood as a living heritage, along with the people and
the community.

As part of the Sixth International Congress of Architects, the Recommendations of the Madrid
Conference (1904) classified monuments into two categories: dead and living. Almost 100
years later, in 2003, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration
of Cultural Property (ICCROM) launched a programme focused on living heritage sites to
promote awareness of the concept of living heritage. In 2009, ICCROM initially defined LHA
as a community-based conservation approach to the ‘management of continuity and change’
(Wijesuriya, 2012), moving conservation practice from material authenticity to heritage in the
lives of people directly attached to the heritage (Labadi & Logan, 2015). Similar to the
management of change and the continuity of the urban landscape according to the historic
urban landscape (HUL) approach, LHA has more focus on the people and communities. In this
context, cultural heritage is created by the people and for the people, and people are part of the
value of heritage.

The key point of LHA is continuity. Wijesuriya argues (2012) that the original use or function
is a vital point for continuity with other three supplementary continuities: community
connections; tangible and intangible cultural expressions; and care (Figure 3. 3). In
Wijesuriya’s argument, original use maintains the status quo and makes a heritage place alive.
This view is debatable because it mixes the concept of ‘use’ and ‘function’. Wang Zheng (2011)
argues that function is a broad aim established by the designer for particular users, such as a
commercial or residential function; use is the actual use by the users, which is more flexible
and adaptable. Functional change refers to the change of specific users, while a change in use
does not change the users. For example, the Forbidden City changing from a palace constructed
for an emperor into a museum for tourists is a functional change, while an existing barbershop
changing to a convenience store is not a functional change but is only change in use because
the building still has a commercial and service function primarily for local customers.

58
Therefore, I argue that the continuity of target users produces living heritage and activates a
place.

Figure 3. 3 Four continuities in the living heritage approach.

Source: Redrawn by the author based on (Wijesuriya, 2012).

The other three supplementary continuities also play significant roles, especially the continuity
of community connection. Wijesuriya (2012, p. 7) explains that ‘if the original function
continues into the present, there is an association or connection to a certain community for
whom such places were created’. The people–place relationship is built on a core community
both influenced by and influencing their heritage through their daily life. To some extent, this
core community is similar to the ‘cultural community’ referred in the Nara Document on
Authenticity as ‘responsibility for cultural heritage and the management of it belongs, in the
first place, to the cultural community that has generated it, and subsequently to that which cares
for it’ (ICOMOS, 1994, Article 8), which emphasises the significance of the community–
heritage interaction.

Above all, conservation aims to promote development for a place. This aim requires a
community-centred approach to achieve the sustainable development of living heritage places
(Filippi, 2005). In other words, it can be concluded that the fundamental and core point of
living heritage place conservation should be the continuity of community, explained as the
sustainable development of community along with its physical environment as a ‘place’.

Heritage is the common representation of the identity of a place triggering the social values
and emotional memories of the public within a specific place. Conservators believe historic

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and vernacular architecture conservation retains the identity of the building and its environment
to make it a living heritage along with its community. Thus we have to confront two questions.
First, what is identity?; second, what is place identity?

What is ‘place identity’?

Identity and personal identity

Identity is the certainty of positioning ourselves. As Bauman (1996, p. 19) states, ‘One thinks
of identity whenever one is not sure of where one belongs … “Identity” is a name given to the
escape sought from that uncertainty’. Identity can be individual characteristics of a person or
shared characteristics of a group. Hall (1996, p. 2) argued the idea that,

Identification is constructed on the back of a recognition of some common

origin or shared characteristics with another person or group, or with an ideal,
and with the natural closure of solidarity and allegiance established on this
foundation.

Personal identity refers to people’s self-belonging based on their features and attributes and
their ideology as determined by their inherited genes and post-natal factors. Genes determine
one’s appearance to a certain extent. Post-natal factors are the environment that can not only
change one’s appearance, but also determine one’s mental state and personality. More
accurately, this environment is more like a social and cultural environment that develops the
individual identity (Rosenberg, 1986).

Self-belonging can involve a place, organisation, belief, period or other things in common.
Self-belonging is built on ‘self-awareness’ that distinguish people from others, and the power
that allows people to ‘act’ and ‘self-reflect’, which inform on who you are (Qazimi, 2014).
Nations may have traditional costumes, such as the Japanese kimono and Scottish kilt. School
or army uniforms represent organisational belonging. One person can have self-belonging in
several categories simultaneously. For example, students or soldiers coming from the same
ethnic group are able to follow different religions. By the same token, Christians can come
from varies races, ethnic groups and countries. This kind of self-belonging will present one’s
personal identity. Similar to personal identity, a place also has its identity.

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 Place identity and its relevant terms

Place identity, a term coined by Proshansky (1978) and his colleagues, is a sub-component of
a person’s self-identity that describes a person’s socialisation with the physical space, and
consists of knowledge and feelings derived from personal experiences as a ‘potpourri of
memories, conceptions, interpretations, ideas, and related feelings about specific physical
settings, as well as types of settings’ (Proshansky, Fabian, & Kaminoff, 1983, p. 60).

Place identity is an ambiguous concept whose definition has not reached a common agreement.
Many similar terms are used, such as ‘sense of place’ (Hummon, 1992; Jivén & Larkham, 2003;
Peace, Holland, & Kellaher, 2006), ‘place attachment’ (Hidalgo & Hernández, 2001; Plunkett,
2011; Scannell & Gifford, 2010; Shumaker & Taylor, 1983), ‘place dependence’ (Stokols &
Shumaker, 1981), ‘topophilia’ (Tuan, 1990), ‘rootedness’ and ‘insideness’ (Relph, 1976). In the
following part, the three commonly used key concepts (place identity, place attachment and
sense of place) will be discussed to establish a framework for place theories in the thesis.

Place identity: Relph discusses two types of identity, namely ‘identity of a place’ and ‘identity
with a place’. He uses the first, in a physical dimension, to refer to ‘persistent sameness and
unity which allows that [place] to be differentiated from others’ (Relph, 1976, p. 45); and the
second, in a social dimension, to describe the involvement of a person or group with a particular
place (Relph, 1976, p. 49). The ‘identity with a place’ is supported by Twigger-Ross and
Uzzell’s argument who articulates place identity as an aspect comparable to social identity.
Twigger-Ross and Uzzell (1996, p. 206) apply Breakwell’s identity process theory to place
identity, which they regard as a sub-component of social identification that expresses
‘membership of a group of people who are defined by location’. Montgomery’s ‘identity of a
place’ is different from Relph’s ‘identity of a place’. Montgomery (1998) asserts that the
‘identity of a place’ is objective and without the perception of humans; he uses ‘image of a
place’ to explain how the identity of a place is perceived based on one’s value, beliefs and ideas,
which bring together cognition and perceptions.

Although Proshansky, Fabian and Kaminoff (1983) admit that the physical environment
contributes to place identity, they propose that place identity is a sub-structure of self-identity
that belongs to the individual but not a place, and do not regard physical characteristics of the
place themselves as part of place identity. Physical characteristics, including objective
characteristics and subjective or perceptive characteristics, are also a component of place
identity. Stedman (2003, p. 682) argues that many other scholars overlook the potential

61
contributions of the physical setting to place meaning and attachment, and proposes that
landscape characteristics ‘underpin both place attachment and satisfaction’. The objective
characteristics of a place, as the term suggests, is objective, which equates to Montgomery’s
‘identity of a place’. Unlike Norberg-Schulz, urban morphologist M.R.G. Conzen regards the
concept of genius loci as ‘objectivation of the spirit’ of society, to depict geographical variation
in urban forms (Jivén & Larkham, 2003). Here, Conzen’s genius loci are the objective or
physical characteristics of a place. The physical features of a place help to determine our sense
of place (Dale, Ling, & Newman, 2008).

Sense of place: Comparing to place identity, a sense of place includes knowledge of the place,
connection through identity, consequences of loss of place and mechanisms of attachment
(Peace et al., 2006). Jackson (1995) proposes that sense of place is ‘an awkward and ambiguous’
translation of Genius Loci. Norberg-Schulz uses Genius Loci, the spirit of place for the public,
to express symbolic meaning and local material culture, to understand the atmosphere and
systematic pattern of a place of identity (Norberg-Schulz, 1979, p. 203) and articulates that the
place is created when life occurs (Norberg-Schulz, 1979, p. 5). The ‘spirit’ may derive from
specific social events or myths for the public. In his viewpoint, the existing cultural and natural
landscape, social events, and even local materials and crafts, are the narrators of a place for the
public.

However, the Genius Loci sets a united standard for the spirit of a place and ignores people’s
distinctions and diversities based on age, gender and social background in regard to their
personal value of a place. Dovey (2010a, pp. 3–5) argues place is always in a process of
becoming or changing that ‘connects sociality to spatiality in everyday life’. Therefore, the
concept of Genius Loci ignores dynamic social constructions of place identity. From this
viewpoint, Li, Zhang and Wang (2007) argue that a sense of place has two parts: Genius Loci
and personal emotional or spiritual values. In Li and his colleagues’ viewpoint, beyond Genius
Loci as the public spirit of place, the other part of the sense of place is the psychological value
of a place for individuals, namely, place attachment.

Place attachment: Place attachment is defined as ‘an affective bond or link between people
and specific places’ in physical and social dimensions (Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001). It
includes the social interactions within a place (Plunkett, 2011), and experiences and memories
attached to the place (Morgan, 2010). Social and psychological attachment is a human–place
relationship that structures emotional responses to a place by social activities within a specific

62
place (Casey, 1996). In Casey’s argument, a place is an event more than a cartographic location.
It works as an effective tool to store place-based or place-oriented memories both personal and
social (Hayden, 1995, p. 18). Here, place attachment is the personal cognition of a place that
equates to Relph’s ‘identity with a place’. Place attachment is also defined as personal and daily
emotions and memories that link someone to a place (Hummon, 1992; S. Low, 1992; Setha M.
Low & Altman, 1992). Scannell and Gifford (2010) suggest a ‘person–place characteristics–
physiological process’ framework for the concept of place attachment (Figure 3.4). However,
the literature illustrates that the distinction between place identity and place attachment remains
fuzzy (Bernardo & Palma-Oliveira, 2013; Casakin, Hernández, & Ruiz, 2015; Lewicka, 2008).
There are four main proposals about the relationship between place identity and place
attachment:

• Place attachment is a component of place identity (Lalli, 1992; Qazimi, 2014; Ujang,
2012).
• Place identity is a component of place attachment (Kyle, Graefe, & Manning, 2005;
Rubinstein & Parmelee, 1992).
• Place identity and place attachment are the same and interchangeable terms (B. B.
Brown & Werner, 1985).
• Place identity and place attachment are both dimensions of sense of place (Jorgensen
& Stedman, 2001).

In this thesis, the first viewpoint—‘place attachment is a component of place identity’—is

applied.

Figure 3.4 Scannell and Gifford's (2010) tripartite model of place attachment.

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As explained above, scholars have defined many similar and interchangeable terms in the
research of place and identity. To use these terms simply and clearly, in this thesis they are
classified, and their use defined, according to the view that ‘place attachment is a component
of place identity’.

In summary, marked by yellow outlines in Figure 3.5, place identity is composed of physical
characteristics and collective place attachment (social and psychological place attachment),
which matches the Canter–Montgomery model. In the diagram of ‘place identity’ (Figure 3.5),
physical characteristics exist objectively and can be sensed by human subjectively. Collective
place attachment is the assemblage of social activities attached to a particular place, as well as
both public and private memories and experiences. Norberg-Schulz’s Genius loci is a spirit of
a place filled with public knowledge, experience and memories, but that does not necessarily
require people’s direct visits, interactions or personal memories of the place. Place attachment
is the private linkage to a place that includes personal social interactions, activities, emotions,
experiences and memories attached to that place and produces a people-place relationship —
not only relating to the past, but also today and the future.

Figure 3.5 Diagram of ‘place identity’.

Source: Drawn by the author.

In this thesis, place identity is a significant concept to understand and analyse rural historic
towns and villages in China during the urbanising process. From Chapter 7 to 9, these concepts
are applied to analyse the historic cultural landscape, housing types and forms, and social and
psychological attachment in Lili, China based on fieldwork undertaken for the study.

The following sections introduce key factors of physical characteristics and collective place
attachment.

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 Physical characteristics

The role of ‘background context’ in physical characteristics

The physical characteristics of a place rely on the context and entire physical setting, but not
independent landmarks. Architecture commonly acts as the landmark and carrier of objective
and physical place characteristics. However, our cities are becoming homogenised and lacking
local characteristics (Jacobs, 1992, pp. 222–229) because of the global dissemination of
modern architectural design principles, theories and construction technologies.

Modern architecture became an international style and makes no distinction among world-
famous metropolises. Landmarks in these cities can act as physical characteristics of a place,
but this does not equate to complete physical characteristics, especially when we regard them
as a single object without context. The first impression that links a landmark to a place may
mislead us. For example, New York’s Statue of Liberty is widely reported on and posted in
mass media; this, it is regarded as the landmark of New York that has made the biggest
impression on people’s minds. However, there are a number of other statues of liberty; in Paris,
Tokyo, Las Vegas and some other places.13 Imagine a scenario in which we can see the ‘Statue
of Liberty’ independently as the only landmark in an unknown place; it would still be
impossible to define where we are. It is the surrounding setting that informs us where we are
(Figure 3.6). This scene indicates that the physical characteristics of a single landmark are
weaker than those of other parts of the landscape (Lynch, 1960, p. 101).

13
Other locations of the ‘Statue of Liberty’ include Las Vegas, United States of American (USA) (36°06’N,
115°10’W); Hagatna, Guam, USA (13°28’N, 144°45’E); Entrée du Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris,
France (48°51’N, 2°21’E); Pont de Grenelle, Paris, France (48°51’N, 2°16’E); Jardin du
Luxembourg, Paris, France (48°50’N, 2°20’E); Colmar, France (48°6’N, 7 Fran); Tokyo, Japan (35°
37’N, 139°46’E).

65
 Figure 3.6 The ‘statues of liberty’ around the world. Source: Google Image.

Only when landmarks are located in their settings do they become meaningful because
residents recognise their cities based not only on the landmarks but also the other parts of the
landscape, or I call it ‘background context’. Although the background context may not be
world-renowned or even nationally-renowned as a landmark, it permeates into residents’ daily
lives and contributes to constructing the place identity. Background context is composed of
background buildings, public or semi-public space between these buildings, natural landscapes
and other subtle elements. I argue that the public or semi-public space is defined by the
surrounding buildings as ‘in-between space’, which means the space left over after buildings
were constructed. The physical characteristics will be stronger if there are more recognisable
buildings and in-between space as the background context.

Copying a single landmark is simple, but copying the background context (non-landmark
buildings, squares, streets and other infrastructure) is not. For instance, in 2017, the exhibition
Tadao Ando: Endeavors in Tokyo exhibited a full-scale model of the famous Church of the
Light. If we compare the model and the real church from the inside, which removes the outer
‘background context’ (surrounding environment), it is difficult to distinguish them (Figure 3.7).
However, there is still an inner ‘background context’ difference (the chairs and wall lamps) that
helps to distinguish the real church from the model. These factors provide evidence that the
‘background context’ is more significant than a single building for the physical characteristics
of a place.

66
 Figure 3.7 The real Church of Light (left) and a full-scale model (right).
Source: Left photo from (Means, 2018); right photo from Ji Yuxin.

Vernacular architecture and vernacular in-between space

Compared with modern architecture, from a global perspective, vernacular architecture usually
has distinctive physical characteristics providing strong place identity. Oliver (1997, pp. xxii–
xxiii) argues that various forms of vernacular architecture are built to meet local needs based
on different local resources and respond to different climate and natural landscapes, which
brings diversity and richness of traditions.

Vernacular settings also have background context and in-between space. The physical
characteristics of a vernacular place are determined by both the vernacular architecture and its
in-between space, similar to the example of the Statue of Liberty. The characteristics of the
vernacular in-between space, commonly known as streets and lanes that compose the structure
of urban form, are more flexible and difficult to copy, making a place unique. Vernacular
buildings and in-between space are negatively associated with the recognisability of a place.
For example, regarding physical characteristics, if buildings occupy 60% of the recognisability
of a place, in-between space will make up the remainder (40%) of the recognisability of the
place (Figure 3.8).

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 Figure 3.8 Negative association of recognisability between buildings and ‘in-between space’.
Source: Drawn by the author.

Within a given region, human settlements share similar climates and natural landscapes and
inherit similar culture, including design principles and construction techniques of the
vernacular architecture by local craftsmen, which creates a vernacular building type within a
region (ICOMOS, 1999; Krier, 2009, p. 53). Therefore, within the same region, buildings in
vernacular settings are more similar albeit with variations based on the condition of sites. Thus,
the in-between space has a dominant role in determining the recognisability of the physical
characteristics of a place.

In rural historic towns and villages, to develop a heritage place with its place identity should
respect its heritage setting initially, including its background context at both urban and
architectural scale. Thus, in Chapter 7 and 8, the urban morphological characteristics and
vernacular house characteristics are analysed respectively to understand place identity in Lili
for future revitalisation.

Collective place attachment

Physical characteristics of a place are sensed and then perceived by humans, while collective
place attachment is the understanding of a place through the process of conceiving it via social
networks, activities, knowledge, experience and memories. The meaning of the place is unique
and accessible to individuals by their knowledge, experience and memories embedded in the
place, which belong only to them (Marcus, 1992).

Collective place attachment includes its social and psychological dimensions. Social place
attachment is supported by the dynamic social events or activities, while psychological place
attachment is defined by memories, emotions, experiences and knowledge that attached to a

68
particular place.

Social place attachment

According to the social dimension of place, a place is a socialised space. Social place
attachment refers to social events or activities that attached to a place and made the place
dynamic. Gehl (1989) argues that positive urban places rely primarily on street life, and the
various and dynamic activities that occur in inner or exterior public spaces.

Social place attachment is directly attached to a place and supported by the local community
and their social networks and social relationships. A place has social meanings in one’s life as
the foundation of social networks. In traditional Chinese society, 血缘 (xueyuan) [consanguinity]
and 地缘 (diyuan) [a tie to a specific place, or regionalism] determine the social status of a
person from birth. Diyuan reflects consanguinity in the relationship between people and place
because people rarely migrate to or from other places, which sustained stable communities in
ancient China (Fei, 2012, p. 100).

In vernacular settlements, social place attachment is a significant factor that links social
activities and place. The construction process of vernacular architecture and the vernacular
built environment is usually one of social place attachment because the process itself is a type
of social event—‘a manner of building shared by the community’ (ICOMOS, 1999, p. 1). In
addition, building techniques are often socially inherited and develop within a contemporary
social and cultural background, as well as with new materials and techniques (Oliver, 1997, p.
xxii). Similarly, in a historic or heritage settlements, social place attachment enhances the
people–heritage interaction that contributes to making the place dynamic and sustaining
community life.

Psychological place attachment

Psychological place attachment is defined by shared psychological relationships between

groups of people and places. In addition to the form of a shared sense of attachment,
psychological place attachment also has the form of private place attachment. Since people
have distinctive memories, emotions, experiences and knowledge that attached to a particular
place, the psychological place attachments vary amongst the group. The same physical place
characteristics may have thousands of corresponding personal place attachments. This one-to-
many correspondence is operated by the collage of scenes in everyone’s minds based on their

69
distinctive memories from direct experience and indirect knowledge. According to the diagram
on ‘place identity’ in Figure 3.5, collective place attachment is composed of public Genius loci
and private place attachment.

Genius loci and place attachment link the past with today across time from the perspective of
public knowledge and private experience respectively. Genius loci derives from historic events
that attached to a place and becomes the public knowledge of a place, which give a place spirit.
This place attachment creates a diachronic interaction between the past and today within the
same place. For example, 佛光寺 (Foguangsi) Temple is a Chinese architectural monument that
was discovered by Liang Sicheng, Lin Huiyin 14 and other scholars from the 中国营造学社
(Zhongguo yingzao xueshe) [Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture] with Genius loci
in Chinese architectural history. Professor Zhu Guangya from Southeast University explains
the Genius loci with the Foguangsi Temple (Figure 3.9) as follows:

The first investigation of Foguangsi Temple by contemporary scholars can

be traced back to 1937 when Liang, Lin and other scholars’ fieldwork on
traditional Chinese architecture… Liang’s words and drawings of Foguangsi
Temple became the milestone for architecture research in China (G. Zhu,
2017).

Figure 3.9 The Foguangsi Temple, Shanxi, China.

Source: Photo by Liang Sicheng (left) and Lu Andong (right).

Zhu’s narrative of the Foguangsi Temple links the moment when he was there, to the past when

14
Liang and Lin were two of the founders of Chinese architectural research.

70
Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin visited there. His knowledge about the Foguangsi Temple in
Chinese architectural history has informed him about the significant Genius loci of this place.
Beyond that, for him, the place attachment of the Foguangsi Temple links this place with his
experience and memories, as he recalls:

In 1980, my supervisor Pan Guxi organised another investigation to

Foguangsi Temple … When standing in front of the East Palace and listening
to the sound of the wind, I feel my heart immersed in the historic sense and
value of the thousand years temple (G. Zhu, 2017).

Place attachment is also one’s memory across geographical space. I still remember when I
visited the Kinkakuji temple in Kyoto and saw its graceful perspective. Another scene that often
comes into my mind is Zixia Lake in Nanjing, which I frequently visited as a child (Figure
3.10). Although the view of Kinkakuji reminds me of Zixia Lake based on my memories, the
image belongs to the place attachment I hold with Kinkakuji, and not only represents Kinkakuji
itself, but is combined with the experiences and memories of other places.

Figure 3.10 Kinkakuji temple in Kyoto (left) and a pavilion on Zixia Lake in Nanjing (right).
Source: Photo by the author.

The above cases illustrate how place attachment is the collaged and mixed knowledge,
experience and memories that make a place meaningful. With the identity of a place, people
are able to position themselves in the torrent of history and understand who they are (Malpas,
1999).

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 Physical characteristics, the trigger for collective place
attachment
Physical characteristics and collective place attachment are not independent but are co-related,
in that physical characteristics trigger collective place attachment. However, collective place
attachment is not always paralleled by a change in physical characteristics. For example,
collective place attachment to a place will still exist even if the physical place changes or
vanishes. Although collective place attachment can still exist in the human mind without
physical place characteristics, collective place attachment will be deeply buried in our minds
if there are no physical place characteristics to act as a trigger.

Physical characteristics exist as the carrier and trigger for collective place attachment of a place,
and they enrich the meaning of a place. This argument developed from semiotics. American
semiologist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) used a ‘sign’ as ‘something that represents
something else’. In this context, signs include ‘indexes’ (a causal relationship, such as smoke
and fire), ‘icons’ (an analogy for the sign and the meaning, such as a portrait and the person)
and ‘symbols’ (an entirely arbitrary sign as an interpretive code that shared by a particular
group of people) (Atkin, 2013). Similarly, Swiss semiologist Ferdinand de Saussure divided
‘sign’ into ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ to refer to the sound–image relationships, such as the word
‘tree’ and the mental concept of a real tree (Berger, 2014).

Acting in a similar way to Peirce’s ‘symbol’ and Saussure’s ‘signifier’, physical characteristics
are unnecessarily understood as a common and consentaneous code by different people,
because people differ in their understanding of the physical characteristics of a place as a
‘trigger’ to their personal place attachment. The trigger can be not only physical place
characteristics—both the natural and built environment—but also meaningful objects that can
define places. For example, once you place a family photograph on your desk, a place with a
particular attachment is created around this area for yourself because of the meaning the photo
represents. Meaningful objects have ‘vivid associations with people or times in the past’
(Marcus, 1992, p. 109) that create place attachment and make us be ourselves. This idea will
be applied in examining the place attachment in Lili in Chapter 9.

The physical attributes of a place or an object can create a social and psychological linkage to
somewhere or someone significant to us. In the heritage setting, heritage has its historic, art
and age value. Another role that heritage plays is as a trigger that stimulates the attachment in

72
our minds and defines self-consciousness regarding who we are and how we connect to the
world (Lowenthal, 1994). Similarly, an authentic consciousness regarding places is understood
through the genuine experience of the identity of places with a series of social, intellectual and
emotional factors, not following stereotyped conventions (Y. Li, 2003). The full awareness of
a place offers meanings to each person so that the place plays a role as living heritage for people
with a profound and unselfconscious identity with the place.

Conclusion: Place is ‘living heritage’

In recent decades, a focus on economic development has consumed meaningful places, leading
to the loss of identity, and homogeneity (Urry, 1995, pp. 1–2). Similar to the convergence in
lifestyles around the world, identities of place are becoming less distinctive and recognisable.
Heritage contributes to building the identity of a place because of its distinctiveness, especially
in a historic settlement. This chapter discussed the role of place in ‘living heritage’ to prepare
the groundwork for a later discussion of rural revitalisation with sustainable communities.

Place has its identity composed of physical characteristics and collective place attachment,
which includes social events and psychological affection attached to the place. From the
perspective of heritage management, we protect the physical characteristics of a place to link
the place and collective place attachment. Social events develop in society so that social place
attachment is still developing. This development requires us to create a suitable physical
environment in which to adapt to new social activities. At the same time, the physical
environment needs to be preserved as the link between place and people’s memories because
physical characteristics play a role as the trigger for collective place attachment.

In this thesis, it is argued that preserving the place identity, that composed of the physical
environment along with the collective place attachment, can help us to better understand a place
and create a sustainable community. As mentioned in Chapter 2 and 3, in the latter part of this
thesis, the research focuses on a Chinese historic canal town, Lili as a research case to study
the significant factors that contribute to a sustainable community. The study of the sustainable
community and place is composed of three parts: physical environment, and social and
psychological attachments; and each part requires different methodologies. The study gathers
spatial data to study the physical environment of the town in Chapter 7 and 8, and uses a
qualitative research method to analyse social and psychological attachment in Chapter 9. The
methodology used in Chapter 9 is explained in detail in the next chapter.

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Chapter 4: Methodology for the Study of Place
Identity

Introduction
To study the significance of place identity for a sustainable community in rural revitalisation,
selecting a suitable town or village for fieldwork research is a direct way. In China, I select a
historic canal town named Lili locates in Suzhou as a research case of rural historic towns and
villages. According to Chapter 3, place identity is defined as an aggregation of physical
characteristics of a place and collective place attachment (social and psychological place
attachment). Therefore, the method for this study of physical characteristics and place
attachment is divided into two parts respectively (Figure 4. 1). For the physical characteristics
part, I use digital technologies, including photogrammetry and 3D scanning, to capture the
physical characteristics of the environment and analyse the morphological and typological
features in Lili. More information on digital technology along with morphological theories will
be explained in Chapter 7 as it may go fluently with the study of the urban form in Lili. This
chapter focuses on the other part—examining the social and psychological place attachment in
Lili through qualitative research method. Specifically, how the participants are selected, how
the data is collected, stored and analysed will be explained.

Figure 4. 1 Methodology for capturing the physical environment in Chapter 7 and qualitative analysis for place
attachment in Chapter 4. Source: Drawn by the author.

74
As explained in Chapter 2 and 3, the concept of place identity and sustainable community is
difficult to measure in quantitative data, so some scholars promote specified factors to present
people’s affections to a place and community with qualitative evidence (Hummon, 1992;
Townend & Whittaker, 2011). However, despite that, quantitative methods are also applied in
some cases. For example, Marichela Sepe (2010) uses the software called PlaceMaker to
calculate the Sustainable Place Identity Index of a place with different weighting for different
elements. The issue of this method is that there are no acknowledged criteria for establishing
the weighting for each element in the Sustainable Place Identity Index system, and the
weighting is variable according to the index being calculated. Ro and Bermudez (2015) conduct
quantitative research on the ‘extraordinary architectural experiences’ through content analysis
of narrative scripts. Their research focuses on whether the participants describe a place with a
plot structured story and what are the significant elements from the internal and external
perspectives. They found objective ‘features’ and ‘location’, and subjective ‘emotion’ are the
most significant elements; ‘location’ and ‘physical’ descriptors were highly correlated with
other categories. Ernawati (2018) conducts a narrative statistic method to analyse the public's
assessment of three factors’ (personal relations, physical environment, and commitment factor)
impacts on 16 variables. This research uses the reliability test of Cronbach's Alpha15 to indicate
the relations with the factors and variables with quantitative results but regardless of the detail
that to what extent these factors contributes to these variables.

Place attachment is based on social and psychological dimensions, which is hard to express in
a quantitative way. Therefore, in terms of methodology, this research primarily uses a
qualitative research method through fieldwork, including specific ways of data collection, such
as observation, one-to-one and group interview with voice recorded and cognitive map pointing.
Despite that, some quantitative data still help to give background information, such as the
population and property price in Lili. The collected data will be analysed to discover the
effective elements that contribute to building a sustainable community and give suggestions in
future regeneration in rural historic towns and villages in China and similar context.

Study design and strategy

15
Cronbach’s alpha is a measure used to assess the reliability, or internal consistency, of a set of scale or test items.
In other words, the reliability of any given measurement refers to the extent to which it is a consistent measure of
a concept, and Cronbach’s alpha is one way of measuring the strength of that consistency (Cantell, 2005).

75
This chapter is going to propose a systematic process of fieldwork with the qualitative research
method.

Fieldwork and site selection

Fieldwork refers to the research that transpires ‘in the field’ to understand and discover the
truth of the phenomenon outside the library or laboratory (Hobbs & Wright, 2006, p. 1). To
study the relationship between place identity and community in a historical town context under
the background of high-speed urbanisation in China, select a suitable town and conduct
fieldwork is the direct way to understand that.

The research site that I select is Lili, a historic canal town, in Suzhou, China. Lili is a suitable
case for the research because of these following reasons:

• Lili is a typical historic canal town with the well-protected historic cultural landscape.

• Lili is located in the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone16 where rural depopulation is
a typical social issue.

• Lili is under the process of tourism development and confronting the typical issue
between sustainable development and heritage management, which also occurs in many
rural historic towns and villages.

• Some of the local residents still live in the historical area, though the number of them
is limited.

• The local residents welcome the outsiders to visit Lili.

• I studied in Suzhou from 2007 to 2012 and have some friends in Suzhou so that
obtaining the data should be easier.

Located in Suzhou, Lili has its regional dialect and accent. Thus, a local informant is helpful
in translating the local dialect and accent if some of the participants cannot speak mandarin. I
contact a local informant and scholar Li Meimin to help during the fieldwork. I noticed and
contacted him during the research when searching the online published papers discussing the

16
Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone is an economic region lies in the heart of the Jiangnan region in East China
that encompasses Shanghai municipality, Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang province. In 2018, the Yangtze Delta had
a GDP of approximately US$2.2 trillion.

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culture and history of Lili, which are written by him. I searched his name online and found Li
Meimin who used to work as a school teacher, local culture and history scholar, the curator of
Liu Yazi Museum in Lili and now he is re-employed as a development consultant for local
tourism after retirement by the Lili Tourism Company. Dialling the number of the company, I
spoke to Li Meimin and asked for his help to organise the fieldwork.

Qualitative research and ethic clearance

Qualitative research method focuses on the latter part, namely the place attachment in Lili with
a qualitative method, including direct observation, semi-structured interview, oral history
during the fieldwork and thematic analysis after fieldwork. Before the fieldwork, according to
the Australian National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (National Health
and Medical Research Council & Australian Research Council, 2015, sec. 2), I submitted the
project description, aims and significance of the whole project to the Ethics Sub-Committee in
the University of Queensland. This project involves has been approved by the UQ human ethics
committee (reference number: 2018000528, see Appendix A). In the fieldwork, I explained the
aim of the research to the quasi-participants with printed documents, including project
description, and information sheets to obtain their oral consent to participate in this research.

Qualitative research has both benefits and drawbacks. On the positive side, it helps to better
understand the attitudes, interactions, social activities and events in participants’ daily life and
how everyday life is influenced by social structure, age, occupation, and other social forces.
This method is also flexible for the participants to respond in their own words, rather than
forcing them to choose from fixed responses and adaptable to changes during the process of
research. However, qualitative research also has downsides that the scope of the research is
limited so that the findings may not always widely generalisable. In addition, in qualitative
research, investigators should ensure that they have no influence on the original data and do
not bring any bias to their analysis and interpretation of their findings (Crossman, 2010).

Participants selection

Participants’ words are direct data for qualitative research. Therefore, participant selection is
important. In qualitative research, researchers should decide who matters as data, and how their
presence becomes the data, then collect and analyse the data (Freeman, 2000; Reybold,
Lammert, & Stribling, 2013).

In this research of place identity and its community life in Lili, participants are the local

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residents who can be divided into two subcategories, residents live in the historical area and
residents live in the new apartments. In the research’s fieldwork, thirty-nine residents have
participated in qualitative research. To protect the identities of the participants in Lili, their
names were used in fake names. Table 4. 1 below list their general ethnographic information.

Table 4. 1 List of the participants.

Source: List by the author.

Code: Pseudonym: Age: Gender Working Status:

001 Xu Qingjie 62 Female Working

002 Li Meimin 70 Male Working

003 Ye Miao 79 Female Retired

004 Huan Wei 57 Female Working

005 Lv Guxiang 64 Male Retired

006 Yang Guang 77 Female Retired

007 Xu Guoqiang 53 Male Working

008 Jiang You 54 Female Working

009 Han Zong 80 Male Retired

010 Zhu Shifu 75 Male Working

011 Chen Qiaojun 55 Female Working

012 Jin Yue 57 Female Working

013 Wu Song 37 Male Working

014 Hou Dayuan 82 Male Retired

015 Yu Qingfeng 38 Female Working

016 Shi Yangfang 44 Male Working

017 Zhang Chuanhai 73 Male Working

018 Zuo Fengqiao 46 Male Working

019 Zhang Jiufa 55 Male Working

020 Gu Wandian 53 Male Working

021 Xu Xibo 42 Male Working

022 Li linxi 66 Female Retired

023 Xiu Xie 64 Male Working

024 Ren Xijie 38 Female Working

025 Zhou Gongci 37 Female Working

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 026 Fan Dian 58 Male Working

027 Cheng Liangquan 70 Male Retired

028 Cheng Furen 68 Female Retired

029 Li Renjia 55 Male Working

030 Ting Yuan 69 Male Retired

031 Lu Zong 43 Male Working

032 Qiao Tou 54 Male Working

033 Dong Yue 59 Female Working

034 Yi Mu 67 Female Retired

035 Yi Jinwen 43 Female Working

036 Gao Dian 45 Female Working

037 Kong Wudeng 44 Male Working

038 Che Ku 65 Female Retired

039 Chen Ran 42 Male Working

Table 4. 2 Demographics of the resident participants.

Source: Drawn by the author.

Demographic profile Categories Number of participants Proportion

Gender Male 22 56%

Female 17 44%

Age 29 or younger (adult) 0 0%

30-39 4 10%

40-49 8 21%

50-59 11 28%

Above 60 16 41%

Employment status Working or reemployed 28 72%

Retired or unemployed 11 28%

Table 4. 2 illustrates that the sample of resident participants has consisted of 56% men (n=22)
and 44% women (n=17). From the perspective of age, as a historic town close to some
metropolis (e.g., Shanghai and Suzhou), young adults move to work in these cities and the

79
major population that still live and work in Lili are old generations. The resident participants
sample of 72% are still working or reemployed (n=28), and 28% are retired or unemployed
(n=11).

Data collection

Direct observation

I conduct a direct observation method focused on social activities and how participants use
their public spaces in Lili. This will be conducted in both the historic area and new apartment
area of Lili. The aim of the observational research, including photography, is to explain the
social activities occurred in the places, and the relationship between physical characteristics
and these activities. This is a key element of the observational research, but the inclusion of the
identification of people is not part of the requirements of the observational research, which is
included in the next interview section.

The observations are place-based in this research, and the features of social activities and its
occurring place have the priority for observation rather than the human subjects. All the people
that entering in a specific place will be able to be observed but they will not be considered as
participants. Hence, the sampling is based on spaces identified as significant through an
analysis of place, rather than based on a sampling of participants as such. Observations have
been conducted several times to ensure the inclusion of different times of the day and week,
and different weather conditions. It is anticipated that different times will support different
types of activity, and hence time rather than people will form the basis of the variable. The
research will be conducted over a two-week period, so there will be an opportunity to record
different times over this period, across a range of public spaces. People’s activities in these
public settings are also captured by other existing observations, such as police and government
closed-circuit television, so there are no ethic issues and no consent is needed. No follow up
with individual participants is needed with this method.

Observations also take place during interviews at resident's homes. The recruitment strategy is
based on potential participants who express their interests in the research during the
observational studies of public spaces. Photographs of people's homes during the interviews
with participants’ permissions.

The observations help to illustrate questions include:

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 • Where is the place that people would like to gather?

• What types of people are using the space?

• What kinds of activities are they undertaking?

• What is the time that people would like to use these places?

• What architectural features in the place seem to attract people's attention?

This kind of information gathering through observation is not sensitive and it merely provides
evidence and more robust data for the anecdotal descriptions of places that local informants
provide in their interviews.

Semi-structure interview with open-end questions

To illustrate the local social phenomenon and to collect the first-hand data resource of place
attachment in the fieldwork, I conduct a voice recorded a semi-structured face-to-face interview
with the local residents, scholars, administrators of local government and some tourists. The
major participants will be sought in public places, and some other participants are introduced
by those kind-hearted residents who guide me to their friends’ family.

I choose the semi-structured interview because the secondary research question ‘What are the
physical characteristics and social and psychological place attachment in Lili?’ is an open-
ended question. Open-ended questions are eligible to bring responses that are (Mack et al.,
2005, p. 4):

• Meaningful and culturally salient to the participant

• Unanticipated by the researcher

• Rich and explanatory in nature

To answer this question, in the fieldwork, I transfer the question into an easier understanding
way for the participants. For example, asking the question ‘What helps you distinguish this
place from the other water towns?’ to discover to what extent in residents’ mind the physical
environment composes their place identity. Other questions are asked as well, including ‘Do
you have a significant memory related to a specific place in Lili? Could you describe it?’

The interview is conducted based on, but not restricted with this following questions:

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To all residents

-General

• How long have you lived in Lili?

• Where does your family live? Do they all live in Lili or elsewhere/do you live together?

• What helps you distinguish this place from the other water towns?

- Questions relevant to the place

• Where is your home, could you please locate it on the map?

• Do you have a significant memory related to a specific place in Lili? Could you describe
it and pin it on the map?

• In your experience, how has Lili changed in the last 5-10 years? How do you feel about
that?

-Questions relevant to social aspects

• Do you know your neighbours and, if so, how did you get to know them?

• Where do you communicate with them most frequently?

• Do you still communicate with neighbours from the old neighbourhood and, if so, how
do you communicate with them (any social activities)?

• Is there adequate infrastructure and public facilities in Lili today to help you
communicate with your family and neighbours? If not, what are your needs for the?

To residents who have moved to the new apartments

• Do you often go back to the historic town area? Why?

• What are the positives and negatives of living in the new apartments?

The detail of the question schedule forms is attached at the end of the thesis (see Appendix B).

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 Free talk

As qualitative research, beyond the semi-structured interview, there is always other useful
information during the interview. Free talks may bring unexpected ideas and comments on the
development of Lili as a cultural tourism place. I use follow-ups and probes to guide the
participants to tell more on related information (Mack et al., 2005, pp. 41–42). For example:

Examples of effective probes

Direct questions:
• ‘What do you mean when you say . . .?’
• ‘Why do you think . . .?’
• ‘Can you tell me more?’
• ‘Can you please elaborate?’
• ‘How did this happen?’
• ‘How did you feel about . . .?’
• ‘What happened then?’
•’I’m not sure I understand X. . . .Would you explain that to me?’
• ‘Can you give me an example of X?’
• ‘How did you handle X?’
• ‘How did X affect you?’

Indirect probes:
• Neutral verbal expressions such as ‘uh huh,’ ‘interesting,’ and ‘I see’
• Verbal expressions of empathy, such as, ‘I can see why you say that was difficult for
you’
• Mirroring technique, or repeating what the participant said, such as, ‘So you were 19
when you had your first child . . .’
• Culturally appropriate body language or gestures, such as nodding in
acknowledgment
(Mack et al., 2005, pp. 41–42)

Data storage
In the data collection process, all participants have their option to leave their name and contact
information or not. I code the personal information of participants with a fake name for future
re-identification purposes and inform the participants to choose whether their opinion can be
cited in the research paper as a result of the investigation. I have obtained all the participants’
oral consent by explaining to them all details of the research with a hard copy of participant
consent sheet during the fieldwork.

Data for this research have been securely stored. During the fieldwork, I have protected the

83
paper consent sheets and notes in a locked backpack. After returning to Australia, all
participants’ personal information of the interviewees is hidden with re-identifiable code and
fake name and stored in the University of Queensland Research Data Management (UQRDM)
system. Photos have been imported to a password-protected UQ computer and uploaded to the
UQRDM system already. All collected data are securely stored and transferred to digital
versions for permanent online storage in the UQRDM system under the title ‘Research on Place
Identity and Community in Lili, a Canal Town in China’ with permanently safeguard.

Data analysis

Context transferring for thematic analysis

Thematic analysis is used as the approach for analysing the qualitative data. Since qualitative
research is conducted in the Chinese speaking context, the dialogues of the interview are
recorded in Chinese. Dialogues and conservations have been manually translated into Chinese
text documents based on the recorded voice after the fieldwork. The translated text is used as
raw materials for thematic analysis. To obtain a reasonable result, the manuscript materials for
thematic analysis are analysed in Chinese first for these three reasons:

• Initially, the raw materials are Chinese. Less misunderstanding in the analysis would
happen before the manuscripts are fully transferred into English.

• Secondly, I have a better understanding of the Chinese as my first language.

• Thirdly, the material contains thousands of words, which is impossible to represent in

the thesis. It is unnecessary to transfer the entire manuscripts into English because not
all the material is useful for the analysis, which will not affect the result. Only useful
manuscripts that represent the interviewees’ attitudes, place attachment and reveal
social phenomenon have been translated into the English language to be cited and
analysed.

Coding for thematic analysis

Thematic analysis is a descriptive approach described as ‘a method for identifying, analysing

and reporting patterns (themes) within data’ (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 79). Coding is the
process of reducing and refining the qualitative material, and how to define and identify the
data being analysed (Gibbs, 2007, p. 38). It aims to name ‘segments of the data with a label

84
that simultaneously categorises, summarises, and accounts for each piece of data’ (Charmaz,
2006, p. 43). Building the coding frame is the method for structuring the qualitative materials.
The frame consists of main categories and subcategories with relevant and aspects (Schreier,
2012, p. 61). The main categories or dimensions of the coding frame are the main aspects that
researchers focus on their analysis (Schreier, 2012, p. 59).

The answers of the semi-structured interview that representing residents’ preference of the
physical characteristics and the social or psychological attachments have been categorised or
coded into themes for the thematic analysis. To categorise the themes for thematic analysis of
the data, an online word frequency analysis system CNCORPUS (http://www.cncorpus.org/)
is applied for analysing the transcribed interview manuscripts in Chinese. Before thematic
analysis, to ensure the accuracy of the word frequency of the residents’ answers, the text of
semi-structured questions have been removed. Importing the interview text, the system
exported the word frequency in an excel document, which was then visualised with a treemap
chart (Figure 4. 2).

The reading method of the treemap has been explained as follows. The size and saturation of
the colour represent the frequency of the words emerging in the interview text. The size is
parallel to the frequency of the word, which is shown next to the word. For example, ‘Present,
120’ refers to the word ‘Present’ appears 120 times in the data. The high-use words have been
classified into five categories that illustrated in different colours. Purple labels represent
memories, historical events or figures; yellow labels refer to the significant place; blue labels
refer to the social aspects, including social network and events happened; green labels refer to
the other cities, towns or villages; cyan labels refer to the emotional attachments by the
interviewees. These labels are used to categorise the themes and organise the thematic analysis.

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Figure 4. 2 Treepmap chart of word frequency for categorising interview materials. Source: Drawn by the author.

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Based on the word frequency treemap, the materials have been classified into three
themes/categories and subcategories (green labels are not used because they do not reflect the
useful information of place attachment in Lili):

• Physical environment (yellow labels)

o Function
o Location
o Physical features
• Social activities and events (blue labels)
o Past (Positive attitude/ Negative attitude)
o Present (Positive attitude/ Negative attitude)
• Emotion and attitudes (cyan labels/purple labels)
o Positive attitude
o Negative attitude

In the sub-categories of physical environment, ‘function’ means the participants utilise function
and use of a place instead of the physical features (e.g., height, length, colour or shape) to
describe the environment; ‘location’ is how participants describe the physical setting with the
words of locality, such as ‘to the east/west of’, ‘on the left/right side’; ‘physical features’
include subjective sensation (for example, narrow or wide, long or short) and objective features
(for example, the colour and the shape).

Social activities and events reflect residents’ daily life experience and their social memories.
Attention should be paid on how residents participate in social activities. Based on the content,
their descriptions of social activities and events can be categorised into two categories: past
and present. In this thematic analysis, we define their narratives related to the life experience
before the tourism development in Lili as past, which is approximately started ten years ago
since 2008. After the tourism developments started and local residents have relocated to new
apartments, the period is defined as present because there was a difference before and after the
relocation. At the same time, the content also reflects the attitudes towards both past and present
social life, so I categorise the material in both positive and negative attitudes as well to analyse
what kind of social life satisfy the residents.

In emotion and attitudes, the content has been categorised into positive and negative
subcategories according to their emotions when referring to particular places. In the thematic
analysis, attentions should be paid on what the relationship between the emotions/attitudes and

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the relevant physical environment.

Visual diagram: mapping

In both quantitative and qualitative research, mappings and diagrams are common instruments
to illustrate the relationship between physical characteristics and collective place attachment
of a place. In Chapter 7 and 8, the mapping will demonstrate the urban fabric and building form
with the help of 3D scanning and photogrammetry techniques. In Chapter 9, mapping is applied
to illustrate the connection between place and collective (social or psychological) place
attachment, which visualises the cartographic position and other non-physical elements. During
the fieldwork, I have brought some sticky notes and asks the residents ‘Where is your home,
could you please pin it on the map with the sticky notes?’ and ‘Do you have a significant
memory related to a specific place in Lili? Could you describe it and pin it on the map with the
sticky notes?’ With the help of the participants, I have collected the information about these
significant places through mapping. At the same time, I know how they recognise these places
by asking them to explain what the physical elements help them to find the places they referred
to.

Conclusion
This chapter has outlined the combined methodology enabling a comprehensive understanding
of two main research themes in examining the place identity of Lili, namely the physical
environment and place attachment, which are substantially significant to future rural
revitalisation. While the methods for capturing and analysing the physical environment with
digital technologies will be explained in Chapter 7 in detail, this chapter has focused on the
qualitative research methods used to examine social and psychological place attachment in Lili.
Specifically, this chapter has shown that the qualitative data on place attachment was collected
by observation, semi-structure interview and free talk during fieldwork. The data has been
analysed in Chapter 9 with thematic analysis and displayed with text and mapping.

Before introducing the research in Lili as a study case, in Chapter 5, the general background
information of the social change and development in contemporary urban and rural China will
be given to illustrate the current issues from the perspective of heritage management. Following
that, based on the broad review of architect’s practices in rural historic towns and villages in
China, Chapter 6 will discuss how Chinese architects participate in rural revitalisation in depth.

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Chapter 5: From Urban Regeneration to Rural
Revitalisation in China

Introduction

After reviewing the theories in sustainable development, heritage and place, this chapter gives
readers a general social and historical background by illustrating the development of urban and
rural China and aims to answer ‘What are the issues, policies and approaches for the
revitalisation in rural China?’. This background information will move from a global overview
to a national and regional scale. Initially, this chapter reviews the concepts and theories of urban
regeneration globally, followed by critiquing the relevant social issues, such as the violent
demolition of existing built environment for the irrational real estate market in the process of
urbanisation and regeneration in China.

This chapter then articulates the relationship between urbanisation and rural development in
China. The data on household assets and China’s Gini coefficient reflect a huge wealth gap
between urban and rural populations, during the urbanisation process, which has caused the
rural issue of the ‘hollowed village’. The imbalanced development of urban and rural areas has
also caused the ‘three rural issues’ in China, which have attracted much attention from the
central government, who have promulgated a series of policies to support rural development,
such as the 社会主义新农村 (Shehui zhuyi xinnongcun) [‘New Socialist Countryside’] and 乡村
振兴战略 (Xiangcun zhenxing zhanlue) [‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’]. Against this
background, architects have participated in the rural revitalisation process by designing rural
libraries, schools and community centres to rejuvenate rural life.

Other than previous rural development strategies mainly focused on the rural economy, the
‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’ also emphasises the significance of rural culture and heritage;
thus, this chapter discusses rural development from the heritage perspective. In recent decades,
there has been a ‘heritage fever’ phenomenon of applying for World Heritage status in China.
From 2003, the Chinese National Cultural Heritage Administration (CNCHA), Ministry of
Housing and Urban–Rural Development (MOHURD) and some non-governmental

89
organisations promulgated lists of heritage towns and villages. However, to some extent, the
heritage list has been used as a tool for political achievement and economic profit in the name
of cultural expression, by conserving only physical historical settings for tourism economy and
applying for state funding.

Jiangnan canal towns (JCTs) are one group of the examples of candidates for applying for
World Heritage. In 2015, the CNCHA restarted a JCT heritage application plan for World
Heritage. This chapter reviews the history and social background of JCTs during three phases
(the 1920s to 1930s, 1950s to 1970s, and 1980s to 2000s) and explains the background
information of Lili as the research case in Chapter 7 to 9. This chapter introduces the current
state of the town to lay the groundwork for a discussion of sustainable development in historical
rural towns as heritage during the next few chapters.

From urban renewal/regeneration to rural revitalisation

The concept of urban renewal/regeneration

Before urban renewal, architects and urban planners proposed many theories of their ideal
urban forms in contemporary times, such as a garden city (Howard, 2007), industrial city
(Garnier, 1989), contemporary city (Corbusier, 1925), radiant city (Corbusier, 1964), broadacre
city (Wright, 1932), organic decentralisation (Saarinen, 1943) and compact city (Dantzig &
Saaty, 1973).

Urban renewal is an inevitable redevelopment process experienced by cities at a particular stage.

Urban renewal (large-scale demolition and reconstruction) is widely questioned because this
purely material and environmental renewal destroys the original social network and the
integrity of the inner space of the city, and causes the urban change of ‘gentrification’ (Lees,
Slater, & Wyly, 2008). It was after World War II that, the urban regeneration movement arose
from the urban renewal of cities in Western countries. The term ‘urban regeneration’ refers to
the strategy of renewing old industrial cities in Western nations, especially Britain, when their
urban vitality declined after the global industrial chain transferred from British cities to other
industrial cities in the world. Note that, in this thesis, the terms ‘urban renewal’ and ‘urban
regeneration’ are used indistinguishably.

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 Theories in urban regeneration

During the last century, there emerged many theories and movements in urban regeneration.
The ‘City Beautiful Movement’ can be viewed as the first urban regeneration movement, which
arose during the 1890s and 1900s. Starting in Chicago, the movement emphasised the notion
that beautification could promote a harmonious social order and increase life quality. However,
critics opposed the movement and argued that it was excessively concerned with aesthetic value,
rather than the value of social reform in urban regeneration. For example, Jane Jacobs (1992,
p. 375) referred to the movement as comprising ‘architectural design cults’.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, both the Greenwood Act in Britain (Clarke, 1931)
and the Wagner Housing Act in the United States (US) (Mcdonnell, 1957) started urban
regeneration movements via the demolition of slum areas and reconstruction of new housing
and apartments to improve the living environment. The movement was compared to ‘The
Federal Bulldozer’, which is also the name of the book The Federal Bulldozer (Anderson,
1964). At the World Design Conference in 1960, Japanese group Metabolism presented a
manifesto promoting the ideas of ‘flexibility and renewability in architecture and urbanism’
(Cho & Shin, 2014, pp. 627–628). Metabolism argued that the development process of a city
is a metaphor of the metabolism process of a human body, whereby city cells are born, grow
and die, and then are replaced with new cells (Pernice, 2006). In a city, these cells are
replaceable modular units that contribute to architectural and urban regeneration. Banham
(1976, pp. 45–57) characterised Metabolism as an Asian branch that combined mega-
infrastructure and modular units, in tandem with British group Archigram with their ‘plug-in
city’ idea. Both Metabolism and Archigram offered sustainable urban regeneration approach
from the architecture perspective. Further, in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, the community
architecture movement argued for the significance of neighbourhood involvement and
cooperation with architects and government during the urban regeneration of the living
environment (Mongold, 1988, p. 7), which contributes to the creation of sustainable
communities (Mcginley, Nakata, & Kecheng, 2013).

Urban regeneration is promoted through various opportunities, such as waterfront

redevelopment, sports-led regeneration, heritage reuse regeneration, and other forms of
regeneration (Jones & Evans, 2008). Regeneration is not limited to urban areas, but can also
encompass suburban regeneration (Jones & Evans, 2008, p. 144) and rural regeneration
(Verdini et al., 2017).

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 Urbanisation and urban regeneration in China
This section discusses the process of urbanisation and urban regeneration in China, and
presents background information to explain why rural issues have increased in China in recent
decades. Urban regeneration in China has become ‘the Republic Bulldozer’, similar to that
depicted in The Federal Bulldozer (Anderson, 1964). In Chinese urban regeneration, the term
拆 (chai) [demolish] is stamped on the walls of low-density built-up urban areas because of the
potential commercial profits if the areas were demolished and the lands were sold and
developed for the real estate market. Some media joke that ‘China’ has the same pronunciation
as 拆哪 (chai na), which means ‘where to demolish?’. This joke illustrates that demolition has
been the main feature of China’s urban regeneration over a long period. Many old residential
neighbourhoods and villages in cities were demolished to construct new housing or civil
infrastructure, which separated the existing deep-rooted community relationships and broke the
social networks and trust established between neighbourhoods and family members. News
media reported about nail houses (Figure 5.1) in China to critique the violation occurring during
the process of urban regeneration (French, 2007). This brutal urban regeneration by forced
demolition in China caused extreme dissatisfaction among local communities and led to many
protest marches and even resisting by self-immolation for their rights (J. Yu, 2014). However,
the expectation for compensation proposed by some residents was much higher than the market
price, which was viewed as irrational by developers (Erie, 2012).

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 Figure 5.1 A building on an island of land amid construction in Chongqing (2007).
Source: (Taylor, 2015).

Urban regeneration has been promoted in terms of the incentives of economic profits from the
real estate market. From 2008 to 2017, both the area and income of national property sales
increased alongside investments from developers, though this slightly decreased in 2014
(Figure 5. 2). At the same time, the average price of housing in China increased steadily, and
doubled in the last decade. Moreover, the average housing price of the top four cities17 in China
increased three to four times within 10 years (Figure 5.3).

17
The top four cities in China refer to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

93
 2008-2017 Property Sales and Investments in China
2000 12000
10000
1500

Billion Yuan
8000
Million ㎡

1000 6000
4000
500
2000
0 0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

全国商品房销售面积/ Area of the National Property Sales (Millon ㎡)

商品房销售额 / Income of the National Property Sales (Billion Yuan)
开发商商品住宅投资/ Investment by the Developers (Billion Yuan)

Figure 5. 2 Property sales and investments in China, 2008–2017.

Source: (CNBS, 2018).

For the real estate market, the rapid urbanisation process increased the housing price and
produced mass fortunes in a short time, which led to currency inflation (Kuang & Liu, 2015;
C. Zhang, 2013). This phenomenon caused a national panic among citizens, with hundreds of
thousands of families contracting loans to purchase properties to evade inflation and retain their
household wealth (L. Wen & Hao, 2013). Further, the property frenzy caused another social
issue—ghost cities and towns in suburban areas—because people purchased too many
apartments for investment, which caused a high vacancy rate. The total construction waste
(concrete, bricks and reinforcement metal) of the vacant buildings reached 38.25 million tons
in wasted towns (G. He, Mol, & Lu, 2016). Although the prosperous real estate market has
brought more working opportunities to urban China, it has also led to unbalanced incomes
between urban and rural areas, as discussed in the following section.

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 AVERAGE PRICE IN CHINA (RED LINE)
Trends of Property Prices in China from 2008 to 2017
60000 10000
PRICE IN FOUR CITIES

8000
40000
6000
4000
20000
2000
0 0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

北京/ Beijing (Yuan/㎡)

上海/Shanghai (Yuan/㎡)
广州/ Guangzhou (Yuan/㎡)
深圳/ Shenzhen (Yuan/㎡)
全国平均房价/ National Average Price (Yuan/㎡)

Figure 5.3 Property price trends in China, 2008–2017.

Source: (CNBS, 2018; Zhou, 2018).

Relationship between urban and rural China’s development

Household assets

Rural and urban areas are not isolated and unrelated developments—they are two separate yet
correlated parts of China’s social development. Thus, it is biased to discuss the issue of rural
development while skirt urban development and vice versa. By 1978, the reform and opening-
up policy had accelerated the economic and infrastructure development in both urban and rural
China; however, the development in cities was more notable. Urban areas had prior access to
resources, so the gap between urban and rural areas continuously expanded via the speedy
development of urbanisation, which affected the social and economic interests of rural areas
(Shen, 1995; A. T. W. Yu, Wu, Zheng, Zhang, & Shen, 2014).

Although urbanisation has contributed to a significant reduction of poverty in China, a

substantial increase of income inequality caused by urbanisation, aging and policy initiatives
has further increased demographic changes (Jain-Chandra et al., 2018, p. 20), such as the age
structure. Working labourers in rural China earn much less than those in urban China, which
has caused the rural-to-urban population mobility. According to statistics, the urban–rural per
capita disposable income ratio from the 1990s to 2017 was always around 3:1 (Figure 5. 4). In
2017, the rural average disposable personal income was ¥13,432 (about 51.7% of the national
average disposable personal income of ¥25,973), compared with the urban average disposable

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personal income of ¥36,396. The situation is even worse in households in remote mountain
villages (CNBS, 2018). By 2013, the primary income of rural households comprised
employment income (48.6%), with agricultural income and transfer income comprising 21.7%
and 17.8%, respectively (Gan, Yin, & Tan, 2016a). Although the average rural household had
¥317,200 in total assets, only 23.7% of households reached the average level. The average
debts of rural households were ¥21,600, while net assets reached ¥295,000. In addition, even
within rural China, there existed unbalanced property distribution, with ‘the richest 10 % of
households possess 54 % of all rural household properties’ (Gan, Yin, & Tan, 2016b, p. 59).

Figure 5. 4 Annual per capita disposable income of rural and urban households in China 2017.
Source: (Han, 2019).

The data above reflect the wealth gap between urban and rural development. China’s Gini
coefficient also indicates the degree of the wealth gap between the rich and poor. Internationally,
experts and government view a Gini coefficient of 0.4 as an alarming line. Once the coefficient
exceeds 0.4, there will be severe issues of income inequality in society (X. L. Ding, 2002).
Although China’s Gini coefficient has decreased from its peak of 0.491 since 2008, the lowest
point was still over 0.46 in 2015, which exceeds the alarming line, and the coefficient has
illustrated an increasing trend since 2016 (Figure 5. 5). This trend reflects a huge wealth gap
between the rich and the poor, especially between urban and rural areas (B. Wang, 2018, p.
498).

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 Figure 5. 5 China’s Gini coefficient, 2003–2017.
Source:(CNBS, 2017).

The huge wealth gap between the rich and poor, as well as between urban and rural areas, has
led to social issues in China that are worth deliberate consideration. Urban sprawl is swallowing
towns and villages on the urban fringes, which has led to ‘villages-in-the-city’ (Buckingham &
Chan, 2018). As the Gini coefficient implies, residents who live in a ‘villages-in-the-city’ may
experience inequity, with lower-income and poor life quality comparing to that higher income
and qualified life in urban areas, which may cause crimes (E. W. Cheng, 2014). However,
unbalanced incomes attract many migrant workers from rural to urban areas. At the same time,
the developed transportation systems—such as high-speed trains and freeways—offer
opportunities for villagers to work in urban areas, which contributes to the ‘hollowed village’
phenomenon (Yansui Liu et al., 2010).

Urban and rural populations

The ‘hollowed village’ is a result of population mobility caused by the wealth gap and
imbalance in healthcare, education, transportation and other infrastructure, and resources
between urban and rural areas (Yansui Liu et al., 2010). In the process of urbanisation, the
Chinese government set a target in the 13th Five-year Plan to increase its percentage of urban
population to 60% by 2020 (China State Council, 2015). The United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (2018) reported that, since 2011, the Chinese urban population
has reached the same proportion as the rural population (Figure 5. 6). According to the latest
annual report by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS), the urban population
reached 813.47 million and occupied 58.52% of the total population until 2017, which indicates
that the target of the 13th Five-year Plan has almost been reached (CNBS, 2018). Figure 5. 7

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illustrates that a high percentage of the urban population is concentrated around the east and
north China city clusters, where cities such as Shanghai and Beijing are located. These mega
cities attract rural migrants and contribute to the ‘hollowed village’ phenomenon.

Figure 5. 6 Urban and rural population in China, 1950–2050.

Source: (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2018).

Beijing

Shanghai

Guangzhou

Figure 5. 7 Percentage of urban population distribution in each province of China, 2015.

Source: Drawn by the author based on data from CNBS.

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Professor Zhao (2016) from Nanjing University argued that these social issues were caused by
the development of China’s urban–rural binary structure18, which reached an irreconcilable
state; therefore, urban–rural integrative development and rural revitalisation are required to
solve social issues include ‘hollowed village’, which are necessary and possible today. Policies
and the development of infrastructure and the internet offer new opportunities for rural
development to change from a simple agricultural economy to a complex agricultural–cultural–
industrial–tourism economy, which could integrate with urban development. After noting the
issues existing in rural areas, the central and local governments established a series of policies
to encourage the development of rural China, as discussed in the following section.

Rural development after 2000

‘Three rural issues’

三农问题 (‘the rural, agricultural and peasant issues’)—also called the ‘three rural issues’—
caused by the urban-rural binary structure in China were coined as a term by Dr Wen Tiejun (T.
Wen, 1999). The ‘three rural issues’ was one of the most severe social issues in China. One
aspect of the ‘peasant’s burden’ was the high tax, which occupied 10 to 15% of net farmers’
income on average. Further, in some provinces, such as Hubei and Anhui, the irrational tax
rates exceeded 25% of peasants’ net income (Colin, 2013). In 2000, Li Changping, the local
secretary of the China Communist Party (CPC) branch in Hubei Province, wrote a letter to
Premier Zhu Rongji to explain the difficult living situation in rural China, which attracted the
attention of the central government (C. Li, 2000). Since then, the term ‘three rural issues’ has
become widely used in government documents and public media.

The ‘three rural issues’ have been a problem for years. After the reform and opening-up policy
in 1978, the urban economy increased through the development of the industry; however, a
negative trend appeared in the rural agricultural economy (Hong, 2016), which caused income
inequity, as explained in the previous section. Therefore, there was a drastic decline in the
agricultural labour force because many peasants moved to cities to work as migrant workers or

18
The urban–rural binary structure refers to the two different resource allocation systems and restrictions on
mobility between urban and rural China since 1958. After the implementation of a temporary residence permit in
the 1980s, the rural population attained free mobility to live in urban areas, yet still could not share the same
authorities and access to resources as urban citizens (H. Wang, 2011).

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become urban citizens, as their farmlands were levied for urban development. However,
although an increasing number of the rural population became the urban population, they were
unable to find a job because of their low education levels and skills, and could not adapt to
urban life because of their customs and lifestyle, which led to social issues in both urban and
rural areas.

To solve the ‘three rural issues’, policies needed to make a balance between rural-urban
developments and integrate the rural modernisation process with urbanisation. By 2000, in the
10th Five-year Plan, the China State Council (2000) argued that agricultural development
directly influences the national economy, since the rural population occupies three-quarters of
China’s population; thus, there was an urgent need to enhance the quality of rural life. However,
the 10th Five-year Plan focused on the financial aspects of rural issues, such as reducing rural
tax and increasing rural income, yet neglected other aspects, such as balancing urban and rural
resource distribution and infrastructure. As a result, the ‘three rural issues’ could not be
resolved.

‘New Socialist Countryside’ and ‘beautiful countryside plan’

To solve the ‘three rural issues’ appropriately, in the 11th Five-year Plan (2006 to 2010),
China’s central government proposed the mission of constructing a ‘New Socialist Countryside’
(NSC). In March 2006, the China National People’s Congress promulgated guidelines to
construct the NSC. The NSC was a new strategy that constituted more than an unimplementable
political slogan for rural development, which usually occurred in the past. NSC has specific
requirements under the theme of ‘production development, well-off life, civilised rural residents,
tidy capacity, and democratic management’ (China State Council, 2006). The strategy sought
to improve rural life from the perspective of industry, family income, culture, environment and
democracy. Ahlers and Schubert (2009) argued that the NSC had the potential to enhance the
rural economy and balance rural–urban development.

According to the national NSC policy, rural villages and towns started a 美 丽 乡 村 计 划
(‘beautiful countryside plan’) as part of the NSC. Anji in Zhejiang Province was one of the
most successful cases with its beautiful countryside plan, and became the template for other
rural areas (J. Wang & Qiu, 2016). By 2012, the 18th CPC National Congress proposed the
concept of 生态文明 (‘ecological civilisation’), which restated the significance of ecological and
environmental development, alongside economic, political, cultural and social construction,
and set a target called ‘beautiful China’. Liu and Yang (2015) argued that the hard point and

100
key point to build a ‘beautiful China’ locates in ‘beautification’ of rural China. Therefore, the
beautiful countryside plan is the foundation for ‘beautiful China’ and the basic project to
promote ‘ecological civilisation’ and the NSC.

The NSC seeks to promote the process of village modernisation, including public infrastructure,
sanitation and housing. Among these three aspects, housing plays a dominant role (Looney,
2015). To build the NSC’s modernised rural landscape and improve life quality, the NSC
encouraged migrant workers to return to their hometown villages to build new multi-storey
apartments, like urbanites, by offering low-interest home loans. During the NSC period, houses
were primarily designed and built by the peasants themselves, and hundreds of thousands of
abandoned vernacular and historical housings were demolished to reuse rural land resources
for new construction. Lin (2011, pp. 239–240), the senior vice president of the World Bank,
discussed the drawbacks of such extensive housing demolition, and given that ‘when land
prices are surging, some people are tempted to destroy villages to seize land under the pretext
of building a New Socialist Countryside’. In Ganzhou, financial departments were authorised
to grant home loans of up to ¥30,000 to local people to build their homes. Thus, ‘over 105,000
homes were built from 2004 to 2012’ (Looney, 2015, p. 924). However, housing modernisation
was insufficient to retain the population in rural China. Thus, during the NSC, the majority of
migrant workers returned to build new houses in their home villages, and then went back to the
cities for work (Looney, 2015).

During the NSC, there existed a rivalry based on new housing in rural China. For example, in
the rural areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province, the new housing represented the social status
of the local people. Therefore, it was an unwritten rule that new housing should be built in a
similar style to the original housing, with the same height and storeys. If a family built an
unusual house style, the neighbourhoods would quarrel with the ‘rule breakers’, using the
excuse of Fengshui 19 (Figure 5.8).

19
Fengshui is a traditional belief system used in property site analysis and building construction in China.

101
 Figure 5.8 A controversial peasant house in Ningbo.
Source: (C. Wang, 2017).

Figure 5.9 Migrant workers’ new houses in rural Zhejiang, China.

Source: (Yangshi, 2018).

Although the NSC housing shared a similar style within the same region, rural houses began
to have a vulgarised and distorted Westernised style aesthetic (Figure 5.9). Western-styled NSC

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houses represent an imaginary noble lifestyle in peasants’ minds and reflect a kind of
unconscious cultural cringe. This paper argues that the gap between urban and rural
development has stimulated peasant migrant workers to imitate modern architecture in cities
to establish cultural confidence, as they need this confidence to feel as though they are not
despised and are equally treated. To some extent, this psychology is not limited in rural China,
but extends across the whole nation. The wars 20 during the last two centuries defeated the
national cultural confidence in China and led to xenomania, 21 such as fanaticism with US
brands (Hu, 2014). Professor Gu (2006) argued that the NSC houses struggled to express
peasants’ identity and aesthetic taste in a delicate way, as they absorbed and collaged every
high architectural style. The peasants wish to use fusion housing elements derive from both
Western classic and modern architecture, sometimes twisted with Chinese architectural
symbols, to represent their wealth, knowledge and social status. However, this phenomenon
also reflects their cultural cringe and ambivalence between xenomania and national cultural
identity.

Therefore, in addition to economic development, establishing a social and cultural identity is

necessary for rural China. In recognition of this fact, President Xi Jinping has called on Chinese
artists to create more inspiring work to raise people’s cultural awareness and revive Chinese
national confidence (J. Chen, 2016).

‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’

During the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed ‘Rural
Revitalisation Strategy’ as the leading agenda for rural development. On 4 February 2018, the
China State Council published the ‘First Document’ titled 中共中央国务院关于实施乡村振兴战略
的意见 [Opinions of the Rural Revitalisation Strategy by China State Council], followed by 乡
村 振 兴 战 略 规 划 (2018–2022) 年 [Planning for the Rural Revitalisation, 2018–2022]. These
documents restate the imbalance of urban and rural development as a serious issue in China,
and declare that the promotion of the rural revitalisation is urgent.

Rather than focusing on rural economic revitalisation, the Agriculture Secretary Han Changbin
explained that the ‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’ aims to promote ecological, social, cultural,
educational and technological revitalisation in rural China, as well as population quality (Y.

20
The wars here refer to the Opium War, Eight-Nation Alliance Invasion, Sino-Japanese War and so on.
21
Xenomania refers to an obsession with everything foreign.

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Gao, 2017). Compared with the NSC and beautiful countryside plan, the ‘Rural Revitalisation
Strategy’ notes the value and significance of rural and vernacular heritage. The ‘Rural
Revitalisation Strategy’ articulates the significance of protecting traditional architectural
culture with collective memories and regional and national characteristics, and the value of
revitalising intangible cultural heritage (China State Council, 2018, p. 40). Vernacular
architecture is the heritage still alive and relevant to our present life and future, which presents
a record of the history of society (ICOMOS, 1999). As argued in Chapters 2 and 3, the value
of vernacular heritage, especially in rural and suburban areas, derives not only from its physical
and material existence as tangible heritage, but also from its intangible cultural and social
aspects, in which residents have a place to live and communicate.

Architects in rural revitalisation

Confronted with the challenge of rural development at a staggering rate and scale in China,
many architectural researchers, architects and urban planners began researching and
participating in design practice to enhance the living conditions and to discuss the rural and
vernacular architectural culture. They devoted interest to rural studies, ranging from rural
housing design and rural heritage to the rural community.

During the Biennale Architecture 2018, the curator Professor Li Xiangning organised the
exhibition, ‘Building a Future Countryside’, to display the booming rural design practice
during rural revitalisation in China today. X. Li (2018) argued that mass-produced rural housing
has caused the loss of cultural identity, and that architects are attempting to find a balanced
approach between traditional and modern architecture for rural countryside development.
Further, X. Li (2018) stated that China has experienced unprecedented national support of
economic capital, social power and technical conditions to promote rural development since
the ‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’ began in 2018. The high living costs in the metropolis lead
to the backflow of the labour force to rural areas and offer new opportunities to new industries
emerging in suburban and rural areas. To meet the demand of the new industries and revitalise
rural areas, architects have taken suburban and rural areas as their new field of practice, so that
existing rural buildings are adaptively used or constructed in new forms.

From the perspective of research, I use the terms 建筑 (‘architecture’) and 乡村 (‘countryside’)
as keywords searched in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database22 to illustrate

22
China National Knowledge Infrastructure database is the largest academic database in China.

104
the trend of attention devoted to rural conservation and development in the architectural field
(Figure 5.10). The below figure illustrates from 2005 to 2014, the number of research papers
devoted to rural areas in the architecture field was increasing steadily from approximately 20
to 60 papers per year. Since 2015, the number of papers sharply increased to around 100 papers
per year and reached 169 papers in 2018 when the ‘Rural Revitalisation Strategy’ was
proclaimed and many of the papers were introducing rural architectural practice by
contemporary architects in China.

180 169
160
140
120 106 110
100 90
80 61 62
55 57 56
60 45
37 37
40 20 18
20
0
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Figure 5.10 Number of research papers with the titles using the terms 建筑 (‘architecture’) and 乡村
(‘countryside’).
Source: Drawn by the author based on the data from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database.

35 31
30
25 25
25
20 16
14
15 12
10
10 6 6
5
5 2 2 2 3
1
0
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Figure 5.11 Chinese architects’ rural projects, 2004–2018.

Source: Data collected and drawn by the author.

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 Figure 5. 12 Distribution of 160 rural projects in China by architects.
Source: Data collected and drawn by the author.

Architects have primarily participated in the design practice of public buildings, infrastructure
and the surrounding environment to improve local life. According to incomplete statistics, I
collected information about 160 practices by Chinese architects in rural China from Chinese
architectural media websites, such as Archidaily China and Gooood, to illustrate the situation
of rural revitalisation in China (see Appendix C). In terms of the number of architects’ rural
projects in China, the trend is increasing, although there was a fluctuation (Figure 5.11). Two
periodic peaks of rural projects in 2010 and 2012 resulted from the massive reconstruction after
the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 and the Yushu earthquake in 2010. From 2015 to 2018, the
number of rural projects stabilised at a new rate and reached a peak in 2017 with 31 projects.
Of the selected rural projects, 22% and 52% are located in southwest China (Sichuan, Yunnan,
Guizhou, Chongqing and Tibet) and east China (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Anhui,
Jiangxi and Fujian), respectively, among which 25% are located in Zhejiang Province (Figure
5. 12). This distribution situation may have emerged for the following three reasons. First,
mountainous landforms in the southwest and east China cause inconvenient traffic systems,
which offer the opportunity to preserve more rural historic towns and villages. Second, the
national aid reconstruction projects after the Wenchuan earthquake contributed to the number
of rural projects in Sichuan. Third, most renowned architects live in east China, such as
Shanghai and Hangzhou; thus, most of their projects are located in these regions.

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Although some of the architecture designs were successful, the architects often hoped to solve
social problems by designing a single building. In the selected cases, community centres
(including rural libraries and museums) and schools were the most common infrastructure
designed to solve issues of rural communication and education (Figure 5.13). Meanwhile, the
revitalisation of rural industries—which offers future working opportunities to sustain rural
towns and villages—only occupied 5% of projects. Further, only 13% of projects were
designed from a planner’s perspective, with comprehensive consideration of future
development. All efforts should align with local policies and industrial investment to revitalise
the economy and community vitality. Thus, from this perspective, what architects can achieve
is limited. More information on the architects’ rural practice will be discussed in the next
chapter.

Infrastructure—
Infrastructure—
Industry
Other
5%
10% House
15%
Infrastructure—
School
15%

Other
42%
Planning
13%
Hotel
14%
Infrastructure—
Community Centre
28%

Figure 5.13 Function of the architecture projects undertaken in rural China.

Source: Drawn by the author based on the collected 160 cases.

Efforts in heritage management in rural China

Historical towns and villages and traditional villages

Rural culture is a source of Chinese culture (Fei, 2012; C. Zhao, 2016); therefore, the ‘Rural

107
Revitalisation Strategy’ considers preserving rural heritage a way to revitalise Chinese culture,
and restates the significance of rural cultural heritage to rebuild the cultural identity and
confidence of the nation. Before rural revitalisation, and in terms of heritage management, the
Chinese government promulgated ‘cultural relic architecture’ during the 1950s to 1960s, and
‘famous historical cities’ from 1982, which primarily aimed to protect the historical empire
architecture, temples and urban settings. However, official awareness of conserving rural
cultural heritage in China was not raised until the late 1980s (G. Zhu, 2012). This was partly
because, as explained in Chapter 2, Liang Sicheng did not define vernacular architecture as
heritage in China (C. Zhao, 2000).

Table 5.1 Number of Historical Towns and Villages in China.

Source: (CNCHA and MOHURD, 2019a, 2019b).

# Date Number of Historical Towns Number of Historical Villages

1 08/10/2003 10 12

2 16/09/2005 34 24

3 31/05/2007 41 36

4 14/10/2008 58 36

5 22/07/2010 38 61

6 07/03/2014 71 107

7 21/01/2019 60 211

To protect suburban and rural cultural heritage, the CNCHA and MOHURD promulgated seven
batches of ‘famous historical towns and villages’ as heritage from 2003 to 2019, with an
increasing trend in terms of the number of towns and villages (Table 5.1). To protect more non-
famous and non-heritage-listed vernacular and traditional villages, the Non-Governmental
Organisation Committee on the Protection and Development of Traditional Villages and
MOHURD promulgated four batches of ‘traditional villages’ from 2012 to 2016. The intensive
promulgation of both ‘famous historical towns and villages’ (Figure 5.14; Figure 5.15) and
‘traditional villages’ (Figure 5.16) by official departments reflects that protecting and
revitalising the tangible and intangible heritage in these towns and villages is urgent, given that
these towns and villages have abundant cultural and natural resources with significant historical,
cultural, scientific, artistic, economic and social value.

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Figure 5.14 Famous historical villages in China until 2019.
Source: (CNCHA and MOHURD, 2019a).

Figure 5.15 Famous historical towns in China until 2019.

Source: (CNCHA and MOHURD, 2019b).

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 Figure 5.16 Traditional villages in China until 2016.
Source: (MOHURD, 2016).

Heritage fever

From a broader perspective, it seems that China has a powerful instrument to reinforce its
national identity through history and heritage, which has led to a ‘heritage fever’. Up to 2018,
China was awarded 52 World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, ranking the number of heritage only
second to Italy. Heritage researcher Zhu (2016, 2017) coined the term ‘heritage fever’ to
indicate that, with the help of mass media, central and local governments (rather than local
communities) define and identify the ‘authentic culture’ and which aspects of the culture should
be preserved to represent the national identity through heritage. The meanings and values of
vernacular settlements tend to be ignored as a result of the effect of ‘authorised heritage
discourse’ (Smith, 2006, p. 29; Y. Zhang & Wu, 2016). In the heritage discourse, local
communities should not be passive recipients, given that they can also consume, contest and
negotiate to shape the policies and practices regarding heritage (Y. Zhu, 2017b).

This ‘heritage fever’ reflects that the official heritage discourse in China is promoted as a tool
for political control and economic profit in the name of cultural expression and place identity.
In China, cultural heritage has been regarded a reward system, given that the sale of tickets to
World Heritage sites provides the primary source of revenue for the local government (X.
Zhang, Zhou, Wu, Skitmore, & Deng, 2015). However, visitors complain about the high price

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of buying entrance tickets (C. Z. Zhang, Xu, Su, & Ryan, 2009). Although heritage locations
are open to public access, the increasing ticket prices are inequitable for low-income groups.
Moreover, as argued in Chapters 2 and 3, heritage settings should be understood as places that
support cultural, social and emotional attachment and sustain local communities as living
heritage, as local communities are also ‘part of the cultural and social attractions of a heritage
site’ that enrich tourism activities and experiences (M. M. Su & Wall, 2011, p. 83).

In the context of ‘heritage fever’, JCTs planned to apply for World Heritage listings. Early in
1996, six JCTs23 had nominated as an alternative plan to apply for World Heritage. However,
the plan was suspended because of the corporation issue between Jiangsu and Zhejiang
Province. From 2015, the CNCHA restarted the JCT heritage application plan, and nominated
Suzhou as the leading city to organise the World Heritage application (Gong, 2015). It has been
reported that the JCTs committee will initially submit the application to the CNCHA in 2019
(Shuang Li, 2019).

To research urban and rural regeneration through protecting place identity and promoting local
social sustainability in the community, the current study selected one of the JCTs, Lili, as a
research case. Researching the place identity and community of Lili as living heritage may help
the future regeneration of rural historic towns and villages in China and other places with
similar contexts. Thus, the following sections introduce the historical background of the
Jiangnan region and the current state of Lili.

History of rural Jiangnan development in China

This section will explain the history of JCTs by comparing the development of and interaction
between the urban and rural Jiangnan region after the Opium War (1840). It focuses on the
region’s development during three phases—the 1920s to 1930s, 1950s to 1970s, and 1980s to
2000s—to lay the historical and social background of the research.

23
Six JCTs are the so-called ‘Jiangnan Liuzhen’—the most famous and prestigious six towns of the Jiangnan
region, including Zhouzhuang, Luzhi, Tongli, Wuzhen, Nanxun and Xitang.

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 The 1920s to 1930s: the effect of urban industrialisation and the
transportation system

After the Opium War, some treaty ports24 were established along the Yangtze River for the
Western trading invasion in the Jiangnan region. During the 1860s to 1890s, the 洋务运动
(Yangwu yundong) [‘Westernisation movement’] promoted the revitalisation of the national
industry with mechanised production in urban areas, which depressed the handicraft industry
in rural areas for the following decades. For example, the silk industry in the rural Jiangnan
region declined because of the effective mechanised silk production (Zhengshu Chen, 1987).
In addition, during the 1920s to 1930s, to increase the cargo capacity for trading in the Jiangnan
region, shipping through the Yangtze River and the rail transportation system gradually
replaced the traditional transportation by boat through the canal system (Faure, 1985). Thus,
inland rural historic towns and villages away from the Yangtze River were marginalised.

Consequently, the relationship between urban and rural markets turned from the traditional
network structure to a hierarchy structure (Figure 5.17). The traditional network structure relied
on the direct market exchange of agricultural crops between villages and towns through the
homogeneous canal system. When the traffic nodes of shipping and railway systems were
established for trading in particular cities, the hierarchy structure emerged and led to
concentrated development based on the positions of the towns, cities and treaty ports. The
hierarchy structure contributed to obtaining raw materials and products from inland regions to
take to cities for international trade. Therefore, many inland rural areas played the role of
supporting urban areas (L. Li, 2007, pp. 65–71).

24
These treaty ports included Shanghai, Ningbo, Zhenjiang, Nanjing, Hangzhou and some other cities.

112
Figure 5.17 Network structure (above) and hierarchy structure (below) between villages, towns and cities in the
Jiangnan region. Source: Drawn by the author based on local history.
Source: Based on local history in the Jiangnan region (L. Li, 2007, pp. 65–71).

During that time, the urban and rural Jiangnan region had influenced each other on their social
and cultural development. New public infrastructure and facilities were imported to JCTs, such
as modern schools, cinemas, theatres, churches and post and telecommunication facilities (B.
Li, 1991, p. 28). The majority of these new facilities were adaptively inserted into existing
vernacular buildings without demolishment and new construction—for example, some tea

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shops were converted into cinemas or theatres, and some 祠堂 (citang)25 were transferred into
modern schools in the historical town of Lili in Suzhou. In historical and vernacular towns or
villages, adaptive reuse creates ‘semi-vernacular’ architecture (as explained in Chapter 6) and
sustains the life of buildings and communities. Therefore, before the road system and property-
led economy were well developed, the urban landscape in historical villages and towns in the
Jiangnan region was well preserved.

Aside from the urban landscape, the community plays a pivotal role in sustaining the collective
place attachment as a component of place identity (as explained in Chapter 03). Before the
twentieth century, in rural China, rural society was under the administration of the rural elites
selected by 科举 (Keju) [imperial examinations in the national elite selection system]. However,
after Keju was abolished in 1905, the rural elites were pushed to move to cities to find more
opportunities during the next few decades (L. Li, 2007, p. 76). During the 1930s, their departure
led to a cultural recession, whereby rural communities struggled to organise public events and
lost social cohesion, which was followed by an economic recession (Fei, 1986, pp. 75–120).

The 1950s to 1970s: urban–rural binary structure

After years of war during the late 1930s to 1940s, in 1949, the Communist Party established
the new regime in China. To consolidate state power and build a modernised China, the
government established a series of policies to promote heavy industrial development. However,
the industrial development relied on encroaching on rural resources and levying taxes. The
state power moved 17 million Communist Party members into rural China to administrate the
villages and towns with rigorous administrative levels by establishing thousands of Communist
Party branches (P. C. C. Huang, 1990, p. 192). The centralisation of the management of every
rural community helped the central government control almost the entire rural economy to
support industrial development.

The unbalanced national investment between industry in urban areas and agriculture in rural
areas led to immigration from rural to urban areas by individuals seeking higher incomes.
During the ‘Giant Leap Forward’ period (1958 to 1960), industrial employees increased by
66.5 million; therefore, urban populations exploded, and the rural agricultural population

25
祠堂 (citang) is an ancestral temple in a town or village.

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sharply decreased, which led to a food shortage around the nation (L. Li, 2007, p. 86). To
address this problem, the central government announced a reduction of staff in urban industries
and pushed the abundant migrant labour force back to agriculture production. In addition, the
hukou26 system was established as a barrier to restrict urban–rural population mobility, and the
milestone urban-rural binary structure was formally established (K. W. Chan, 2009; K. W. Chan
& Zhang, 1999).

After 1962, the urban-rural binary structure policy redefined the JCTs as urban or rural areas,
which led to the polarised development of JCTs. If defined as an urban area, the town was
encouraged to establish local industries according to the national policy of ‘distribution of
industrial facilities to small towns’. After being selected as urban areas, some local industries
became prosperous and industrial production dramatically improved—until it was disturbed by
the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. The Cultural Revolution was a national movement
to cultivate a national identity and people’s ideology with the slogan of ‘abolishing four olds’
and ‘setting four news’.27 During the Cultural Revolution, local traditions, rituals, religions and
other social and cultural activities were suppressed and replaced by new forms of art
performance that adapted to the communist ideology (L. Li, 2007, p. 98). Spontaneously, many
historical courtyard houses and historic cultural landscapes of JCT were destroyed because they
were regarded as a decadent symbol of capitalism, which ran counter to the communist
ideology (H. Li, 2018).

The Cultural Revolution contributed to a national–local binary culture, which had never
previously existed. In the long term, Confucianism was the prevailing ideology shared both at
the national and regional level. During the Mao era, Confucianism was labelled as backwards,
counter-revolutionary, reactionary and superstitious, and the Communist Party promoted the
communist ideology as the national identity (T. Zhang & Schwartz, 1997). However, although
the national identity (communist ideology) was powerful, the traditional culture still existed
and was transferred within families. The twisted national–local binary culture (communist
ideology and Confucianism) offered an irreproducible social background that contributed to a
particular place attachment during that time.

26
The hukou system is a governmental household registration system in China.
27
The ‘four olds’ and ‘four news’ refer to the old/new ideologies, cultures, traditions and customs.

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 The 1980s to 2000s: industry and cultural tourism

After the Cultural Revolution, in 1978, the central government of China promulgated the
reform and opening-up policy, and China emphasised market economic development. Thus,
interrupted industries in JCTs were revived in the 1980s. At the same time, because of the
restart of academic communication, the concept of urban and rural settings as historical
monuments in the Venice Charter influenced the conservation professions in China. Thus, the
development of JCTs had two avenues from which to choose: industry or cultural tourism (L.
Cheng, 2018; H. Li, 2018).

Historical towns located at traffic nodes with existing industrial factories recovered their
production and built roads for trading, which destroyed the historic cultural landscape. For
example, Luzhi (Fan, Wall, & Mitchell, 2008) and Lili (H. Li, 2018) focused on industrial
economic development before the early 1990s and 2000s. According to the interview with H.
Li (2018), Professor Ruan Yisan from Tongji University visited Lili in the 1980s and advised
Lili to protect its elegant historic cultural landscape. He also promised to help create a
conservation plan of Lili, free of charge. However, adhering to the notion that building roads
will generate wealth, the Lili government refused Ruan’s advice and filled many creeks and
branch canals to build roads for its industrial economy.

Towns located in less convenient traffic areas grew more slowly through industrial
development. Zhouzhuang was a JCT located away from the main traffic line, with a weak
industrial economy, which protected its landscape, yet the town required an urgent way to
enhance its economy. After being declined by Lili, Professor Ruan’s idea was adopted by
Zhouzhuang. Ruan’s plan helped Zhouzhuang find a ‘Zhouzhuang model’ of using cultural
tourism, rather than industrial development, to enhance the local economy (Y. Ruan & Yuan,
2016). The successful cultural tourism of the ‘Zhouzhuang model’ through conserving the
heritage and historical urban landscape influenced other towns in the following years.

In the late 1990s, industrial economies in JCTs declined, such as Luzhi and Lili, because their
industrial products were replaced by urban advanced mechanical productivity; therefore, they
had to find a new way to support the local economy, and the ‘Zhouzhuang model’ was a
successful case of the tourism economy. Thus, after 2010, many of the JCTs began to run a
tourism economy or a tourism–industrial combined economy (Figure 5.18).

However, as explained in the previous section on ‘heritage fever’, side effects of cultural

116
tourism also appeared. Although the tangible heritage and historical urban landscape were well
conserved, the local community and traditional lifestyle with the intangible heritage of the JCTs
faded away because of the commodification process of tourism (H. G. Xu & Tao, 2001).

Figure 5.18 Economic transformation before 1990 and after 2010 in JCTs.
Source: Drawn by the author based on oral history (L. Cheng, 2018; H. Li, 2018).

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 Lili: A canal town in Jiangnan region
To research the value of place in terms of physical characteristics and collective place
attachment to sustain the living heritage within communities, this study examines the historical
water town of Lili as a research case.

In 2016, I contacted a local informant, Li Meimin, who was a local culture and history scholar
and the former director of the Liu Yazi Museum. Based on an interview with Li Meimin, the
following section introduces the background information relevant to this research case of Lili.

Decreasing population and disappearing neighbourhood

Lili lies to the east of Taihu Lake basin in the Jiangnan region (Figure 5. 19). This natural
environment rendered waterways Lili’s principal transport system in the past. During the last
30 years, the development of ground vehicles and highway networks reduced the travel time
between most Chinese cities and their surrounding suburban and rural areas. Lili is located in
the Yangtze River Delta city clusters and has been involved in enormous economic change in
recent decades. To enhance the local economy, the Lili government and Lili Tourism Company
started a regeneration project for tourism by renovating the historic cultural landscape. In
addition, the local government built affordable apartments to relocate the local community.
Thus, many residents from the historical areas have moved to new apartments or other
surrounding cities, which has gradually caused Lili to lose its local place identity.

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 Figure 5. 19 Location of Lili in East China.
Source: Drawn by the author based on Google map.

The changing social background since the last century caused a fluctuation in Lili’s population,
for two main reasons. The first reason derived from a historical event. In 1942, as a result of
the Sino-Japanese War in the Wujiang area, the population in Lili decreased sharply. As a result
of industry recovery and the devaluation of banknotes during the 1970s to 1980s, the capital
was invested in brick and tile factories in Lili, which attracted many immigrants to Lili. The
second factor was the changing administration precinct. The precinct in Lili merged with and
separated from other towns and villages several times, so that the population statistics based
on its precinct changed as well (“Gaishu [Overview],” 2014).

To illustrate the population quantitatively, the population should be compared within the same
precinct. First-hand population data (Figure 5.20) were collected from the Lili police office.
The data only represent the population in the main town (both historical area and the new
district of Lili) from 1982 to 2017, and exclude the other towns and villages that belong to the
Lili precinct.

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 Growth of Industry and Economy
Cultural Tourism Development

20000 Move to other places 40000

19500 39000
19000 38000
18500
37000
18000
36000
17500
17000 35000

16500 34000
16000 33000

Male Feamle Male + Female

Figure 5.20 Population of Lili from 1982 to 2017.

Source: (Lili Police Office, 2018).

Although the table shows that, in 2017, there were still 35,027 people registered in the hukou
system, the Lili Police Office admitted that the real number of residents living and working in
Lili is less than that, and at least one-quarter of the registered population in Lili live in other
places. This information was supported by the administrator of the local tap water company,
who explained that almost one-fifth to one-quarter of the houses and apartments in Lili is empty,
as their water consumption is much lower than the typical standard.

Further, the population in the historical town area is far lower than that indicated by the data in
the Lili hukou system. Li Meimin checked the population data and explained that, before 1980,
there were over 10,000 people (about one-third of the population in Lili) living in the ancient
town area. In 1984, the local industry and economy had grown, and the population increased
until the early 1990s. After 1993, many individuals started purchasing apartments in other areas,
which left approximately 7,000 people in the ancient town. From 2012, to develop the historical
area of Lili as a tourism destination, the local government and Lili Tourism Company built
some affordable apartments, and encouraged residents to relocate to these new apartments as
compensation, which caused the population in the historical area to sharply decrease to 3,000
(Lili Police Office, 2018).

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 Figure 5. 21 High vacancy of new apartments in Lili.
Source: Photo by the author.

This relocation with compensation accelerated the population outflow in recent decades. The
relocation scheme compensated ¥4,800/m2 for renters and ¥5,200/m2 for property owners in
2013. Residents could choose to use the compensation to purchase an affordable apartment in
Lili at a discounted rate, or purchase properties in other cities or towns with the same market
price. This scheme was acceptable for those who rented houses, but property owners claimed
it was unfair to compensate them only ¥400/m2 more than renters, given that they owned the
property rights. As a result, most renters moved to the new apartments, yet property owners
preferred to stay in the historical town, given that the price of apartments in Lili was almost
half to three-quarters of the price in some surrounding cities.28 After obtaining compensation,
some wealthier residents whose descendants lived in cities preferred to spend more money to
purchase property and move to Wujiang, Suzhou or other cities (L. Cheng, 2018).

28
For example, according to a report (“Housing Price in Suzhou,” 2016), the average market price of new
apartments in Lili was ¥10,000/m2, while apartments in Wujiang and Suzhou were ¥14,000/m2 and ¥18,000/m2,
respectively.

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Given that the new Lili apartments were usually 80 to 100 m2, if a family previously rented a
large house, they had the authority to exchange for more than one apartment. Many families
did so because they believed that properties were the most effective investment against inflation.
Their confidence came from the constantly increasing property price in Chinese cities during
the last 20 years (G. Xu, 2018). This unsuitable scheme caused single families to have several
apartments in Lili; therefore, the apartments had a high vacancy rate (35%) (Lili Police Office,
2018). Population decreases and a high vacancy rate are common issues in many rural historic
towns and villages in China (Figure 5. 21), which have caused the loss of the community and
deconstruction of place identity.

Cultural tourism is not only for tourists, but also for local communities. The key point here is
to maximise the value of place as living heritage, including physical characteristics and social
and psychological place attachment. From Chapters 7 to 9, this thesis will detail Lili’s value of
place based on fieldwork research, and discuss the significance of place and place identity in
sustaining community life.

Conclusion: Sustaining everyday place as ‘living heritage’

The long-term urban-rural binary structure during the process of urbanisation and urban
regeneration led to unbalanced development in urban and rural areas in China. From the
perspective of an architectural researcher, there is a plethora of vernacular and historical
architecture in villages and towns in rural and suburban China. However, conserving these
vernacular and historical settings is often simply viewed as protecting the physical features
with material authenticity or limit in designing new built environment with vernacular style.
Heritage has not been considered as conserving social life with local residents, especially in
rural China.

The key point of rural revitalisation is not listing a rural village or town as heritage, but
managing local people and the social capital to sustain their everyday place as ‘living heritage’.
Professor Zhao (2016) argued that, during the process of rural revitalisation, social capital and
social networks in rural areas should be protected as a source of rural culture. This thesis
examines the JCT of Lili as a research case to investigate the significance of both physical
features and other collective place attachments to sustain the development of a heritage place.
However, prior to that, from an architectural perspective, the following chapter will introduce
more detail about architects’ practice in rural revitalisation.

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Chapter 6: From ‘neo-vernacular’ to ‘semi-
vernacular’: A case study of vernacular architecture
representation and adaptation in rural Chinese
village revitalisation

Introduction

Chapter 5 has introduced the unbalanced development in urban and rural areas in China that
has caused rural-to-urban migrants and the ‘hollowed villages’. The ‘hollowed villages’
phenomenon reflects the rapidly changing urban–rural relationship in China and its social
consequences, so that an integrated approach to urban–rural development is urgently required
to enable a rural revitalisation (C. Zhao, 2016). Following the ‘New Socialist Countryside’
movement, the ‘beautiful countryside plan’ was tested through pilot cases with direct new
construction in the countryside (Y. Dong, 2017). Confronted with these urgent issues of
preserving Chinese vernacular architectural fabric, preserving traditional buildings skills and
sustaining villages as places for people, this chapter aims to answer ‘What strategies are used
by Chinese architects in rural revitalisation? How to evaluate their strategies?’by discussing
the architects’ new practices in response to these social challenges in rural revitalisation in
China.

This chapter reviews definitions of vernacular architecture to understand how its

conceptualisation over the late twentieth century influences the way in which authenticity and
tradition are currently interpreted. As awareness of preserving traditional villages has risen,
and the real estate market and infrastructure in urban areas are becoming saturated, many
architects are seeking projects in rural China. Beginning in recent years, the phenomenon
known as the ‘vernacular frenzy’ 29 emerged in response to the need to preserve cultural values

29
‘Vernacular frenzy’is translated by the author to describe the ‘乡土热 (Xiangtu Re)’ or ‘乡建 热 (Xiangjian
Re)’ in Pinyin.

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in rural areas. In this building frenzy, architecture in a vernacular style, yet using industrial
building methods and materials, has become common. Thus, I term this approach ‘neo-
vernacular’ architecture. I contrast this approach with that of another new term—‘semi-
vernacular’ architecture—which I argue is an adaptation in architecture whereby both
vernacular forms and a combination of traditional and contemporary building methods and
materials are used, with ambitions for sustaining intangible heritage—such as traditional
building skills—in these vernacular Chinese villages.

In the main body of this chapter, I analyse three recent architectural projects in vernacular
villages by two ‘starchitect’ studios in China—Amateur Architecture Studio (AAS, founded by
Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu) and Atelier Zhang Lei (AZL)—to illustrate these two approaches to
vernacular architectural heritage conservation in China. Using a visual analysis and review of
comments on these projects made by critics, architectural students and villagers in reports,
journals and websites, I analyse these projects’ community engagement methods and reception.
Based on these projects, I claim that there is potential in the approach of ‘semi-vernacular’
adaptation for conserving and retaining the values of Chinese vernacular architectural heritage
as part of a living heritage that changes to meet contemporary needs, with the ambition of
remaining socially sustainable. Further, I argue that the value of intangible heritage is
embedded within the vernacular setting of rural Chinese villages, and that the contemporary
renovation of these villages has a role to play in protecting aspects of this intangible heritage.

Research and preservation of Chinese vernacular

architectural heritage

Defining vernacular architecture over time

Vernacular architecture is defined by a focus on the relationship between spatial form and
residents’ everyday lives and a connection to the identity of individuals or communities (Stangl,
2008). Thus, vernacular architecture is a form of living heritage (Richon, 2008) because it
encapsulates not only a specific building fabric, form and typology, but also the intangible
methods of its making, and embodies the ways of life of the builders and residents of such
places, which have shaped the architecture.

As a term, ‘vernacular architecture’ was only brought into widespread academic attention in

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the contemporary era through the influential Bernard Rudofsky (1964) exhibition, Architecture
without Architects, held at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Since that time,
Western scholars in particular began to develop vernacular architecture studies that ranged from
an aesthetic appreciation focused on the perceived exotic nature of non-Western, mostly
peasant architecture, to an analysis of the environmental, technological and social contexts
within which vernacular architecture has developed (see, e.g., Rapoport 1969; Oliver 1969;
Brunskill 1971; Oliver 1997).

While Rudofsky’s shorthand for vernacular architecture is ‘architecture without architects’,

there is no singular definition of vernacular architecture today. Oliver (1997, xxiii) and Vellinga
(2011, 119) argue that a defining quality of vernacular architecture is its construction by the
eventual end-users of the building, while others such as Rapoport (1969, 2–3; 2006), Quiney
(1990, 6–7) and Weeks (1996, 16) argue that vernacular architecture can be built by
craftspeople, yet designed by local residents following traditional approaches. Debates have
primarily focused on defining vernacular architecture as distinct from the professional
architectural practices that developed over the twentieth century in the West. In our opinion,
the importance of vernacular architecture, especially in a heritage context, lies in its connection
to local cultures, both in terms of people’s use and shaping of architectural spaces, and the
skills of vernacular builders that encompass generations of tradition. I envisage that both
craftspeople and architects can be involved in the preservation of these spatial and crafts
traditions.

Chinese research on vernacular architecture

In China, studies of vernacular architecture have produced plentiful and comprehensive
documentation and analysis of vernacular architecture types and urban formations from the
1930s. The earliest published modern research on Chinese vernacular architecture was 穴居杂
考 (Xueju Zakao) [Research on caves as a living place]30 in 1934, by Long Qingzhong, and 云南
一颗印 (Yunnan Yikeyin) [The building type ‘Yikeyin’ in Yunnan Province]31 in 1944, by Liu
Zhiping. These publications each focused on a single vernacular house type. The first general
yet systematic book, Liu Dunzhen’s (1957) 中国住宅概论 (Zhongguo Zhuzhai Gailun) [General

30
Published in 中国营造学社会刊 (Zhongguo Yingzao Xueshe Huikan) [Journal of Chinese Building Construction]
in 1934, volume 5, issue 1.
31
Published in 中国营造学社会刊 (Zhongguo Yingzao Xueshe Huikan) [Journal of Chinese Building Construction]
in 1944, volume 7, issue 1.

125
Introduction to Chinese Dwellings], was published in 1957, and examined Chinese vernacular
houses belonging to several ethnic groups.

Based on these scholars’ work, the second and third generations of architectural scholars in
China continued their research on Chinese vernacular heritage from the 1980s to the present.
For example, Liu Zhiping (1990) published his book 中国居住建筑简史 (Zhongguo Juzhu
Jianzhu Jianshi) [A Brief History of Chinese Dwellings], which chronologically traced the
development of Chinese dwellings. Moreover, Sun Dazhang (2004) published his monumental
tome, 中国民居研究 (Zhongguo Minju Yanjiu) [Research on Chinese Dwellings], depicting the
vernacular houses of a vast number of ethnic groups in China, based on a comprehensive
investigation that began in the 1990s. Further, Lou Qingxi, Chen Zhihua and Li Qiuxiang from
Tsinghua University founded a vernacular architecture research centre and published many
books and brochures of their investigation and survey of vernacular architecture (Zhihua Chen
& Li, 2010a, 2010b; Zhihua Chen, Li, Lou, & Shi, 2010). However, most of this generation of
scholars’ works focused on descriptive data and information collection, and advocated for the
authentic preservation of buildings, while the renovation of the buildings for contemporary
purposes was rarely discussed.

In recent years, with a changing understanding of vernacular architecture theories

internationally, Chinese architectural scholars have begun to research their vernacular
architecture by adding documentation and practical knowledge of traditional construction skills
and the social and anthropological background of the buildings (Yan Liu, 2016). In addition to
research on vernacular architecture’s characteristics, scholars in China still demonstrate an
interest regarding ways to reuse vernacular architecture and its broader built environment (J.
Liu, Hu, Wang, & Yang, 2010).

Conservation and adaptive reuse of vernacular architecture

Principles and methods for the conservation of vernacular architecture and its surrounding built
environment are not standardised within or among nations and cultures, nor would this be
possible or desirable. Nevertheless, as discussed in Chapter 2 and 3, there is a common desire
to both conserve heritage architecture and keep buildings within a realm of ‘living heritage’—
avoiding ‘museification’. One common method of conservation has been an adaptive reuse of
vernacular and other heritage buildings (Plevoets and Van Cleempoel 2012). Reusing historic
buildings is a method of conservation as old as building itself, and buildings that are reused are
likely to survive into the future by virtue of their usefulness. Global heritage governance

126
recognised in the 1964 Venice Charter that the conservation of monuments is facilitated by
making use of them (ICOMOS, 1964, p. Article 5), notwithstanding that ‘reuse’, ‘adaptive
reuse’ or ‘adaptation’ were not coined as terms at that time.

The subsequent 1999 Mexico Charter mentioned ‘adaptation’ and ‘reuse’ in the importance of
intact vernacular forms:

Adaptation and reuse of vernacular structures should be carried out in a

manner which will respect the integrity of the structure, its character and
form while being compatible with acceptable standards of living. Where
there is no break in the continuous utilisation of vernacular forms, a code of
ethics within the community can serve as a tool of intervention. (ICOMOS,
1999, p. Adaptation)

However, Dewi (2017) proposed that function be privileged over the building’s form, and
coined the term ‘adaptive re-form’ (in contrast to ‘adaptive reuse’), meaning that the building’s
physical form can be altered to accommodate traditional uses.

In Australia, conservation guidance given in The Burra Charter is not prescriptive and allows
for ‘adaptation’ and ‘new work’ (Australia ICOMOS 2013, Article 21, 22) while maintaining
the heritage significance of a place. ‘Adaptation’ for a new use is referred to as ‘adaptive reuse’,
while ‘new work’—such as additions or other changes to the building fabric—may alter the
original form of the building and place. In addition, The Burra Charter allows for minor
demolition that is appropriate as part of conservation work, if contemporary needs must be met
(Australia ICOMOS 2013, Article 15.3). For example, these needs can include changes to
enable access for people using wheelchairs or to meet safety requirements.

In 2000, the Chinese International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) promulgated
the Principles for the Conservation of Heritage Sites in China as professional guidelines for
the conservation of historic sites. This document asserts that ‘Adaptation of a heritage site for
modern use must respect the values of the site and its attributes and ensure its protection without
negatively impacting those values’ (ICOMOS China, 2015, p. Article 45). This document
brings Chinese vernacular architecture into a realm in which adaptive reuse is desirable and
can be guided by ICOMOS principles derived from within China.

Chinese vernacular architecture conservation practices have developed in distinctive ways in

recent years. Some architects have undertaken reuse projects on existing vernacular

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architecture, converting them to libraries, shops and accommodation with alterations and
additions, such as the work by AZL. Meanwhile, other architects have designed vernacular-
style architecture to express the local culture in formal terms, such as the work by AAS. This
phenomenon is part of a multifarious vernacular architecture movement, which is discussed in
detail in the following section.

The vernacular architecture movement in China

The ‘vernacular frenzy’ and ‘neo-vernacular’ architecture

Since 1979, under the policy known as ‘Reform and Opening’ in China, a significant number
of buildings have been rapidly constructed. The traditional Chinese city is vanishing, which is
leading to diminishing diversity in the urban environment, as international styles are adopted
in previously unique and distinct cities. From around the late 1990s to the beginning of the
twenty-first century, the increasing urban similarity began to cause concern among Chinese
architects and urban designers, who were facing the prospect of losing traditional Chinese
culture and place identity. Some Chinese architects reset their work to address rural and
suburban development, and this led to what has been termed a ‘vernacular frenzy’ (J. Zhang &
Jiang, 2016). The vernacular frenzy refers to designing new buildings in a vernacular style
using (most commonly) reinforced concrete and other contemporary techniques and materials.
This vernacular frenzy has led to architects focusing on protecting the vernacular style through
designing new houses according to their personal understanding and interpretation of a
vernacular image. I argue that ‘neo-vernacular’ architecture is a product of the vernacular
frenzy, which is defined as ‘a contemporary interpretation of vernacular building’ (Turkušić
2011). Neo-vernacular buildings usually do not incorporate the tangible or intangible values
that are present in extant vernacular buildings because they neither incorporate the traditional
building fabric nor embody the traditions of building techniques and craft.

The vernacular frenzy, minsu tourism and neo-vernacular

architecture
Purportedly in contrast to the neo-vernacular architecture being produced in the vernacular
frenzy, a more recent vernacular heritage movement has focused on preserving and improving
the tangible and intangible values of existing vernacular buildings, and thus helping to maintain

128
the identity of a vernacular place. From 2005, the Chinese government’s ‘beautiful countryside’
program aimed not to preserve traditional village architecture or heritage, but rather to narrow
the gap between the urban and rural areas in lifestyle facilities and enrich the lives of local rural
people, as a government policy in constructing a New Socialist Countryside (PRC State
Council, 2005). This program reflects a focus on the intangible heritage of villages as places
of life and culture that require a sustainable population and contemporary facilities.

The most common way that villages have been developed under the beautiful countryside
program is through building a tourism economy—often using minsu tourism, which uses
homestay accommodation, often in vernacular dwellings. This tourism became popular and has
provided a supplementary income and employment opportunities to local residents, as well as
educating visitors about local culture (B. Su, 2011). Although the origins of minsu remain
debated32, it seems clear that minsu at least partly draws on minshuku in Japan (X. Yang & Yin,
2012). Prior to the development of minsu, the ‘peasant’s house’ or ‘nongjiale’ was another
major form in rural housing tourism in many regions, which involved activities such as playing
mah-jong and cards, drinking tea, fishing and picking fruit—all operated by local farmer
families (J. He, Li, & Wang, 2004). The minsu economy raised awareness of preserving and
reusing the vernacular heritage to generate financial profit. However, minsu tourism in China
is now rarely run by local residents, and is usually operated by hotel companies, groups or
individual investors. For example, the Dalezhiye is a successful case of renting local residents’
abandoned houses and renovating them as hotels (X. Ji, 2017).

Some minsu accommodation is not placed in renovated vernacular buildings, but instead in
new purpose-built neo-vernacular dwellings, which does not help conserve existing village
heritage. Additionally, there have been claims that large percentages of minsu tourism
operations are unprofitable (Z. Wei, 2017) and thus possibly economically unsustainable.
While minsu may have a future, it does not solve the dilemma of diminishing tangible and
intangible heritage in Chinese vernacular villages, but rather contributes to an increasingly
complex environment within which other interventions must occur. Comparing to ‘neo-
vernacular’ architecture, a different approach to vernacular villages—that of ‘semi-vernacular’
architecture is discussed below.

32
The popularity of minsu has three sources: bed and breakfast accommodation from the United Kingdom, ‘home
stays’ from America and minshuku in Japan.

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 ‘Semi-vernacular’ architecture in rural Chinese villages
I argue that ‘semi-vernacular’ architecture is one form of the recent vernacular heritage
movement in China. It reuses (changing original function) or renovates (maintaining original
function) existing vernacular architecture to meet the contemporary needs of both local
communities and tourists. Semi-vernacular architecture is the combined work of original
vernacular architecture and new architects’ designs and construction. It expresses and
differentiates building characteristics from different time periods, adapts the buildings to
contemporary life modes, and conserves the historical significance and local memory of the
vernacular buildings, while supporting local vernacular building skills. This method is defined
as ‘semi-vernacular adaptation’—a balance of preserving vernacular heritage through
architects’ cooperation with local craftspeople and the local community.

To reach a balance between protection of authenticity and demolition to allow new work, semi-
vernacular architecture aims to protect the specific place identity, which is the evolution of
vernacular architecture, in contrast to neo-vernacular work, which is a static imitation of past
styles and forms. Table 6.1 explains the distinctions between vernacular, semi-vernacular and
neo-vernacular architecture.

Table 6. 1 Distinction between vernacular, semi-vernacular, and neo-vernacular.

Source: Defined by the author.

VERNACULAR SEMI-VERNACULAR NEO-VERNACULAR

SUMMARY Original vernacular Preserves vernacular significance, Contemporary

architecture in a place identity and intangible aspects architecture in
specific vernacular of vernacular architecture and vernacular style or form
settlement place environment through adaptive
reusing (combining new techniques
and traditional construction method)
to meet the modern needs for local
people

DESIGNER Residents or local Architects and local craftsman Architects

craftspeople (Consultant)

CONSTRUCTOR Local craftspeople Local and/or imported craftspeople No restriction

STRUCTURE Vernacular Vernacular and contemporary Contemporary

MATERIAL Vernacular Vernacular and contemporary Contemporary

FORM Vernacular Vernacular Vernacular and

contemporary
(with a type) (based on a type)
(no special type)

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 SITE Vernacular setting Vernacular setting No restriction

FUNCTION Vernacular Vernacular and contemporary Contemporary

With these distinctions in mind, the following section introduces the work of two architecture
firms—文村 (Wencun) Village by AAS and 深澳 (Shen’ao) and 戴家山 (Daijiashan) Villages by
AZL—and proposes a suitable method for vernacular town or village development.

Case study: renovating Wencun Village

Amateur Architecture Studio’s neo-vernacular work

AAS was founded by husband and wife team, Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu. Wang Shu is the
design leader of AAS and, in 2012, won the Pritzker Prize. He studied at Nanjing Institute of
Technology (NIT)33 for his bachelor and master degrees in architecture. Unlike most architects
working in an architectural design institution, he was interested in Chinese traditional culture,
ranging from paintings to craftsmanship. This interest was reflected in the studio’s subsequent
focus on vernacular architecture.

In 2012, AAS was invited to design an art gallery, archive and museum in Fuyang, Zhejiang
Province, China. Wang Shu agreed to complete the project, on the condition that they would
also be funded to undertake a village regeneration project nearby. Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu
had been surveying vernacular villages since 2002, and had analysed almost 200 villages until
2013, when they selected Wencun Village as their first renovation project, which was
completed in 2015 (Ye, 2015).

In 2016, during their invited lecture to the Royal Academy of Arts (2016) in London, Wang
Shu and Lu Wenyu discussed their methods of ‘how to reshape the rural culture in
contemporary China’. They stated that AAS aims to develop an architecture based on Chinese
rural building traditions to counter the complete domination of the monotonous concrete
buildings that have developed as a result of the fast urbanisation process in China, which they
termed ‘semi-disabled villages’.

AAS’s designs for Wencun Village’s renovation drew on both the typology and morphology of
the existing village architecture. This approach required a large financial outlay, proffered as

33
Nanjing Institute of Technology (NIT) was renamed Southeast University in 1988.

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an investment in the future social and cultural sustainability of the village. Wang Shu proposed
a re-evaluation of the role of manual construction and vernacular construction techniques with
local materials to stem the loss of tangible and intangible heritage. His aim seemed to be to
create a way for new and old, past and present, and handcraft and industrial construction to
coexist. His answer was designing high-density housing to replace the farmer’s ‘modern house’.
In his lecture at the Royal Academy of Arts, Wang Shu compared his new design with a
dictionary—offering a new architectural language for farmers to renovate their vernacular
houses, and serving as a prototype for other villages to follow (Y. Dong, 2015).

Analysing the renovation of Wencun Village

AAS’s buildings often cause debate among Chinese academic and architectural circles and
even in the non-architectural mass media. Supporters are mostly non-architects who are
attracted by the Chinese-style appearance of the neo-vernacular buildings. Some Western
researchers define AAS’s work as taking a ‘critical regionalist’ approach (Botz-Bornstein 2009).
Moreover, the Chinese popular media have typically reported the studio’s design work in a
highly positive manner, proclaiming that master Wang Shu has set a fantastic example of a
traditional Chinese cultural style of architectural expression for rural villages (Ye, 2015). These
reviews focus on the appearance and style of the houses, which resist modernisation and
international styles, and help assert a Chinese identity through the vernacular form.

However, not all scholars and architects positively review the work. Professor Kenneth
Frampton discussed Wang Shu and Wencun Village in a lecture at the Harvard Graduate School
of Design in 2016. Frampton described Wencun as exhibiting traits of a ‘late modernist work’,
with ‘hybrid’ and ‘rhetorical’ characters, and use of ‘metaphor’ and somewhat ‘Western’ and
‘neo-Palladian’ approaches (Harvard GSD, 2016). Although the houses in Wencun reflect some
Chinese stylistic elements in terms of materials and appearance, Frampton’s critique reveals
that Wang Shu’s approach in Wencun did not follow his own claims that ‘Wencun village
should learn from Wencun village’ (Royal Academy of Arts, 2016), but responded to global
trends and personal stylistic aims.

The architectural photographer, Shi Zheng (2015), also commented that Wencun ‘was the first
rural housing project of Wang Shu with strong and intensive personal style and expression’.
Wang explained that the main reason that he selected Wencun Village as the site for rural village
revitalisation was because of its beautiful scenery (Harvard GSD, 2016). This explanation
prompts the question of whether his design was for tourists or residents, and whether vernacular

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heritage was the chief concern. The concern with holding a focus on tourism as the primary
goal is that it may drive the local community out, as described above. This outcome would
cause a similar dilution of intangible heritage and local community culture to that which
occurred in what Wang Shu termed ‘semi-disabled’ villages, yet, in Wencun’s case, covered
with a vernacular skin in the neo-vernacular style.

Researchers have criticised the lack of community engagement preceding the project.
Moreover, other researchers have sought to understand local residents’ responses to the project.
Dong Yiping (2015, 94), a lecturer in the Department of Architecture at Xi’an Jiaotong
Liverpool University, wrote in Architectural Review that:

This top-down approach to village regeneration was an unwelcome

intervention by the local people. Only seven families agreed to move into the
new houses. 34 For the villagers, the ideal living space should occupy all of
the lot, and maximize the courtyard in front of the house. They complained
that the courtyard spaces did not meet expectations, and that the homes did
not have enough bedrooms.

Dong doubted that the village would become anything but a fantasy of rural life for urbanites.
Architecture student Lv Xiaocheng (2016) visited Wencun to interview residents, and found
some issues reported by residents, such as narrow stairs, unsatisfactory room arrangement, lack
of storage space for farming equipment and lack of daylight. While the plans were based on
vernacular spatial organisation, residents were nevertheless critical of some aspects. Money
was spent money decorating the façade with heavy stone or brick to achieve Wang Shu’s style,
yet the houses did not meet the residents’ thermal comfort needs, but replicated the thermally
poor vernacular approaches that do not align with contemporary development goals (Lv, 2016).
In response, one could argue that Wang Shu emphasised his artistic and cultural interpretation
of design over the functional aspects of the houses for the vernacular village that he aimed to
maintain.

34
Twenty-four apartments for local families have been built in 14 new buildings in the new part of Wencun (Y.
Dong, 2015).

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 Buildings in Wencun Village Buildings in China Academy of Art

A house in Wencun Village (2015) Washan project (2013)

Canopy in Wencun Village (2015) Canopy in Washan project (2013)

A house in Wencun Village (2015) Building 9 (2007)

A house in Wencun Village (2015) Students’ dormitory (2007)

Figure 6. 1 Similarities between Wencun Village renovations and buildings and Amateur Architecture Studio’s
pre-existing projects in China Academy of Art, Hangzhou.
Source: All photo credits belong to the author. The years in the bracket means the time that the building or
structure was constructed.

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All these houses in Wencun demonstrate a distinctive AAS style that can be found in AAS’s
previous designs (Dong 2017, 142) (Figure 6. 1). When comparing Wang’s design works, I
observe the consistency of his architectural language in building elements, composition and
materials. Despite Wencun Village’s ‘unique’ vernacular character, the village follows the same
stylistic approach.

In Wang’s presentation at the Royal Academy in London (2016), he claimed that the most
exciting elements in his survey of villages were the construction materials and the composition
of the façade or other building surfaces. However, he did not explain his understanding of why
and how local people use these materials to build their houses and improve their living
conditions, such as thermal comfort and sufficient daylighting. I argue that his design focus
was more on the appearance of the materials and façade, and speculate that the reason he used
these materials and forms in his projects was to ensure consistency with the already established
‘Wang Shu style’. This style may have its inspiration in vernacular materials; however, it is not
actually specific to Wencun Village or the local building traditions, as may be thought.

Figure 6. 2 Tower cranes in Wencun village during AAS renovations.

Source: (Goudy & Auzet, 2016b), Photo credits: Juliette Goudy and Marc Auzet.

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 Figure 6. 3 Earth plasters (left) and brick facade (right) as surface.
Source: (Goudy & Auzet, 2016a, 2016b) Photo credits: Juliette Goudy and Marc Auzet.

In his Royal Academy of Arts lecture, Wang emphasised the value of manual construction using
traditional techniques. However, his project employed tower cranes (Figure 6. 2), which
suggests that the revitalisation of the Wencun Village project did not entirely match this
aspiration, and involved contemporary construction techniques, rather than the manual
construction traditions that Wang valued. Two rammed-earth specialist architects who
participated in the Wencun Village project maintained an online blog, which recorded that
Wang Shu selected one of the contractors that had participated in the construction of the
Washan Guesthouse to make the rammed-earth walls in Wencun Village (Goudy & Auzet,
2016b). Wang proposed that the city should learn from the countryside to retrace a sustainable
construction approach and be closer to nature (Royal Academy of Arts, 2016). However, the
new walls only imitate a rammed-earth surface, and one of Wang’s group’s mission was to find
the best mixture of earth and other local materials (such as rice husk, straw and soil) to help
bind the earth plaster rendering to the existing brick, thereby giving the visual impression of
rammed earth. A rammed-earth team from previous projects used their experiences to teach
and train the local team how to build the neo-vernacular architecture (Figure 6. 3), rather than
how to apply their own local building traditions to a new setting.

Wang’s starting point in Wencun Village was to interpret the cultural values of Chinese
architecture, with the admirable goals of social sustainability and preservation of village life
and culture. However, based on our visual analysis of Wencun Village, I argue that Wang Shu
is representative of architects whose focus remains on their personal architectural language.
Wang Shu’s repertoire of previous designs demonstrates that Wencun is merely a variation on

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his previous design style and strategies. While drawing on generic vernacular styles, the project
was not unique to the Wencun location and was part of Wang’s existing architectural language
database. In this case, I argue that learning from local artisans, as Wang Shu asserted, was
replaced by teaching builders how to imitate traditional materials and style in a visual sense
only. As a strategy for rural development in China, this approach expresses Wang’s own
architectural identity, and does not reflect the specific local place identity or vernacular heritage.

Case study: renovating Shen’ao and Daijiashan Villages

Zhang Lei’s two villages

Zhang Lei, a classmate of Wang Shu, also graduated from NIT in 1985 and began lecturing
there that year, while also working as part of NIT’s collaboration with ETH Zurich in
Switzerland. In 2001, Zhang Lei established his studio, AZL, affiliated with Nanjing University,
which gradually became one of the vanguard architecture practices in China. Recently, Zhang
broadened his design practice to vernacular architecture design and adaptive reuse of heritage
buildings. This section examines two of his village renovation projects, Shen’ao and Daijiashan
Villages, and AZL’s contrasting approach to that of AAS regarding vernacular architecture.

The project in Shen’ao Village

Starting in 2013 and finishing in 2015, 云夕·深澳里 (Yunxi Shen’aoli) was the first vernacular
project of AZL. Located in the ancient Shen’ao Village, 60 km from Hangzhou, this project
involved the mixed reuse of a vernacular house called 景松堂 (Jingsongtang), which originally
housed six families. New functions have been inserted into the space, including a library, salon
area and restaurant downstairs, and a small exhibition area upstairs. The library is free to
villagers and tourists, and holds more than 8,000 books. The library is not only a place for
reading, but also a place for social gatherings (Figure 6. 4).

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 Figure 6. 4 Seminar in the Library at Shen’ao Village.
Source: (Hardy et al., 2015).

Zhang Lei’s project demonstrates his respect for both villagers’ and investors’ needs, and the
context and culture. I visited Shen’ao Village in late 2015, and noted that tourists used the
building mainly for its restaurant, while local residents would stay in the public library to read
and socialise.

Figure 6. 5 Before and after the pigpen was demolished (left) and new entrance hall (right).
Source: (K. Wang, Zhao, & Zhang, 2016).

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 Figure 6. 6 An original cooking stove is preserved in the library project by AZL.
Source: Photo by the author.

Among all the needs in vernacular architecture, comfortable living conditions have become a
priority. In 2015, a seminar was held by the journal Urban Environment Design to examine the
Shen’aoli project. In this seminar, Zhang Lei stated that external visitors often appreciate the
aesthetic value of vernacular architecture, but would not like to live there because of the
difficult conditions (Hardy et al., 2015). However, in the Shen’aoli project, modern materials—
such as glass, light-emitting diode (LED) lighting and white painted walls—were used to make
the space brighter, while contemporary equipment was installed, such as central air
conditioning.

Context and memories can be seen in Zhang Lei’s design: a swallow’s nest is carefully
protected above the ceiling, cobblestones from the demolished pigsty have been reused in a
new entrance hall with white painted walls (Figure 6. 5) and the old cookers typical of the rural
area are preserved to exhibit this tradition (Figure 6. 6). The configuration of the original plan
is represented by red lines painted on the floor, which also explain the divisions of families
within the old house (H. Ma & Wang, 2016).

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AZL’s design incorporates the use of traditional Chinese Fengshui beliefs, in which design
affects the fortunes of those living in a building, and this is managed to maximise good fortune.
For example, the height of the columns, number of purlins, orientation of the gate and form of
the roof are expected to affect the life of people who occupy the building. In this case, a hipped
roof was adopted, instead of a pitched roof, because neighbours believed a pitched roof would
bring them misfortune.

AZL’s architect stated that communication with villagers in rural China can be difficult because
the majority of families being consulted resist discussion when they hear that their houses will
be renovated for public use. However, Zhang Lei argued that cooperation with villages is
required during every step of a project, so the project can successfully meet the village’s needs.
He stated that this difficult conversation is part of the challenge of the design (Hardy et al.,
2015, p. 43).

The projects in Daijiashan Village

Unlike typical rural development projects in China, in which old buildings are demolished and
new architecture is built in their place, the rural renewal projects in Daijiashan Village by AZL
renovated two adjacent abandoned vernacular buildings into a library and café to offer the
villagers a place for reading, learning and gathering.

Figure 6. 7 A courtyard between the two renovated buildings in Daijiashan Village.

Source: (K. Wang et al., 2017).

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Figure 6. 8 A modern timber structure corridor before (left) and after (right).
Source: (K. Wang & Zhang, 2016b).

Figure 6. 9 The construction process of the new ‘brick box’ as a service space.
Source: (K. Wang & Zhang, 2016b).

Figure 6. 10 Sunshine, landscape and sunmao skills.

Source: (K. Wang & Zhang, 2016b).

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Between the library and café building, a new courtyard was created (Figure 6. 7), and the
buildings were connected through a new timber-framed corridor (Figure 6. 8). The buildings’
original rammed-earth walls were preserved as much as possible, and the roofs were restored
based on traditional construction methods. Internally, new ‘brick box’ masonry structures were
inserted into the existing vernacular buildings as an example of combined old and new fabric
in the adaptive reuse of buildings. This approach aligns with heritage principles for new
building work, which emphasise being able to distinguish between old and new building fabric
in any adaptive reuse (see, e.g., Australia ICOMOS 2013), and do not place new work in
competition with or imitation of original styles and techniques. With their independent
foundations, the ‘brick boxes’ act as both service spaces (such as stairs and toilets) and
structural strengthening components (Figure 6. 9). Structurally, the boldest change in this
design was the alteration to replace the upper part of the brick end gable wall with glazing,
while simultaneously raising the roof to allow daylight, air and landscape views into the library.
Existing timber pillars were extended 600 mm to support this change with traditional 榫卯
(sunmao) 35 wood jointing techniques (Figure 6. 10). The thermal comfort of the building was
increased by adding insulation between the roof tiles and ceiling, and installing double-glazed
windows to replace the original single-glazing (K. Wang & Zhang, 2016b).

Analysing Zhang Lei’s vernacular renovation projects

Zhang Lei’s two projects are good examples of conserving the social value of vernacular
heritage through the adaptive reuse of abandoned houses, with new functions for both
communities and tourists. The inclusion of this social agenda propels the projects into ‘semi-
vernacular’. These two adaptive reuse projects aim to activate community interaction and
recreate a sense of belonging among the neighbours within the village. The schemes also offer
a prototype for the future development of vernacular villages, based not on style, but on the
social and cultural meanings of the buildings. The original family whose house was converted
into the library space have revisited their home place and expressed that they have vivid
memories of their home, despite its renovation (Hardy et al., 2015, p. 43). Despite the personal
loss of a place for the previous owners, this adaptation is believed to help sustain the building’s
intangible place identity regarding its position within the entire village.

In the seminar held by Urban Environment Design, artist and curator Ou Ning argued that,

35
榫卯 (sunmao) is the traditional Chinese system of timber wood joints.

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since people’s lifeways have changed in the contemporary era, it is impossible to return a
building to an obsolete function; thus, a new function must be incorporated to sustain a
vernacular architecture revival (Hardy et al., 2015, p. 46). He provided an example of a village
building called a citang—a public building used for worshipping ancestors and holding
ceremonies and other events, which typically lies idle and loses its original function as young
people migrate to cities. This phenomenon highlights the changes in social development that
affect the buildings required, which provides a new challenge in rural areas that implies a need
to change the function of village buildings. Huang Yinwu (2012), the architect and manager of
Shaxi Village regeneration, emphasised that architecture exists to accommodate people’s lives;
therefore, it needs to provide a better and more comfortable built environment.

While I argue that there is great potential in the semi-vernacular approach taken by AZL
architects, and I acknowledge that extensive research—including the vital perspectives of local
residents following the changes to the villages—is lacking in current analyses. Very little
information is available on how these buildings have been received within their communities,
with most critiques focusing on each reviewer’s own perceptions of style and building
contributions to a local and global architectural dialogue. A move away from a stylistic-based
critique of buildings and towards critiques that incorporate the reception of the buildings by
the local community is essential to acknowledge the importance of both social sustainability
and place identity as valuable elements in village renovation projects.

Conclusion: Rural revitalisation through ‘semi-vernacular’

Architects in China have become increasingly aware of and responsive to the problem of losing
traditional Chinese architectural culture and place identity because of pressures from rapid
urbanisation in formerly rural areas. The reaction to these issues has seen two noteworthy
approaches implemented across some important architectural practices, which I have
categorised as neo-vernacular, reflecting a visual-based approach to vernacular village
refurbishment, and semi-vernacular, reflecting an adaptive reuse approach with the goal of
social sustainability. To discuss these new categories in detail, we analysed the works of AAS
(neo-vernacular) and AZL (semi-vernacular).

While a comprehensive analysis of the social sustainability of the village refurbishments was
beyond the scope of this analysis, this chapter aimed to categorise the architectural approaches
taken by two prominent Chinese architectural practices to understand the goals for and

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motivation of the work, as well as analysing some of the processes, outcomes and possible
effects on the village inhabitants. The work of AAS is particularly affected by the existing
architectural style of the practice, in keeping with trends towards a recognisable ‘starchitect’
brand, rather than focusing on concern for vernacular heritage—hence the categorisation as
neo-vernacular. In contrast, the village refurbishment projects of AZL under Zhang Lei aspired
to include more social sustainability in their building techniques, building use and consultation
with the community in the area before building. Further research to understand the long-term
consequences of the village refurbishments would provide greater detail on the success of these
approaches. Although the projects of AAS and AZL have different approaches for rural
development and revitalisation, from the perspective of preserving traditions—especially the
intangible skills of how to build using traditional techniques—and maintaining place identity,
I argue that AZL’s approach produces a stronger contribution to social sustainability and the
preservation of village life and culture. While AAS’s neo-vernacular work in villages has been
of undoubted benefit in enhancing the local tourism economy—through drawing attention to
the need for rural development and beginning to tackle the problem of ‘hollowed villages’—
but further steps must be taken by to maintain the place identity through community
involvement and the active use of villages. Zhang Lei’s semi-vernacular approach, involving
local traditions and local consultation, has demonstrated a new start in this field, and further
work—including research into its effectiveness—should be the next focus in this potentially
important area of village preservation.

Through working to conserve vernacular architecture in accordance with Australia’s The Burra
Charter, semi-vernacular architecture is significant because of its new focuses on human needs,
especially the needs of local communities. I advocate semi-vernacular adaptation as a possible
approach for the future development of Chinese vernacular villages because it protects not only
the tangible heritage, but also the equally precious and endangered intangible heritage—the
residents, who are the carriers of intangible cultural heritage in the vernacular setting. As a
specific method, semi-vernacular adaptation only applies when it helps bring economic
benefits to both villagers and investors, and achieves social sustainability, which requires
cooperation between economic and political incentives. Hence, the rural development of
vernacular villages in China requires architects to understand the local social systems, and I
contend that it is difficult to find a single and reproducible solution to address all the needs of
every village in China (Hardy et al. 2015, 47). Semi-vernacular adaptation as an approach
offers improved conditions for residents through renovation to contemporary standards, and

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aims to protect social values, including maintaining social networks, local memories and a
place where local residents grow, live and have strong attachments.

As Vellinga (2006, 81–83) discussed, traditions change to meet needs; thus, beyond preserving
heritage, the cooperation between architects and craftspeople offers opportunities for
developing new traditions during the process of semi-vernacular design. The development
process is valuable because it introduces new materials, technologies and construction skills to
traditional culture in consultation with residents and local builders, and produces a place-
specific, combined approach that adapts to people’s contemporary lives.

Although I promote semi-vernacular adaptation as a remedy for vernacular conservation, the

key point that semi-vernacular architecture is not only the design through reuse itself, but also
the process of determining the current needs of the local communities, aiming to solve
problems and meet changing needs, and acknowledging that these challenges and requirements
will vary across villages. Architects who undertake projects in the vernacular area should visit
and, if possible, live in the area for a period, and develop processes to determine the genuine
local concerns in detail. Since the success of semi-vernacular buildings in meeting their aims
of social sustainability, it is important to understand the different architectural approaches to
conserving its heritage, while simultaneously modernising and improving living conditions for
rural people.

Up to now, Chapter 5 and 6 have examined the national rural movements and architects’ new
rural practices respectively and depicts current issues and efforts in China rural revitalisation.
In the following parts, from Chapter 7 to 9, a historic canal town, Lili is selected as a case to
examine its place identity and how these identities would contribute to its revitalisation.
Chapter 7 will examine the historic cultural landscape as physical characteristics of place
identity of Lili at the urban scale; Chapter 8 will examine the vernacular house form and culture
as the place identity of Lili; Chapter 9 will follow the five indicators of the sustainable
community framework in Chapter 2 and will explain the social and psychological place
attachment of residents in Lili.

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Chapter 7: Morphologic Study of the Historic
Cultural Landscape in Lili

‘Natural space is not neutral: it evokes senses of place that impose direction
upon the lives of those who reside there, working in concert with the
historical-social sense of place within the community. The underlying
physical characteristics of place can inform and influence, as well as shape
our sense of place’.

(Dale et al., 2008, p. 268)

Introduction
To examine how the physical environment triggers a place identity that contributes to a
sustainable community and helps achieve social sustainability, visualising the physical
environment is the first step. The physical environment of the historic cultural landscape of a
rural historic town and village is a significant component to the identity of a place; thus,
Chapter 7 and 8 aim to understand the physical characteristics and transformation of the historic
cultural landscape at an urban and architectural scale (morphological/typological
characteristics) of the historic canal town of Lili in Suzhou, China respectively, while the social
and psychological place attachment in Lili will be explained in Chapter 9.

Based on the morphological theories, this chapter illustrates Lili’s morphological development
of the historic cultural landscape through examining historical maps and documents; mapping;
and using contemporary technology, such as 3D scanning and photogrammetry. Specifically,
this chapter introduces the development of canal and road systems in Lili, followed by the
development of built area expansion. The chapter then explains the changes in the urban tissue
and building patterns according to the historical background and land policies. Finally, the
chapter analyses the physical characteristics of the public space using the typological method,
based on four aspects: streets, lanes, banks and dock steps, and bridges. All these elements
together contribute to and compose the unique historic cultural landscape and place identity of
Lili.

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 Historic cultural landscape
As discussed in Chapter 2, the historic cultural landscape refers to not only the street views for
townscape but also the urban structure. The historic cultural landscape suggests ‘layers of the
physical components and patterns that distinguish cities, as well as the symbolic meanings,
sociocultural values, behaviours, and traditions that give rise to a collective local identity’
(Landorf, 2019). Townscape can be perceived by visual and tactile reception. While urban
structure can only be conceived in one’s mind as image flows by combining the full range of
multi-sensory information. Gordon Cullen (1971, pp. 17–20) explained that a four-dimensional
townscape will present in the mind if a time dimension is added, and produce the ‘serial vision’
(a series of images of the townscape) in mind to understand the urban structure and landscape
along with one’s walking pathways.

The uniqueness of the historic cultural landscape provides an identity to every location on earth.
Although place identity is usually discussed as a psychological term in environmental
psychology, I argue that place identity is composed of a place’s physical characteristics
(Stedman, 2003) and social (Twigger-Ross & Uzzell, 1996) and psychological place
attachment (Morgan, 2010), as argued in Chapter 3 (also see Figure 7. 1). Physical
characteristics exist independently and fundamentally, yet place attachment relies on human
social activities and emotions. Concisely, the historic cultural landscape of a place represents
its physical characteristics that connect people’s social activities, memories and emotions to a
particular place.

Figure 7. 1 Component of place identity.

Source: Drawn by the author.

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A unique historic cultural landscape corresponds to unique physical characteristics. For local
habitants, it is easy to distinguish the nuances of their homeland and other places because the
different visual inputs indicate the variety and complexity of a place (Lozano, 1974). This
familiarisation and ability to note the subtle differences in the physical environment derive
from the symbolic meaning and memories that built on long term residence to a place and
contribute to the psychological place attachment to the residents (Jivén & Larkham, 2003).

Although the linkage between the historic cultural landscape and physical characteristics is
unique, this does not mean that the historic cultural landscape leads to the same place
attachment among different people; rather, this attachment varies based on individuals’ life
experiences. Further, a unique historic cultural landscape can remind people of a similar
historic cultural landscape in another place in the world based on their experiences. For
example, although Kurashiki in Japan and Lili in the Jiangnan region of China both share some
similar features in the historic cultural landscape (Figure 7. 2), they are still different in some
detailed aspects, if carefully identified. However, residents who live in Kurashiki and visit Lili
would probably link Lili to their hometown, since they share a similar historic cultural
landscape.

Figure 7. 2 The photo of Kurashiki (left) and Lili (right).

Source: The photo of Kurashiki was from (Living + Nomads, 2017);
The photo of Lili (right) was taken by the author.

Like a ‘palimpsest’ explained in Chapter 2, a historic cultural landscape is a product of

landscape transformations throughout history (Vâlceanu, Kosa, & Tamirjan, 2014). The
homologous historic cultural landscape in the canal town of Lili is strongly based on the form
of building patterns—that is, the way the buildings are organised. In Lili, the building patterns
usually comprise shop-houses with street frontage and courtyard houses at the rear. Specifically,
the formation of the building pattern is based in its local ‘urban tissue’, which is an essential
concept in urban morphology that will be discussed later in this chapter. Urban morphology

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studies the relationships between urban tissue, building patterns and the public built
environment. These buildings, environments and other physical elements compose the unique
historic cultural landscape and Lili’s place identity.

Morphological research of the historic cultural landscape

The Dictionary of Human Geography defines a townscape as:

the observable units of urban form that can be mapped and classified. Early
work in urban geography focused on morphology—the patterns of land use
and built form (such as street layouts and building heights), and the processes
underpinning their evolution—with little reference to the visual appearance
in the landscape.

(Greory, Johnston, Pratt, Watts, & Whatmore, 2009, p. 764)

This definition admits that a townscape reflects the historic fabric rather than Petzet’s idea that
townscape only refers to the street facades (see section 2.8). This definition also informs that
morphology is a method for the research the physical characteristics of the historic cultural
landscape of Lili.

What is morphology
Morphology was initially conceived by German poet and novelist Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (Kropf, 2009; Wilkinson & Willoughby, 1962, pp. 167–184). It is the study of physical
form, principally of living things, yet also works of art. Its etymology is ‘morph-’, meaning
‘shape, form’ in Greek. Thus, generally, morphology is the study of form. The term
‘morphology’ has now been used in many fields. In biology, morphology can be subdivided
into external (eidonomy) and internal (anatomy), which refers to the study of the outward
appearance of organisms and the structure of inner parts (Wikipedia, 2017). ‘In linguistics,
morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to the branch of
linguistics that deals with words, their internal structure and how they are formed’ (Aronoff &
Fudeman, 2011, pp. 1–2). In the field of architecture, urban planning or urban geography,
morphology refers to the formal arrangement of a building or an urban area, including the
spatial composition and physical structure (Tzonis, 1992, p. 147).

From the last century, urban morphology emerged as an interdisciplinary field that studies the

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form of human settlements and their formation and transformation process. The morphological
study also seeks to understand the spatial structure, characteristics and development of
settlements within a metropolitan area, city, town or village by examining the patterns of its
components and the social and economic needs (Kropf, 2011).

A brief review of studies on urban morphology

In the urban context, morphology is research into the form of the built environment or built
form. In urban morphology study, there are two main prestigious schools36: the British school
and the Italian school.

• British school

The British school, founded by MRG Conzen (1907–2000), studies the urban form from the
perspective of settlement geography through an evolutionary approach by comparing the
historical maps of a place. Conzen’s contribution was his tripartite division of the urban
landscape into a ground plan (site, street, plots and block plans of buildings), building fabric
( a 3D physical form of the buildings) and land use (M. Conzen, 1960; K. Gu, 2010; J. W. R.
Whitehand & Gu, 2007). Conzen’s follower, the urban and historical geographer JWR
Whitehand, formed the Urban Morphology Research Group in 1974 and their research
contributes to the conservation and management of urban landscape (Moudon, 1997; J. W. R.
Whitehand & Gu, 2010).

The British school has coined and discussed many concepts, such as the ‘burgage cycle’, ‘plan
unit’ (M. Conzen, 1960), ‘fringe belt’ (J. Whitehand, 2001; J. W. R. Whitehand, 1988) and
‘urban tissue’ (Kropf, 1996). In the current research, urban tissue is a significant concept in
analysing the physical characteristics of urban form and structure. The British school broadly
covers morphological studies. Their research can be classified into six categories: the origin,
form and change of historical towns; agents and agency in urban landscape change; architecture

36
Another school of research on urban morphology emerged in France in the late 1960s, founded by architects
Philippe Panerai and Jean Castex, together with sociologist Jean-Charles Depaule, in the School of Architecture
in Versailles. The French school benefits from the social political discourse on urban life by sociologist Henri
Lefebvre and architectural historians Françoise Boudon and André Chastel. The French school’s research is
dispersive on urban morphology and widely relates to various disciplines, such as history, arts and planning
(Moudon, 1997). The research methods of the French school merged with those of the British and Italian schools,
as well as methods from other disciplines, which is too wordy and irrelevant to introduce here.

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and style; ideal and reality; conservation and physical form; and urban landscape management
(Larkham, 2006).

• Italian school

After World War II, the modernism ideology dominated the reconstruction of European
countries, emphasising rationalism, functionalism, and new materials and technologies. It
broke the connection with historical architectural culture and landscape. Living in a nation with
abundant architectural heritage, Italian architectural scholars introspect the loss of cultural
identity in modern architecture design and created ‘contextualism’ -based on the historic urban
and architectural context- from the Italian school, which was rooted in the work of architect
and scholar Saverio Muratori (1910–1973). As evidenced in Muratori’s early lectures,
architectural practice and competition in Venice, the concept of ‘contextualised architecture’
was the trigger for his academic ideas about the architectural organism and operative history
(Cataldi et al., 2002).

The Italian school proposes research on urban and architectural history to reveal the logic of
urban and architectural design to summarise the ‘architectural type’ and ‘building fabric’, and
inherit them to preserve cultural values. To understand the development of urban form, the
Italian school has proposed some significant concepts, such as ‘primary element’ and ‘basic
buildings’ (Caniggia & Maffei, 2001, p. 105). The former concept refers to monumental and
public architecture, while the latter refers to urban blocks as ‘background context’, as explained
in Chapter 3. Muratori’s ideas partly derived from Gustavo Giovannoni, who was a crucial
figure in heritage conservation in Italy (Zucconi, 2014); thus, the Italian school’s ideas can be
deemed an extension of conservation from architecture to the urban scale.

Muratori’s students and assistants developed his thought along several branches. Sergio Bollati
(1929–2000) and Renato Bollati (1929–2007) were mostly responsible for developing the idea
of the architectural organism,37 while Paolo Maretto (1931–1998) focused on preventing the
threat of modern architecture in historical areas during architectural restoration. Sandro
Giannini (1929–present) was an expert in territorial studies, who emphasise on the outskirts of
cities with a territorial interpretation approach and ‘he directed attention to the analysis of
“empty spaces” as opposed to “built-up” spaces’ (Cataldi et al., 2002, p. 7). Gianfranco

37
Muratori defined an architectural organism as the ‘formal unity of co-operating, cohesive and conspiring
structures, subject to transformation in space-time’ (Cataldi, 2014, p. 100).

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Caniggia developed Muratori’s idea of the ‘type’ to a typological method as a scientific
approach to undertake research on the built environment (Cataldi, 2014, pp. 108–111; Cataldi
et al., 2002).

The Italian school proposed a new approach to architectural and urban design, based on
understanding the built environment by examining its typological structure and the historic
evolution process (Kropf, 2009). Researchers in this school concern the built environment to
‘test’ the so-called ‘survey design’ method at the four levels of the same built environment
(architecture, building, urban and territorial levels). This school combines a typological method
in urban morphology; thus, they are also called the ‘typomorphology’ school.

What morphology can tell us

Morphology is a living palimpsest of urban structure that witnesses the evolution process of a
place and determines the historic cultural landscape. Urban morphogenesis is continuous and
explains the transformation of a place through the changes in its built form (Marzot, 2002). As
a living heritage, it is the foundation of the historic cultural landscape, is the palimpsest of a
place, and generates the place identity (Guy, 2006). Morphology contains more values than the
two-dimensional urban form. The process of the urban evolution itself has value because it
helps us understand the causes of the historic cultural landscape of a place—both natural and
human. Morphology, as a generator of place identity, links the past to the present and future.

How to understand the physical characteristics of a historic

cultural landscape

Morphological research methods

This chapter contributes to understanding the physical and morphological characteristics of Lili.
It introduces the morphological features in both residential plots and public space. The natural
environment lays the foundation for the morphology of a place. The natural environment
includes topographic, climatic and other natural resources. The human environment develops
and modifies the morphology of a place. The human environment includes social, cultural and
ideological backgrounds (Ahmad, 2006).

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To understand the distinctive morphology of Lili, historical maps, documents, literature and
oral history were collected to examine Lili’s history and geographic features. Diachronic
mapping will show the changes in the canal and transport systems in Lili. After introducing the
natural and infrastructural characteristics, mapping diagrams are adopted to explain the
changes in the urban tissue in residential plots. Thus, to describe the physical features in public
areas, this chapter applies advanced technologies, such as 3D scanning and photogrammetry.
The following section will introduce these technologies used to archive the physical
characteristics of the place.

Approaches for archiving historic cultural landscape

• Traditional: survey, mapping and drawing

The architectural survey, mapping and drawing with tape measures, sketchbooks and pencils
are traditional approaches to archive historic cultural landscape. Later, laser range finders are
used as an alternative for a tape measure. The formats of the results of the historic cultural
landscape archive change as well, from hand to digital drawings and even rendered files.

• Photogrammetry

Photogrammetry offers modelling methods through images and videos (Carvalho, Mateus, &
Ferreira, 2014). Yilmaz, Yakar, Gulec, and Dulgerler (2007) explained the significance and
strength of architectural documentation and preservation by using digital close-range
photogrammetry. Photogrammetric software can recognise overlapped images and produce a
digital model, which is an efficient and safe way than traditional measuring methods in heritage
building restoration. Photographs and videos can record the vernacular heritage and the
relationships between buildings, public spaces and people, which helps during the analysis of
the physical and social space. Beyond that, with the help of video-to-JPG converter software,
videos can be cut into overlapped photographs; then importing these photographs to Agisoft
Photoscan, a photogrammetric software, will export point clouds as a digital model.

Photogrammetry is a better solution when applied to large open-site modelling. In the current
research, through using an unmanned aerial vehicle to capture photos or videos, I have obtained
a top-view model of Lili, with the aid of Agisoft software.

• 3D laser scanning

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In the field of cultural heritage, the 3D scanning technique can help digitalise sculptures,
antiques, architecture and landscapes with their surrounding built environment. For built
heritage, two categories of laser scanner are often used: static and mobile. Static scanning is
also known as terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), while mobile scanning includes aerial or
vehicle-borne laser scanning and handheld scanning.

According to the published works related to scanning, TLS is the most commonly used
technology and is older and more established. However, this technology is time-consuming in
capturing a large-scale site because the terrestrial laser scanner takes around 15 minutes to scan
at one station, and each scan requires several stations. As a result, although the scanning
produces high-quality point clouds, the efficiency is low. Thus, TLS is difficult to adapt to
fieldwork that requires a broad area for scanning. TLS is widely used in heritage documentary
and 3D visualisation. For example, the Parthenon and its sculptures were digitally
reconstructed (Stumpfel et al., 2003), and the historical monument of A’Famosa in Melaka,
Malaysia, was scanned and digitally rendered (Chee Wei, Siew Chin, Majid, & Setan, 2010).

Although the result of point clouds produced by TLS is accurate, the file size is usually large
and is commonly used as an archival dataset, rather than for the spatial analysis on an urban
scale. Further, TLS is suitable for open spaces, not rural historic towns and villages with
hundreds of narrow lanes, because the scanner needs to be moved for next scanning according
to several presupposed positions after each scan, and the different positions require a visual
connection to position the point clouds. Tait, Laing, Grinnall, Burnett, and Isaacs (2015, p. 420)
scanned Elgin High Street in Scotland, and argued that ‘laser scanning and visualisation
provide a novel and engaging mechanism for co-producing heritage assets’, yet required a long
time and large data files. Scholars from Nanjing University used TLS technologies to scan the
façade of a historic district, which helped in its later urban design and regeneration (X. Sun &
Ji, 2009). This regeneration project scanned two straight avenues to reduce the reposition times
of TLS; thus, many lanes full of vitality were ignored. In China, Cheshmehzangi, Ch’ng, and
Adkins (2015) argued scanning is helpful in understanding the heritage and rural communities
in the case of ZouMaTang, Suzhou, China. These projects offered a digital database for
preservation or archaeological studies, yet did not offer deeper analysis based on the point
clouds of the outdoor environments.

Aerial scanning involves scanning with an unmanned aerial vehicle and is usually undertaken
from a remote distance to record heritage sites with a large area or information about a

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geographic terrace. Vehicle-borne laser scanners are highly efficient for large-scale spatial data
collection, yet difficult to use in areas that a vehicle cannot enter or is not permitted to enter
because of privacy and security. The equipment for aerial or vehicle-borne laser scanners is
expensive, heavy and complicated, which is unsuitable for fieldwork.

A handheld mobile scanner helps to scan at an urban scale through walking and holding the
scanner. It helps measure irregular places. For example, Dewez et al. (2016) mapped ‘an
underground quarry and its above-ground surroundings’. Although handheld scanners are not
as accurate as TLS, the point clouds it produces are sufficient to output the plan and section for
urban research. With the help of a handheld scanner called ‘Zebedee’, researchers from
Australia captured a large, complex cultural heritage site on an island, and collaged the point
clouds to map this area (Zlot et al., 2014). The ability to scan via a walking route makes the
handheld scanners suitable to record the spatial information of rural historic towns and villages
with narrow lanes and paths.

• The combined use of photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning

Relying on the relatively high accuracy, researchers often use 3D scanning technology to
capture artistic works, mining caves or single buildings; however, it is not useful for large areas
of built environment because of its low efficiency compared with photogrammetry. Therefore,
recent research has employed an efficient and flexible approach that combines photogrammetry
and scanning (Barsanti, Remondino, & Visintini, 2012; Boehler & Marbs, 2004; Kadobayashi
et al., 2004; Lambers et al., 2007; Nuttens, De Maeyer, De Wulf, Goossens, & Stal, 2009). For
example, Remondino et al. (2009) used laser scanning and photogrammetry to model the Maya
site of Copan heritage for visualisation, with a resolution spanning from 5 cm to 3 mm. Barsanti
et al. (2012) document the remaining city walls of the ancient Byzantine in Friuli Venezia
Giulia, Italy through 3D surveying and modelling approach and concluded that
photogrammetric techniques will produce incorrect results if the images acquired improperly.
These projects highlight the significance of selecting suitable tools to capture spatial
information to meet the research aims safely and efficiently.

In this research project, I used the Zebedee Zeb1 handheld scanner (model: Zeb1, borrowed
from UQ) and DJI 4 Pro (borrowed from Nanjing University) to capture the physical spatial
information of Lili.

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 Advanced technology in the fieldwork of this research
The combined use of photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning helps to illustrate the morphologic
structure of the lanes and their relationship with the building patterns. Photogrammetry offered
an efficient way to build an entire 3D model of Lili (see Appendix D) to examine the
relationship between the vernacular houses and street/lane patterns, and to understand the
spatial structure of the place. Specifically, the method included using a drone to generate an
aerial video of Lili, extracting photos from the video every three seconds. I could then add and
align these photos in Agisoft software. Agisoft automatically positions the viewpoint of the
camera of each photo and generates a low-density and high-density point cloud model (in E57
file format) can then be exported into CloudCompare. However, the camera on the drone cannot
illustrate the lane structures under house roofs, although it can capture aerial photos on a large
scale within a short time. Thus, as a complementary method, a handheld 3D laser scanner
captured spatial information along the researcher’s walking pathways.

In the fieldwork, 3D laser scanning technology helped measure and visualise the 3D scene by
capturing Lili’s physical environment (street, lanes, vernacular housing and other physical
settings) in point clouds. In this fieldwork, a Zeb1 handheld scanner was employed for the
following reasons. First, it allowed me to measure a massive area of a historical town in a
limited time. In only one and a half weeks, I scanned approximately 70% of the public streets
and lanes in the historical area of Lili during the first fieldwork, which allowed me more time
to interview the residents. Second, as an easy method for an independent researcher, 3D
scanning avoids the disadvantage of requiring a group of people, as needed in traditional
surveying and measuring of historical architecture or districts. Third, the results of the 3D
scanning measurements are multi-purpose—they are not only restricted to a master plan or an
elevation. The point clouds can be edited in certain software—for example, CloudCompare
software can produce a plan, an elevation, a section, an axonometric view and even a
perspective view. One can rotate the point clouds, and the perspective of any angle of view is
easy to show on the screen, which is difficult to draw manually. Finally, 3D scanning records
nuances that can hardly be noticed by a human. For example, the nuanced fluctuation of the
ground level can be accurately recorded with this technology.

However, The Zeb1 scanner has three defects:

• The scanning route must be a closed-loop within 20 minutes; otherwise, the results may
deviate or encompass errors;

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• From a walking human’s viewpoint, the spatial information above the roof of buildings
cannot be captured; and

• Point clouds data produced by Zeb1 lose the colour information of the environment.

When the point clouds are imported into digital modelling software, they are all shown as black
dots, which is less recognisable for making an editable digital model. Considering this defect,
the point clouds should be colourised to enable better visualisation. After trying several
visualisation modes, colourising according to the height of the points offered the best result.

The scanning results from the Zeb1 scanner need to be processed online before modelling.
After processing, the point cloud file is imported into CloudCompare, and the point clouds are
matched based on their overlapping area. The LAZ file exported from Agisoft is then imported
into CloudCompare, and the point clouds from the laser scanner and photogrammetry are
matched and merged together to visualise the relationship between the urban structure,
vernacular houses and street/lane patterns in a direct manner.

Physical characteristics of Lili’s historic cultural landscape

According to the Conzenian evolutionary approach, historical maps were necessary and
significant for analysing the development and changing process of the historical town of Lili.
However, obtaining maps of Lili was not easy because the archive and documentary department
of Lili’s government has been unstable and has lost many precious documents. During the last
150 years, Chinese territory experienced the governance of the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of
China and People’s Republic of China. Beyond that, after the People’s Republic of China was
established in 1949, the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and local precinct change led to
chaos in the archives and documentary management.

During this research, I have collected maps of Lili from different periods that displayed
information with varying degrees of detail. Regarding the evolutionary approach, all these
maps should be converted to the same platform at the same scale to analyse the development
process of the place for later comparison and research. Based on visualising the changes from
the maps and from the oral history of the local people, a history of the development of Lili is
presented in the following text.

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 Mapping the physical changes in Lili

• The changing canal and shipping system of Lili

Lili was developed from Lihua Village, which is the original name of Lili. Lili lies to the east
side of 太湖 (Taihu) [Taihu Lake] basin in the Jiangnan region, which is a wetland area. Lakes,
reservoirs, rivers, ponds, swamps and canals are spread all over this area. This particular
geographic environment renders waterways Lili’s principal transport system and even the entire
Jiangnan region. As a result of the high density of waterways in the Jiangnan region, the area
is renowned for its mixed natural and cultural landscape, and known by almost every Chinese
citizen from north to south and east to west as ‘Jiangnan canal towns’.

The water current in Lili comes from 牛头荡 [Niutoudang Lake] in the west of the town and
flows towards the east. The central canal in Lili is called 黎川 (Lichuan) [Lili Canal], which
forms a ‘T’ shape. In the early Qing Dynasty, a type of forced army settled in a town was called
‘汛 (xun)’. Lili Xun had several checkpoints under the bridge at the end of each branch of the
canal, with ‘栅 (zha),’ a timber fence, to secure the town from invasion. The gates usually
opened at 7.00 am and closed at 7.00 pm. These checkpoints were still active and played a
pivotal role in defence and security during the period of the Republic of China (1912–1949)
(H. Li, 2013, pp. 10–11).

To clarify the changes that have occurred to the canal system, six maps of Lili have been
collected from various time periods (Figure 7. 3). The maps from 1805, 1898 and 1950 were
obtained from a local informant and scholar, Li Meimin. The map from 1982 was obtained
from Needham Library in Cambridge, UK. The digital maps from 2012 and 2018 came from

158
 Figure 7. 3 Changes to canals and water areas in Lili.
Source: Drawn by the author based on the historic maps.

the local urban planning institute. Comparing these maps, I use green marks to show some new
canals emerged and red marks to show some old canals disappeared (Figure 7. 3).

Through carefully comparing and scrutinising the maps of Lili in 1805 and 1898, I identify that
the water area increased and encroached on the sedimentary polder (Figure 7. 3). The water

159
and canal areas may have increased to support more ships stopping at the east end of the town
for trading and commercial activities. This conjecture relies on the local chorography 黎里志
(Lili zhi), published in 1805, which states that Lili was a town for grain and silk trading, and
that the local economy was growing steadily:

每日黎明，乡人咸集，百货贸易，而米及油饼为尤多

Every dawn, people are crowded on the street for trading. The most common
products are grains (rice) and local pancake.

小家妇女多以纺纱为业，衣食皆赖之，故纺绩之勤较他处为独盛

Spinning is the main income of the housewives in Lili. All their life
spendings rely on it, so that the industry of spinning is more prosperous than
in other places.

有割蜂蜜于春间，舟楫络绎，往各处价买割取，分别地界，世以为业

Beekeepers collect the honey in spring and ship it to another place to sell.
Every beekeeper has their selling boundaries and this career continues
generation after generation.

——《黎里志·风俗》 (Lili zhi· fengsu) [Customs in Lili]

Then, in the map from 1950, the canals changed slightly, with three small differences detected.
Two more canals appeared in 染字圩 (Ranzi wei) and 墨字圩 (Mozi wei) and one small creek
disappeared in the east of 木排浜 (Mupai bang) (Figure 7. 3).

In 1958, to drain off the floods and support shipping trades in Jiangnan region, the national
government promoted the 太浦河 (Taipu he) [Taipu Canal] project, which would connect Taihu
Lake and 黄浦江 (Huangpu jiang) [Huangpu River). This new 190-metre-wide canal changed
the shipping transformation system from using sculling boats to the larger steamships. The need
for the dock to support trading steamships altered the water area in Lili. In the map of 1982, it
is easy to see that the northeast corner of 发字圩 (Fazi wei) was replaced with water so that
more cargo ships could lie alongside the quay.

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 Figure 7. 4 The change of 傅家浜 (Fujia bang) in 1982 (left) and 2017(middle, right).
Source: Screenshot from the movie The Go Masters (1982); the middle photo was taken by the author; and the
right one was taken by Li Meimin.

During the last 30 years, the booming development of ground vehicles and highway networks
reduced the travel time between most Chinese cities and their surrounding suburb areas. This
development created great economic entities and city clusters. Lili is located in the Yangtze
River Delta city clusters and was involved in these great economic changes. Filling the canals
for vehicle road pavement was inevitable for land transport, which was required for regional
business and more suitable for local economic growth. In addition, as the real estate market
opened, the construction of apartments required more land. All these changes were illustrated
in the recent digital map in 2012 (Figure 7. 3), in which numerous canals had vanished and the
northeast quay had been filled in to build apartments. In late 2017, to recover the historic
cultural landscape for tourism purposes, two main branch canals—浒泾 (Hujing) and 傅家浜
(Fujia bang)—(Figure 7. 4) were excavated again. The communal and commercial activities
in Wujiang area relied on waterway transport system for a long time, before vehicles came to
act as the primary mode of transportation.

Yuan Mei, a poet from the Qing Dynasty, wrote a poem to depict his visit to Lili by invitation
of Xu Dayuan’s family:

吴江三十里，地号梨花村。

There is a place called Lihua Village, 15 kilometres away from Wujiang.

我似捕鱼翁，来问桃源津。

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 It seems I was the fishing man who visits the Taoyuan Port.38

花草有静态，鸟雀亦驯驯。

Flowers blossom silently, and birds sing happily.

从无夜吠犬，门不设司阍。

Dogs never bark at night, and doorkeepers are never required.

长廊三里复，无须垫角巾。

A covered corridor continues 1.5 kilometres; a towel is not necessary to

wipe off the raindrop.

家家棹小舟，目不识车轮。

Each family owns a boat, but almost no vehicles are there.

——《黎里行》(Lili xing) [A trip in Lili]

Yuan’s poem illustrates that the primary transportation mode in Lili was boating. According to
the Wujiang Yearbook, it was in 1906 that the first steamship sailed from Shanghai to Tongli in
Wujiang. This number increased to reach 70 ships by 1947 (Wujiang Chorography Office,
2014). Given that the ships voyaged with a fixed route, some affordable and flexible sculling
taxi-boats took residents to places they wished to visit.

38
Taoyuan Port is a place derived from the story of Peach Blossom Spring, which depicts a Utopian country life
in China.

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 Figure 7. 5 Canal system and waterways around Lili.
Source: Google Earth, edited by the author.
There are three main waterways for trading that are relevant to Lili (Figure 7. 5). First, the
China Grand Canal 39 , originally constructed for trading purposes, promoted the economic
development for cities and towns nearby and prospered Jiangnan region (Y. Cheng, 2008). It
directly travels through the historic town Pingwang, which is six kilometres to the west of Lili.
Second, the old Changjing-Huzhou-Shanghai Canal flows through the downtown area of Lili,
which is the principal way that Lili directly connects with the outside world. Third, the Taipu
Canal, excavated in 1958 and finished in 1970, flows through the north of Lili. In 1970, a new
canal linked Pingwang and Taipu Canal and offered a wide and efficient waterway for cargos;
thus, the east line of the Changjing-Huzhou-Shanghai Canal that flowed through the downtown
area of Lili was replaced and lost its trading function (Wujiang Chorography Office, 2014).

39
Also known as the 京杭大运河 (Jing-hang dayunhe) [Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal], a UNESCO World

Heritage Site. This canal was developed based on 邗沟 (Han Gou) [Han Conduit] since the late Spring and Autumn
period (770–476 BC). The Grand Canal today were largely constructed during the Sui dynasty (581–618) that
linked Beijing and Hangzhou, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, and it also connected cities and towns
along the canal, which leaded to a migration from north China toward south China. The Grand Canal helped the
transport of grain to the capital throughout its history.

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• The changing road system of Lili

Figure 7. 6 Qingping Highway across north Lili in 1969.

Source: USGS, EarthExplorer.

Figure 7. 7 Road system around Lili in 2010.

Source: Google Earth, edited by the author.

Compared with the prosperous waterway transportation, the highway and railway system in
Wujiang started at a slow pace. In 1928, Japanese invaders forced the local residents to build a
road for the Japanese army that connected Pingwang and Lili, which opened in 1929 as the first

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road for vehicles in Lili. Coaches shuttled between Pingwang and Lili from 1945 for less than
a year, as a result of damage to the Xuehu Bridge. After this, the road was abandoned because
there was no urgent need for a ground traffic system and no departments were obliged to repair
the bridge (Wujiang Chorography Office, 2014).

After the People’s Republic of China was established, the new Qingping Highway was
constructed to link Qingpu40 and Pingwang in 1966, and passed across Lili (Figure 7. 6). This
highway was upgraded in 1995 to a national highway with the serial number G318. In 2002,
the Su-jia-hang Expressway from Suzhou to Jiaxing and Hangzhou was completed through the
west of Lili. In the next year, the Su-tong-li Expressway opened through the east of Lili, while
the Hu-su-zhe Expressway opened later in 2005, located in the north of Lili (Figure 7. 7). To
protect the original historic cultural landscape of the vernacular built environment of Lili and
create a pedestrian-friendly area, in 2020, the government plans to upgrade the road system
surrounding the historical area (Figure 7. 8). To preserve the historical context, motor vehicles
will not be permitted to enter the historical area in the future.

Figure 7. 8 Lili’s planned road system in 2020.

Source: Digital map from local urban planning institute, edited by the author.

40
Qingpu is a district in the far west of Shanghai.

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• The changing built area of Lili

The map of Lili in 1982 illustrates that the originally constructed area of Lili was limited
(Figure 7. 9), which is now the historic core of Lili. Memories for the local Lili residents are
attached to the historic core and the characteristic historic cultural landscape in the historic core
of Lili has attracted urban tourists by offering them exotic visual and life experience compared
with their urban lifestyle.

Rapid urbanisation during the last three decades erased the historical urban patterns in many
rural historic towns and villages. Although Lili’s historical pattern was well preserved in the
historical town, urban sprawl has also occurred around its historical areas (Figure 7. 10). The
Google Earth maps of Lili and its surrounding areas from 1984 to 2014 illustrate this
astounding development at a larger scale (Figure 7. 11).

The development of a place has an active relationship with its historical background. As an
essential channel, the first stage of the Taipu Canal was completed in 1960, passing north of
Lili, and many factories and warehouses were built along the Taipu Canal (L. Li, 2007, p. 91).
This canal offered Lili the first chance to develop northwards. However, the Cultural
Revolution disturbed the development of Lili and other cities and towns in China. After the
Cultural Revolution, in the 1980s, Lili redeveloped northwards because the freight transport
changed from the Lili Canal to Taipu Canal. The original Lili Canal in downtown Lili was
almost abandoned. In 1995, constructions even moved to the north of Taipu Canal for a better
location alongside the renovated Qingping Highway, which connected Shanghai, Suzhou and
Jiaxing. Construction work proceeded slowly until the twenty-first century when rapid
urbanisation occurred.41

41
This sudden acceleration in urbanisation is relevant to Chinese real estate policy. Before 1988, houses and
apartments were distributed to residents by renting or buying with a low price from their employer, according to
their family size. In 1998, the State Council of China published《关于进一步深化城镇住房制度改革加快住房建设的通

知》[On Further Deepening the Reform of Urban Housing System to Speed Up the Housing Construction], which

declared the cancellation of housing distribution and developed real estate properties. Professor Zhao Yanqing
from Xiamen University explained that the promotion of the real estate market originally aimed to absorb the
excess currency created in the 1990s (Y. Zhao, 2014). However, the amazing profits in the real estate market
caused uncontrolled construction of housing and other infrastructure, which has led to many social issues today
as a chain reaction, such as the notorious ghost cities in China.

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To condense administrative departments, a policy that encouraged merging towns to enable
better management was published in Jiangsu (C. Chen, 2001). In 2003, Jinjiaba town, Shenta
town and Luxu town merged as a new town, called Luxu. Similarly, Beishe town and Lili town
joined to be the new Lili. In 2006, the new Luxu and new Lili merged again into a new town,
Fenhu. Located to the east of Lili, Fenhu is a new district, as the administrative centre of the
five historical towns. Fenhu is a new town that did not exist before 2006, and began
construction around 2002 with a fantastic speed that exceeded the other historical towns.
Similarly to the way that Shanghai attracts Suzhou to develop eastwards, Fenhu has drawn Lili
to expand eastwards since 2010 (Y. Gu, 2014).

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 Figure 7. 9 Map of Lili in 1982.
Source: Drawn by the author, the base map was collected from Needham Library, Cambridge University.

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 Figure 7. 10 Map of Lili in 2016.
Source: Drawn by the author, the base map was collected from Needham Library, Cambridge University.
Note: Colour blocks are filled according to the digital map from the local department of urban planning.

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Figure 7. 11 Development of Lili and its surrounding areas from 1984 to 2016.
Source: Google Earth, edited by the author.

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 Mapping the urban tissue of plots in Lili

• Urban tissue and its theory

During the design process, the urban context is frequently considered from the architectural
and urban design perspective, which determines the historic cultural landscape to some extent.
In urban morphological studies, the urban context has many similar terms, such as ‘urban
tissue’, ‘urban texture’, ‘urban fabric’, ‘urban context’, ‘urban grain’ and ‘urban form’. Kropf
(1996, 2014) stated that urban tissue is a hierarchical combination of all the elements of an
organic system, encompassing streets, plot series, plots, buildings, rooms, structures and
materials (Figure 7. 12). He further concluded with a diagram to illustrate the hierarchy of
urban tissue and argued that the concept of urban tissue is sufficient to identify and describe
the morphological characteristics of a place—especially a historical town.

Before the discussion of Lili’s urban tissue, it is important to define the distinctive meanings
of some similar terms in case of misunderstanding. In this chapter, ‘urban tissue’ is restricted
to the division of land property comprising plot series and then plots. A ‘building pattern’ is a
two-dimensional building occupying area on the urban tissue, while the ‘historic cultural
landscape’ refers to 3D buildings and any other immovable natural or built environmental
elements (e.g., rivers, canals, trees, antenna masts, lawns and other items) on the land.

Figure 7. 12 Hierarchy of the concepts in morphological studies.

Source: (Kropf, 2014).

• The urban tissue in Lili

The urban tissue in Lili is composed of a series of plots. In the urban morphological study, the
plot is a crucial concept (M. Conzen, 1960; J. Whitehand, 2001), as the arrangement of plots
determines the streetscape, townscape and historic cultural landscape. From the morphological

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perspective, the hierarchy of an urban area can be seen at different scales of resolution (Kropf,
1996), such as street block, plot series and plots. A street block is an area enclosed by the street
(Figure 7. 13).42 As the first level of urban tissue, the street block is the area partitioned by
motor roads or highway. The street block is then subdivided into plot series.43 A plot series is
composed of a series of plots (Figure 7. 14).

In essence, a plot is the boundary of individual property that includes private access to homes.
In the Muratori school, Caniggia and Maffei identified a plot (lotto) is ‘a regular piece of land
for building use’ as the module of the urban tissue (Caniggia & Maffei, 2001, p. 247). A plot
series is a collection of plots with shared routes and squares for all proprietors. However,
between several plots or plot series, if there is a public route or space that does not belong to
any of them, this public area (route or square) should be set individually and equal to the same
hierarchy as the plots or plot series around it. For example, if there is a public route between
two plot series, it should be drawn as an element at the same level as the plot series.

Based on these rules, the map of Lili can be drawn in layers of street blocks, plot series and
plots (Figure 7. 15). According to the mapping diagram, there is a change in the urban tissue
of the historic core and the new district in Lili. In the historic core, the plots are easy to
distinguish, while, in the new district, the plot series and plots are almost impossible to separate.
This canal-side area is divided into as many narrow plots as possible because the interface
along the canal holds economic value, and is often used as a shop-house. In addition to the
economic factors, the Chinese vernacular building technique and architectural hierarchy
system are other reasons determining the shape and size of the plot and the narrowness of its
interface. In China, dwelling buildings are only permitted to be constructed in three 间 (jian)
[room] in timer structure.44 Timber components come from trunks of trees at a length of three

42
Kropf (2014) concluded that Conzen’s definition of a street is limited to the public highway defined by ‘street
lines’ (the boundary between plots and the public highway), meaning the pathway of the street itself. In contrast,
Caniggia and Maffei’s street is composed of a route with a plot series along each side.
43
Both the Conzenian and Muratorian schools admit that a plot series is a composition or aggregate of plots.
However, for Conzen, the plot series is only part of the plot pattern, without a route alongside each plot. Conversely,
Caniggia and Maffei from the Muratorian School considered that the plot series should contain a route to each
plot.
44
In Chinese traditional architecture, ‘jian’ refers to the room between two timber columns along the street or
entrance interface (also used as ‘room’ in Chapter 8). For example, if a building has four columns along the street,
it also has three ‘jian’. The width of a building is based on the social status of a family, which is normally restricted
in three rooms (Ma, 2018).

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to ten metres; while the length of the timber component used in vernacular dwelling houses is
usually short. For example, the length of a timber purlin equals the width of a jian (use ‘room(s)’
instead in the following text)—around three metres in Lili. The width of a plot in Lili is about
eight to 10 metres, and composed of three ‘rooms’ and a side entrance lane. The number of
‘rooms’ determines the size of a building and represents the hierarchy of buildings in China as
a form of etiquette. Officials’ houses are allowed to build to five to seven ‘rooms’, while
civilians (even wealthy families) are only allowed to build a house to three ‘rooms’ (S. Liu,
2014, p. 28). Although the width of civilians’ housing is restricted, the depth of housing is
relatively unrestricted, which has shaped the strip-type of plots. In Lili, the strip-type of plots
range from 40 to 100 metres in depth direction, so that the plots are adequate to build a group
of courtyard houses for families to live.

Figure 7. 13 Relationship between Conzen’s street and a street block.

Source: Edit by the author from Kropf (2011).

Figure 7. 14 Hierarchy of urban tissue (buildings not included in urban tissue according to the author’s
restriction).
Source: Edit by the author from Kropf (2011).

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Figure 7. 15 Lili’s street block, plot series and plots. Source: Drawn by the author.

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• Building patterns

Building patterns are the building arrangements on plots. Although the existing maps of Lili
are not quantitatively and qualitatively detailed to show the change over time of plot
development in a specific plot, the buildings in various plots at the same moment can be used
for synchronic analysis. The form of urban tissue has a direct effect on the town’s building
patterns. The building patterns in five selected areas (A/B/C/D/E) in Lili are shown from a
synchronic perspective in 2016 in Figure 7. 16.

Figure 7. 16 Figure ground diagram of building patterns in five residential areas of Lili.
Source: Drawn by the author.

Site A is located in the central area of the historic core of Lili, and represents a clear relationship
between the plot boundaries and building patterns. Building patterns of Site A are mainly
existing vernacular buildings that were built before the 1950s and even the late Qing Dynasty.
Site B is at the edge of the historic core area, and reflects an ambiguous boundary between the

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informal settlements and unclear plots. These buildings were built after the 1950s that replaced
those vernacular buildings; and recently, there were some shabby houses and auxiliary rooms
constructed in Site B to meet the changing needs to the owners.

From Site C to Site E, the building patterns reflect the socio-economic historic background in
different eras. In these sites, there is no concept of plots, but only collective plots—a large site
shared by all residents, or simply regarded equally as a plot series. Sites C, D and E show high-
to medium-density building patterns, respectively. Compared with Site D, Site E illustrates a
relatively high greenery ratio. According to an interview with local aged residents, at the
planned economy era, houses on Site C built in the 1960s to 1970s are two- or three-storey
buildings that distributed for local workers with low price. When building industry developed,
six-storey apartments on Sites D were built in the 1980s as affordable apartments for local
workers at the end of the planned economy era. After housing marketisation after 1998, new
eight- to eleven-storey apartments on Site E were built as commercial apartments with a better
greenery environment.

• Land policy and change to the urban tissue

As indicated by the figure of the building pattern, regarding morphological features, there is an
apparent distinction between contemporary residential buildings and courtyard housing in the
historic core area. In Lili, wealthy families built their houses according to the laws of the
architectural hierarchy and formed the building patterns. According to the coincidence between
the plots and house boundaries, we can infer that the plot appeared after the first courtyard
houses and their descendants renovated or reconstructed the houses based on the original
boundaries. The relations between families and their property boundaries changed at three
different historical stages, as discussed below.

During the first stage (before 1949), in the historic core of Lili, a three- to four-generation
family usually occupied one plot, with approximately 15 to 30 people, including their servers
and housekeepers. They were relatively wealthy compared with the farmers around Lili. These
wealthy families with grand courtyard houses were defined as a ‘landlords’ who were expelled
after the People’s Republic of China was founded when the land policy moved into a second
stage.

During the second stage (1949–1997), the ‘landlords’ were expelled and almost every courtyard
house was confiscated by the local government, leaving the ‘landlord’ families with only one

176
or two rooms in which to live. To avoid further political campaigns and denouncement, some
‘landlords’ escaped to other areas or even overseas with their families and descendants. As a
result, the ownership of these houses dramatically changed, which was a national-wide
phenomenon. New immigrant families shared courtyard houses and private plots. Unlike other
areas, which transferred or sold the property rights of the confiscated houses to individual
immigrants or farmers, the Lili government retained ownership of the majority of houses,
which were primarily leased to immigrant workers who worked in Lili factories (L. Li, 2007,
p. 92).

Commonly, an entire courtyard house is composed of four to five timber-structured buildings.

Each building has two floors, with three rooms on each floor. Workers, craftspeople, traders
and other immigrants would apply for rooms according to their number of family members.
The rent was based on the area of the rooms; the more rooms a family needed and occupied,
the more rent they paid. Later on, in the 1980s, some families purchased the property rights
from the government and obtained ownership of part of the houses. The concept of a private
plot of land was replaced by invisible property boundaries based on rooms. At this stage, the
original private plots were shared as collective plots. Resident Xu Guoqiang (2018) told me
that a typical immigrant family with three to six members usually applied for two to four rooms
in which to live. As a result, a typical building with six rooms was occupied by two to three
families. An entire plot was occupied by approximately eight to 15 families. Neighbouring
families shared a courtyard between buildings as the kitchen, laundry and playground. However,
living in the vernacular buildings was displeasing because the rooms were narrow and crowded,
and there were no private toilets or kitchens for families. As a result of this requirement,
residents were happy to accept to live in a new apartment, which led to the third stage.

During the third stage (1998–present), the concept of the private plot evaporated with the
development of real estate properties in the form of apartment districts. The entire residential
district within the same fence can be regarded as a neighbourhood with a grand collective plot,
similar to a plot series. However, a plot series does not equal a collective plot. A plot series is
composed of a series of definite plots and can be split into separate plots, while a collective
plot cannot be divided. A collective plot contains a series of buildings and the collective shared
exterior space within it. Unlike the buildings that coincide with plot boundaries in the historic
core, apartment buildings in the new residential district have a direct yet unclear spatial
relationship with the collective plot because of contemporary construction standards and
requirements, such as the requirements of daylight and the minimum fire safety distance. This

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problem is encountered in much of the modern urban fabric, as ‘constructed space no longer
corresponds to the plot’ (Levy, 1999).

Historic core

New apartments

Figure 7. 17 One ‘family unit’ in different stages.

Source: Drawn by the author.

Regardless of the building form, the second and third stages are somewhat similar regarding
the ‘family unit’ because, in both these stages, residents shared the land and houses or
apartments, while private land properties were prohibited (Figure 7. 17). An entire plot in the
first stage for one family was regarded and used as a collective plot in the second stage for
several immigrant family units sharing a courtyard house. Similarly, new apartments in the
third stage were constructed on a massive collective plot shared by a more extensive community,
rather than a small number of families. In essence, the second and third stages were both in a
high-density residential mode, although some family units rented rooms in the second stage.

Physical characteristics in public space in Lili

Morphology studies more than two-dimensional plans; it includes the entire physical
environment of a place. This section will analyse the physical features of the public area in Lili,

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including its streets, lanes and other detailed elements.

• Street

Lili Canal is T-shaped, with several branches attached to it, and the main street of Lili is parallel
to the canal. A series of sections depict the physical characteristics of the main street. Based on
the point clouds from the first scanning fieldwork, the following map (Figure 7. 18) displays
the positions of the 18 sections (Appendix E) that depict various street spaces with the point
clouds data from the Zeb1 3D laser scanner.

The streets in Lili have two types: waterfront street path and inner street path (Figure 7. 19),
according to their relations to the canal. As its name indicates, the waterfront street path refers
to the street directly alongside the canal, while the inner street path is the street isolated by
some buildings away from the canal—for example, the left part of Section H-H. The waterfront
street path has two subcategories: open street path and corridor street path. The open street path
is a street without a corridor or colonnade—for instance, see Section A-A. Sometimes, the open
street path will expand the width of the street to create a square for public events—for example,
see Section K-K. Conversely, the corridor street path is a street with a corridor shed that divides
the street space into two parts—for instance, see Section E-E.

Compared with the other water towns in the Jiangnan region, the street in Lili is relatively
simple. Professor Duan Jin from Southeast University in China summarised some typical street
sections in Jiangnan water towns (Duan, Ji, & Wang, 2002). Referencing his street sections, I
discovered six types of sections that still exist in Lili (labelled with blue dots in Table 7. 1) and
two types of 骑楼 (Qilou)45 that existed in Lili before the regeneration (labelled with orange
triangles in Table 7. 1).

45
Qilou is a type of architectural form to describe buildings with rooms above the pathway on the ground floor
(see the section of Qilou in Table 7.1), which is normally used as a shophouse.

179
 Figure 7. 18 Positions of street sections. Source: Scanned and drawn by the author in 2017.

Figure 7. 19 Street section examples of open street path (A-A; K-K), corridor street path (E-E) and inner street path (H-H).
Source: Scanned and drawn by the author in 2017.
Note: More street sections are attached in Appendix E.

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 Table 7. 1 Typological Analysis of Street Sections

Type Waterfront Street Path Inner Street Path Waterfront and Inner
Street Path

Open

Corridor

Qilou Not found in the fieldwork

Connected Not found in the fieldwork Not found in the fieldwork

Qilou

Eave- Not found in the fieldwork

overhanging

Mixed Not found in the fieldwork Not found in the fieldwork

Source:(Duan et al., 2002). Blue circle: still exists in Lili; orange triangle: existed in Lili in the past; the remainder
exist in other canal towns.
Note: The existing types of paths with blue circles were proven by the author’s fieldwork. The disappeared paths
marked with orange triangles were based on the residents’ memories and proven by Li Meimin.

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• Lanes

As the built heritage that represents a particular lifestyle, lanes are special features in a Jiangnan
water town that embodies strong physical characteristics, especially in Lili. Lanes locate
between Lili vernacular houses and play the role as ‘in-between space’ (defined in Section 3.4.1)
that direct paths linking houses and the main street. Previously, lanes were used for servants
and casual guests. According to the official statistics, there are 115 lanes in Lili. Lanes are
categorised into 25 bright lanes and 90 dark lanes (H. Li, 2013, p. 66). In general, a bright lane
is a public space of the town. Two sides of a bright lane are boundaries of different families. A
dark lane was included in a plot of a family for private use in the past (before 1949). Bright
lanes are lanes without coverings, while dark lanes are covered. The coverings are the timber
floors or roofs of the houses that extrude to the top of a lane from the house. Based on the
coverage area, dark lanes are classified into partly- and fully-covered lanes (Figure 7. 20). The
roofs of the wing-rooms do not always extrude over the lanes and form partly-covered lanes.
At times, there are no wing-rooms, so no wing-room roofs cover the lanes. Fully-covered lanes
connect to the corridor shed and protect pedestrians from the rain.

The problem with dark lanes, as the name suggests, is darkness. Builders of the past created
lattice windows aimed towards the atrium to enable daylight at regular distances. Once the
courtyard houses were redistributed and shared by new immigrant families after 1949, the new
residents built informal constructions in their atrium that shaded the lattice windows as the
unique light source for the lanes, as the lanes and the atrium were adjacent and shared the same
walls. To illuminate the lanes, residents used glass to replace some roof tiles to let daylight in.
Although the brightness of moonlight is inadequate to lighten the dark lanes, there exist
additional artificial lighting facilities. While passing through the lanes, I noticed some alcoves
embedded in the walls at a regular distance, usually six to nine metres. During the fieldwork,
Xu Guoqiang (2018) informed the author that these alcoves are places to set oil lamps to lighten
the lanes (Figure 7. 21). In addition to the darkness, the lanes are also narrow. The broadest
lane is East Cai-Jia Lane, which is 1.6 metres, while the narrowest lane is Fan-Jia Lane, which
is 0.7 metres. The depth of a lane is dictated by the courtyard houses at its side.

182
 Figure 7. 20 A bright lane and partly- and fully-covered dark lanes.
Source: Photo by the author.

Figure 7. 21 Covered lattice window, glass-roof tiled lane, electrical lighting and oil lamps in the alcoves.
Source: Photo by the author.

According to the review of ‘place’ in Chapter 3, as a narrow traffic space, lanes should be
considered a ‘non-place’ (Augé, 2008, p. 63). However, narrow lanes in Lili promote social
interactions because of their narrowness, as they extrude and compress space and push
residents to communicate. The narrowness plays a vital role as a starting point or trigger in the
social network because it is the only route through which residents get in and out, which creates
opportunities for them to greet each other. With an increasing number of families moving in,
lanes became public and dynamic traffic places among neighbours. As well as the atrium—the
social space shared by families in the same building—lanes are a string that connects the
atriums and families on either side. The connection enhances social cohesion and creates a ‘串
门 (Chuanmen)’46 culture, which represents peaceful, harmonious and intimate social networks.
Children are the beneficiary of this particular physical environment. As stated by Cheng

46
Chuanmen means casually visiting one’s neighbours, friends or relatives.

183
Liangquan (2018), the retired president of Lili middle school, ‘Friends in childhood getting
together and playing games leaves me an unforgettable impression’.

The lanes also contribute to security. Each lane connects the main street along the canal and
the back street. On the two connection sides and at each building entry, there is a stone frame
and thick door. A deep hole (100 mm × 50 mm) was reserved for a timber bolt, which is slightly
longer than the width of the door. When doors need to be locked, the timber bolt is extracted
until it inserts into the hole on the other side of the wall (Figure 7. 22). Xu Guoqiang (2018)
recalled that, in the 1960s to 1970s, adult community members would guard the lanes, with a
red sleeve on their arms to indicate they were on duty. At night, they would lock the doors to
ensure the security of the neighbourhood.

Figure 7. 22 Timber bolt to maintain the security of the neighbourhood.

Source: Photo by the author.

Lanes in Lili are rarely straight. Along with the irregular plot boundaries, the lanes that connect
the side doors were constructed in an accordant irregular way. Space enlarges at certain turning
points to avoid the conflict of doors opening at the same time and to enable movement of large
pieces of furniture. Beyond that, the enlargement also offers a place to regulate the air pressure,
which avoids the freezing wind in winter and brings the sunlight to the dark lanes at certain
intervals (Figure 7. 23). As stated by an old saying: ‘darkness protects wealth’(H. Li, 2013, p.
69). In the past, the side entrance of a house was usually hidden in a dark place to protect wealth
or to enable escape when invaders intrude. For example, during the late period of the Japanese
invasion, the Japanese army intruded into the lanes to seize villagers. However, they were
defeated because the villagers set many traps in the dark and irregular lanes, which terrified the
invaders (H. Li, 2013, p. 70).

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 Figure 7. 23 Turning point in New Kuai-Jia Nong, Lili.
Source: Photo by the author (above); Scanned and drawn by the author (below).

With the help of advanced measuring techniques and combined use of 3D scanning and
photogrammetry, the relationships between the lanes and houses are visualised in Figure 7. 24.
All these scanned areas are the public routines in Lili, which contain the following features.

185
 Figure 7. 24 Combined use of scanning and photogrammetry technology to display the lanes in Lili.
Source: Scanned and drawn by the author.

First, to some extent, the fishbone-style lane network reflects the plot boundaries in the historic
core. Precisely, the outside boundaries of the lanes stand on the plot boundaries, which means
these lanes are commonly located on one side of a plot and never lie in the middle, which is an
effective way to use the land for building. However, there are a few lanes at the centre of this
area, which are occupied by some reconstructed public museums. As a civic building, the side
lanes do not need to exist. For those preserved areas, lanes are commonly on the right side of
the main entrance. Only a few houses have lanes on the left side or both sides—such as the
house of Qiu’s family. In particular, houses at the north of the canal contain a lane on the east

186
side, while houses at the south of the canal contain a lane on the west side. This phenomenon
is because of traditional values in China, in which the left side is more honourable.

Second, almost every dark lane has a turning point. The point clouds rendered the master plan
of the lanes in Lili elaborately, which showed the turning points clearly.

Third, the lanes tend to be connected at both ends, which link to form a complicated lanes
network. The lanes network usually occurs around newly constructed buildings because the
plots for the new house incompletely cover the original plot and route, so that a quick path
around the buildings is necessary and convenient to connect to the main street and other lanes.

Lanes in Lili have a special feature called ‘Bu-Bu-Gao’, which means ‘step by step’ and creates
higher ground levels (H. Li, 2013, p. 69). This feature is not only a blessing term, but has a
practical function. The altitudes of the lanes are lower when closer to the canal, and vice-versa;
thus, the steps or slopes in the lanes are used for water draining. However, although one can
feel the slope qualitatively, measuring and visualising the slope is difficult. Thus, 3D scanning
offers a highly efficient way to capture and present the section of the lanes. Four lane-sections
are printed as examples in Figure 7. 25. At the lowest point of each lane section—usually the
edge of the main street—a blue line is drawn to represent the altitude of the standard elevation
of the lane. Between the blue line and floor of the lane, the blue colour is filled in to represent
the underground area. The thickness of the blue area illustrates the change of altitude of the
lane. These four lane-sections show that the lanes are not only downwards to the canal, but also
downwards to the opposite side, which used to be a canal as well. It indicates that the highest
point is sometimes in the middle of a lane. Point clouds also offer an easy way to measure the
height change of lanes from sections. The incomplete statistics of the height and length
fluctuation of the 24 lanes in Lili (see Appendix F) indicate that the average gradient of the
lanes is around 2.5%.

187
Figure 7. 25 Sections of lanes in Lili. Source: Scanned and drawn by the author.

188
• Banks and dock steps

The canal bank is higher than the water surface, so dock steps are necessary for residents to
reach the water to wash dishes and laundry. Boats stopped at the dock steps for traders or
passengers to land. According to the author’s fieldwork in 2017, along with the central canal,
more than 19047 dock steps are still distributed in the historic core of Lili, even though some
have disappeared because the canal branches were filled during the last decades. These dock
steps are closely linked. Measured in CloudCompare, the minimum distance of two adjacent
dock steps is two metres, and the maximum is 56 metres (Figure 7. 26).

Based on the fieldwork, I have summarised two basic types of dock steps in Lili. Dock steps
sometimes combine the two basic types and develop to six variations existing in Lili (Figure 7.
27). The two primary types are Type A (steps perpendicular to the canal) and Type B (steps
parallel to the canal). Type B has two subcategories: Type B1 (two attached Type B) and B2
(two opposite Type B). The distinction between Type B2 and two separate Type B is ambiguous.
To differentiate these two types, I define that, if the distance between the two lowest steps is
less than two metres, the two dock steps can be regarded as Type B2. The combined use of
these simple types of dock steps constitutes three relatively complex styles: Type A+B, Type
A+B1 and Type B1+B2. Two attached Type A+B compose a further Type (A+B)1. A diagram
is presented below to illustrate the relationships between these dock steps.

47
Li Meimin informed me that, according to historic documents, there were around 300 to 500 families in
the Yuan Dynasty, so he deduced that the number of dock steps in the entire Lili area should be more than
300.

189
Figure 7. 26 Distribution of dock steps in Lili.
Source: Scanned and draw by the author

190
 Figure 7. 27 Typological research on dock steps in Lili.
Source: Drawn by the author.

According to incomplete statistics based on aerial photos and videos taken during the author’s
fieldwork, the number of each type of dock step is listed in Table 7. 2.

Table 7. 2 Statistics of Dock Steps.

Source: Drawn by the author

Type A B B1 B2 A+B A+B1 B1+B2 (A+B)1

Number (N) 4 36 19 3 6 42 1 1

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From the table, we can see that Type A+B1 (N = 42), Type B (N = 36) and Type B1 (N = 19)
are the most common dock steps in Lili. In contrast, the complex Type B1+B2 and Type
(A+B)1 are rarely used. From the 3D scanning documentation in CloudCompare, I find that
Type A only exists alongside a public square because it occupies more areas of the main street
than the other types of dock steps.

• Bridges

Bridges play a significant role in connecting communities along the two watersides in a canal
town. There were around 30 bridges in the ancient time of Lili. Today, some bridges have
vanished or been rebuilt because of changes in the traffic system from the waterway to the
motorway, and retrofitting and broadening the bridges for bicycles, motorcycles and vehicles.
Thus, 16 bridges still exist. Of these 16 existing bridges, twelve of them are old bridges that
maintain the historic style (eight are authentic as ancient times, and four of them were rebuilt
in the Qing Dynasty). The other four were rebuilt on or close to their original site, yet their
appearance has changed. To specify these bridges, the names of the bridges are labelled in the
map above ( Figure 7. 28) and their information is presented in Table 7. 3.

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 Figure 7. 28 The distribution of bridges in Lili.
Source: Drawn by the author based on Lili historic map 1805.

Table 7. 3 Information about the Bridges in Lili.

Source: Drawn by the author based on local history.

Number Name Type Year Meaning, Legend, Story and

Comment
(other names)

1 Gumu Bridge Beam-bridge A Standing on the bridge and

(Wangping Bridge) * viewing Pingwang

2 Zilai Bridge Beam-bridge A First built around A story of praying for children
* 1368 to 1398

3 Wang’en Bridge Arch-bridge First built in 1526 The unique bridge with a
(Tingzi Bridge) pavilion in the past time

4 Qingfeng Bridge Beam-bridge A First built in 1537 A story about a monk’s gratitude
(Puning Bridge; to Lili and praying for a harvest
Xinfeng Bridge)

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 5 Mingyue Bridge Beam-bridge B Rebuilt in 1299 The earliest bridge in Lili,
(Yangjia Bridge) named after a couple’s names in
Yuan Dynasty

6 Liren Bridge Beam-bridge B A story about benefiting the

(Baojia Bridge) neighbourhood, named after the
Bao family because of their
donation

7 Jiegui Bridge Beam-bridge B Rebuilt in 1883 A story about the imperial

examination, meaning welcome
to elites

8 Tongxiu Bridge Arch-bridge First built in 1563 A story about a woman who lost
and rebuilt in 1798 her husband and son, and then
rewarded the community that
offered her concern and help

9 Daling Bridge Beam-bridge A First built in 1265 There used to be two Miao
(Miao Bridge) and rebuilt in 1477 (temples) on the two sides of the
bridge

10 Dingxin Bridge Arch-bridge * First built in 1560, Praying for harvest and progress
(Dingfeng Bridge; demolished and
Lixin Bridge) rebuilt Lixin
Bridge in 1977 for
vehicle transport

11 Jindeng Bridge Beam-bridge B Praying for achievement,

(Xiajia Bridge) donated by the Xia family

12 Tiyun Bridge (Tang Beam-bridge B Rebuilt in 1773 Praying for achievement

Bridge) and 1894

13 Daonan Bridge Arch-bridge First built in 1712 Donated by Chen Yongnian for
and rebuilt in 1897 the first build, and rebuilt by all
the community members

14 Yingxiang Bridge Beam-bridge A First built in 1441 Donated by the Ru family

(Rujia Bridge)

15 Qinglong Bridge Arch-bridge First built around A story about mothers’ love
(Jiangjia Bridge; 1477 to 1487
Xiangjia Bridge)

16 Taiping Bridge Arch-bridge * Praying for peace

(Dongfeng Bridge)

Note: * refers to the deductive type of original bridge based on the marks on the map ( Figure 7. 28), which was
demolished and reconstructed. Beam-bridge A is a bridge with a beam structure without wing walls, while Beam-
bridge B has wing walls. All other information was collected from Guzhen Lili [A Chinese Village, Lili] and Lili
Zhi [The Chorography of Lili].

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 Figure 7. 29 Three bridge types.
Source: Photo by the author.

Bridges in Lili are categorised into three types (Figure 7. 29). The first type is an ‘arch-bridge’,
constructed with a semi-circle arch. The second type is ‘Beam-bridge A’, which is supported
by two piers, with each pier composed of four to five post stones. The third type is ‘Beam-
bridge B’, which is supported by a wing wall on two sides. In the map of Lili from 1805, we
can still note the symbol of these types of bridges. The author used Photoshop to match these
symbols with the bridge types.

Jindeng Bridge and Tiyun Bridge now belong to ‘Beam-bridge B’, while, from the marks on
the map, we can speculate that they used to be a ‘Beam-bridge A’ type. This deduction is
supported by the carving on the bridge decks, which states ‘Chongxiu Tiyun Qiao’ [‘Rebuilding
Tiyun Bridge’] and ‘Chongxiu Jindeng Qiao’ [‘Rebuilding Jindeng Bridge’]. The change of
Jindeng Bridge on the map of Lili from 1805 and 1898 is other evidence. According to research,
Tiyun Bridge was reconstructed twice, in 1773 and 1894 (H. Li, 2013, p. 41). Similarly, Daling
Bridge, Daonan Bridge and Qinglong Bridge were rebuilt.

Regardless of how these bridges were rebuilt, they were still constructed in these three basic
types and illustrate traditions in construction skills. In Jiangnan water towns, bridge decks are
higher than the banks on both sides, which means that a slab-bridge does not exist. All types of
bridges in Lili enable both a connection of the north and south bank sides, and the transportation
of boats under the bridge via an opening greater than two metres in height.

Conclusion
Morphological characteristics -physical characteristics at the urban scale- determine the
historic cultural landscape, which is the tangible cultural heritage of a place. To preserve
heritage value, it is necessary to understand the process of the development and features of a
place. In terms of modern urban morphological problems, the original systematic urban fabric
that links various elements (plot, street, constructed space and open space) is changing into an

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open fragmented urban fabric, in which atomised elements are mutually isolated (Levy, 1999).
To respect the existing historic cultural landscape, it is necessary to continue the regular pattern
of specific physical characteristics of a place that carries the place identity.

In this chapter, I have first examined the history and morphological characteristics of Lili’s
historic core area, from its development of transportation systems to the built area. I then
introduced the urban tissue theory to map the change of urban plots, plot series and street blocks
in Lili. Finally, I explored the physical characteristics of public spaces (streets, lanes, banks
and dock steps, and bridges) with advanced measuring techniques, and analysed them with the
typological method. All these morphological characteristics of the historic cultural landscape
contribute to the physical aspect of Lili’s place identity.

Through comparing the urban tissue and building patterns in Lili historic core and new district,
we can discover that demolition and rebuilding is a direct cause, yet not the root cause, of the
complete loss of physical characteristics of the historical and vernacular town. Preserving the
urban tissue of the town is a prerequisite for preserving the urban pattern, the historic cultural
landscape, and the place identity. At the same time, a historical town is living heritage, not a
static system, so that it should always develop into a new appropriate mode that carries its place
identity.

House form also plays a significant role in composing the historic cultural landscape. In the
following Chapter 8, I will examine the vernacular house form in Lili as physical characteristics
and culture that contribute to the place identity through a typological study. Since social and
cultural development drives the physical changes of house form in a place, Chapter 8 will also
discuss the relationship between the adaptation of house form and local cultural and social
lifestyle.

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Chapter 8: Typological Study of the House Form
and Culture in Lili

Introduction
The physical characteristics of a historic cultural landscape are composed of both urban and
architectural scales within which are embodied the heritage values and identities of a place.
Chapter 7 introduced the history and change of the physical characteristics of Lili from the
urban scale based on historic literature, chorography and maps by applying morphological
analysis with digital technologies.

Following analysis the historic cultural landscape from the urban scale, this chapter aims to
conduct research of the house form in Lili from the architectural scale to represent the special
physical characteristics of the Lili courtyard houses and also discuss its relationship to the
culture and social life in Lili. Influenced by its socio-cultural context in different eras, this
chapter argues that the house form is an internal principle and a prototype that designed to fit
with cultural and social norms and everyday activities of a place. The house form informs Lili
courtyard building construction that shapes the local historic cultural landscape. The historic
cultural landscape is not limited to public streets and squares, but also encompasses the
landscape embedded in house form and daily life. The house form socially and culturally
sustains the life of a community and creates living heritage by merging the community and the
built environment.

To analyse the house form and culture in Lili, this chapter applies typological research methods
with diagrams and 3D scanning technologies to explain the architectural characteristics of the
house form and type. During the fieldwork, more than 40 Lili courtyard buildings in Lili were
inspected and seven of them were scanned with 3D scanning technology (see Appendix G).
Simultaneously, the social and cultural background is introduced to explain the life and social
activities in the houses according to the fieldwork interview. This information will help scholars,
visitors and the government understand the value of the house form as tangible and intangible
heritage that support the place identity and community life in Lili.

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 House form in Lili

Plots, lanes and houses

Before changing the discussion of physical characteristics in Lili from the urban scale to the
architectural scale, I would explain the relationship between the Lili urban landscape and its
courtyard houses. In Chapter 7, I explained the characteristics of the urban tissue in Lili that is
composed of a series of plots. In the traditional era, a plot in Lili is normally occupied by a
series of courtyard buildings with a private lane at the side of the plot as private property in the
first stage (before 1949). Private lanes can be partly or fully covered to restrict light to enter
and are known as ‘dark lanes’, while public lanes, shared as public routes and situated outside
a plot, are usually uncovered and bright.

Figure 8. 1 Relations between plots, lanes and Lili courtyard buildings.

Source: Drawn by the author.

In the first stage, families entered their homes from the front gate, while during the second
stage the private and public lanes offered side entrances for the new immigrant families.
Because of the lanes and side entrances, a single vernacular building with a courtyard became
a simple courtyard unit for two to three shared families (Figure 8. 1). Since the vernacular
courtyard house is composed of several vernacular buildings with courtyards (‘Lili courtyard
house’), the research on house form should start with a single courtyard building (‘Lili
courtyard building’).

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 The plan of a Lili courtyard building in Lili

For research of the house form in Lili using the typological method, a prototype of a typical
Lili courtyard building should be defined as the start-point. The prototype will be explained
with a series of diagrams to simulate the processes of design and variation of complicated Lili
courtyard buildings that illustrate the design principle of the house form in both plans and
sections. This section focuses on the plan of a Lili courtyard building.

Timber framework: Lili courtyard buildings, like other traditional Chinese buildings, are
typically constructed in orthogonal timber framework. In the orthogonal plane-coordinate
system of a timber framework prototype, there are two dimensions, X (width) and Y (depth).
In the X direction, timber framework of a Lili courtyard building is composed of several pieces
of timber trusses and the space between two adjacent timber trusses is defined as a ‘room’, the
minimum unit in the width of a building. In the Y direction, the span of the timber truss equals
the total horizontal distance between every two roof purlins, called the ‘step’, the minimum
unit in the depth of a building. Thus, the prototype of the timber structure is defined as X1Y1,
which means the width value of the framework is one ‘room’ in the X dimension, and the depth
value of the framework is one ‘step’ in the Y dimension (Figure 8. 2).

Figure 8. 2 'Room' and 'step' as the minimum unit of a traditional Chinese architecture.
Source: Drawn by the author.

Variations appear when the prototype changes its width from X1 to Xn. The ‘n’ refers to the
number of ‘rooms’ and has two special features. First, according to traditional Chinese culture,
‘n’ is usually an odd number rather than an even number (even numbers of units usually appear
in emperors’ tombs). Second, ‘n’ normally ranges from 1 to 11 in traditional Chinese
architecture, representing the social hierarchy of the family; the larger the number of rooms,
the higher up in the social hierarchy the family’s position (C. Zhao, 2000). In the case of

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courtyard buildings in Lili, the maximum ‘n’ can only reach 5, and n = 3 (X3) is the commonest
building type (Figure 8. 3). That is, a building of three rooms with the largest house having 5
rooms.

Variations also rely on the change of the depth from Y1 to Ym. The ‘m’ refers to the number
of ‘steps’, or the number of spaces between the roof purlins, which will be explained in detail
in Section 8.2.3. Normally, the number of ‘rooms’ (n) does not equal the number of ‘steps’ (m)
of Y, which forms a rectangle room rather than a square room in plan (Figure 8. 4). As explained
and n = 3 (X3) is the commonest building type, to make diagrams simple and clear, the building
type X3Y2 in Lili will be used as the basic type to represent other XnYm buildings in the
following paragraphs.

In the case of courtyard buildings in Lili, the values of X in one single building can be different.
For example, the middle room of the X3Y2 sometimes has a different width to those units on
both sides, which forms three subtypes (Figure 8. 5).

In some of the Lili courtyard buildings, porches are attached to the front and/or back of a
single/multi-storey building to create a semi-outdoor space (Figure 8. 6).

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Figure 8. 3 Prototype X1Y1 and its variations XnY1.
Source: Drawn by the author.

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Figure 8. 4 The number of ‘rooms’ (n) in ‘Xn’ does not equal the number of the ‘steps’ (m) in ‘Ym’.
Source: Drawn by the author.

Figure 8. 5 Different X values in one building.

Source: Drawn by the author.

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 Figure 8. 6 Porches in single/multistorey buildings.
Source: Drawn by the author.

Walls: As the timber framework is the common structure in most East Asian buildings, walls
only act as the wrapping system rather than a structural component. According to the fieldwork,
walls of the Lili courtyard buildings are constructed with timber materials or bricks. Except
when used as an inner space division, timber walls are only used at the front or back surfaces
where timber doors are to be installed, while brick walls are used in both side surfaces and
front or back surfaces.

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 Figure 8. 7 Possible positions of wrapping walls and porches.
(*X means the type is not found in Lili)
Source: Drawn by the author.

Based on the position of the wrapping walls and the porches, there are 20 possible models and
seven of them were founded in Lili (Figure 8. 7). The matrix diagram illustrates the possible
relationship between brick walls (wrap on one/two/three/four sides of a building) and the four
types of porches (no porch/porch at the back/porch at the front/porches at front and back sides).
According to the fieldwork investigation, the deductive building types show the following

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features:

• Brick walls wrapping on one side of the building do not exist.

• Brick walls wrapping on two sides (left and right) of the building adapt to the porches
both at the front and back.

• Brick walls wrapping on three sides (Type A: one side at the back) of the building exists
when there is no porch at the back.

• Brick walls wrapping on three sides (Type B: one side at the front) of the building do
not exist.

• Brick walls wrapping on four sides of the building when there is no porch on either side.

• When there is a porch at the front and/or back of a building, brick walls do not emerge
at the corresponding position.

Courtyard: Since each plot in Lili is a long narrow rectangle, houses in Lili are composed of
a series of courtyards and buildings to adapt to the site. Figure 8. 8 illustrates the possible forms
of courtyards. According to the fieldwork investigation in Lili, the courtyard may be shorter
than the width of the buildings with variations on side walls, but the front wall of the courtyard
is always parallel to the buildings. When the width of the courtyards equates to the width of
the buildings, the walls of the courtyards are flexible on each side. No courtyards are wider
than the width of the buildings, according to the fieldwork inspection and drone data analysis.
This result may be because the widths of the plots in Lili are within a conventional range and
there is a lane located at the side of the plot so that the width is not adequate for a courtyard
wider than the building.

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 Figure 8. 8 Forms of courtyards (*X means the type is not found in Lili).
Source: Drawn by the author.

Lanes: Lanes can be located at either side of the building, usually the right side. As explained
in Section 7.5.3, there are two categories of lanes: bright lanes without a roof that opens to the
sky and dark private lanes that are partly or fully covered. Dark lanes that are either partly or
fully covered may have a building floor or a roof above them. When the lanes are under the
cover of a floor, the area above the lane is had a building floor overhanging it (Figure 8. 9).

Side entrance: Lanes offer side entrances to courtyard buildings through two categories.

Normally, when there are no porches attached to the front or back of a Lili courtyard building,
a single side door is installed at the side wall next to the lane. When the building has a large
span in the Y direction and is used as a hall for worshipping, two side doors are installed at the
side wall next to the lanes. When there are two lanes on both sides of the building, the side

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doors are installed at both sides of the side walls (Figure 8. 11).

When there are porches attached to either the front or back of the building, the side entrances
are set at the side of the porches next to the lane (Figure 8. 10).

Figure 8. 9 Relations between Lili courtyard buildings and lanes.

Source: Drawn by the author.

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Figure 8. 11 Side entrances to the courtyard buildings without porches. Source: Drawn by the author.

Figure 8. 10 Side entrances to the courtyard buildings with porches. Source: Drawn by the author.

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Roof: The form of the roof is determined by the plan of the building. In Lili, a single building
of a courtyard house is normally composed of the main house building and single/double
attached 厢房 (xiangfang) [wing-room], which has two possible types of roof, a single or double
pitched roof.

The combination of the main house and xiangfang creates variations of the building plans and
roof types (Figure 8. 12). When the plot is narrow, the building would eliminate the xiangfang
or only have a single xiangfang to ensure enough space for a courtyard. Normally, the width of
a plot is suitable for the building to have a main house with double xiangfang placed
symmetrically to create an inner courtyard. Only public housing or a rich family that has higher
social status would have a main house with five rooms (n = 5) and triple xiangfang.
Additionally, xiangfang can be positioned on both the front and back of the main house to form
complex buildings.

Based on the investigation, some of the xiangfang share the corner column with the main house
as a combined structural system, while others are detached from the main house as an
independent structure (Figure 8. 13). The detachment of the xiangfang is implemented in five
approaches:

• Use a shared timber framework. ○

1

• Use an independent timber framework. ○

2

• Detach xiangfang from the main house with a porch. ○

3

• Detach xiangfang from the main house with a connection room. ○

4

• Detach xiangfang from the main house with a porch and a connection room. ○
5

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Single pitched roof Double pitched roof

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Figure 8. 12 The roof type of buildings with single/double/triple xiangfang. Source: Drawn by the author.
Figure 8. 13 The roof type of detached xiangfang and the main house.
Source: Drawn by the author.

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 The sections of a Lili courtyard building in Lili

In addition to the plan, sections can illustrate the spatial characteristics of the Lili courtyard
buildings from another perspective.

Figure 8. 14 Name of components in traditional and vernacular architecture in the Jiangnan area.
Source: (Hou & Hou, 2014).

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Timber Truss: Lili courtyard buildings have a structure similar to that of the traditional
Chinese timber framework. The book 营造法源 (Yingzao Fayuan) [Construction Principles in
Jiangnan Region] written by Yao Chengzu, completed in 1929 and published in 1935, records
the construction principles of traditional architecture in the Jiangnan area. Yingzao Fayuan
illustrates the name and size of each component in building construction (Figure 8. 14).

Table 8. 1 Name and size of each component in Yingzao Fayuan.

Source: (Hou & Hou, 2014).
Chinese name English name Circumference

大梁 Main beam 20% of its span

双步梁 Double step beam 70% of the main beam

单步梁 /金川 Single step beam 60% of the main beam

劄牵 /廊川 Connection beam 60% of the main beam

脊柱 Spine column 70% of the main beam

金柱 /步柱 Golden column 90% of the main beam

金枋 Golden connection 10% of the golden column

檐柱 /廊柱 Eave column 80% of the golden column

檐枋 Eave connection 10% of the eave column

脊瓜柱 Short spine column 80% of the main beam

金瓜柱 Short golden column 100% of the main beam

檩 /桁 Purlin 15% of the width of the room

From Table 8. 1 it is evident that the size of almost every component has a direct or indirect
conversion ratio with the circumference of the main beam. Moreover, the circumference of the
main beam is determined by the span of the building depth in the Y direction. This depth–span
relation matches contemporary structural principles, which hold that the span determines the
section size of the materials. The depth of the Chinese timber structure architecture is composed
of several ‘steps’, the horizontal distance between two purlins in the Y direction.

‘Step’ has changed its meaning in the Chinese language. In ancient times, ‘step’ was a unit of
length, referring to a distance walked by a person when both left and right feet were used to
complete a full cycle of the use of both legs. Today, a ‘step’ means a half step in the old
definition, that is the distance walked by a person from either their left or right foot to the other
foot (Figure 8. 15). An ancient ‘step’ plays a modular role based on the human scale in the
timber framework of Chinese architecture so that the number of ‘steps’, or ‘m’, becomes a
significant parameter.

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 Figure 8. 15 The meaning of ‘step’ in the ancient Chinese language.
Source: Drawn by the author.

As explained in the previous section, the timber framework of Chinese architecture is

composed of several pieces of timber trusses, and between two adjacent timber trusses there is
a ‘room’. Normally, the width of a building is restricted to three rooms between four timber
trusses to represent the social status of a family (P. Ma, 2018). However, the depth of a building
is not restricted, so rich families can construct buildings with timber trusses that have more
‘steps’ to show their wealth (X. Zhao, 2015).

The timber truss reflects the depth and height of a building, so a timber truss with more ‘steps’
would have a larger span and height (Figure 8. 16). The large span of a timber truss is supported
by a beam. However, the load-bearing capacity of a beam is limited, so when the beam is unable
to support the span of the truss, columns would be used in the timber truss to bear the load.

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Figure 8. 16 Timber truss with different ‘steps’.
Source: Drawn by the author.

Ridge purlin

Figure 8. 17 Central truss and edge truss.

Source: Drawn by the author.

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Timber trusses can be classified into two categories, a central truss and an edge truss (Figure
8. 17). The central truss is set in the usable space of a room, so it is usually constructed with a
thick, strong beam supporting the load of the roof rather than using a column in the room. The
edge truss is attached to the brick wall so that there is no space beyond the edge truss. Thus, in
traditional construction principles, craftspeople use a slim column, usually under the ridge
purlin, instead of using the unnecessary and expensive thick, strong beam to support the roof,
thereby saving on construction costs. According to the research in Lili, when the number of
‘steps’ or ‘m’ is over five, the central truss may also use columns on the side of the truss to
shorten the span of the beam and alleviate the load on the beam (Figure 8. 18).

Based on the fieldwork investigation, the typical vernacular timber framework in Lili is three
rooms in width (n = 3) and six steps (m = 6) in depth (X3Y6). All the Lili courtyard buildings
can be regarded as a variation on this type.

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Figure 8. 18 Variations on the central truss and the edge truss in Lili (*Step = 6 is the commonest type in Lili). Source: Drawn by the author.

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Stairs：Most Lili courtyard buildings in Lili have two storeys. Following the naming method
of ‘XnYm’, I will add ‘Zt’ to illustrate the storeys of a building that ‘t’ refers to the number of
the storeys of the building in Z (height) direction. Thus, the typical two-storey buildings in Lili
are X3Y6Z2. To connect different storeys, stairs are installed with the timber structure of a
multi-storey building.

Typically, the stairs are in two positions within the timber framework (Figure 8. 19). First, the
stairs are located at the back of the middle room behind the timber wall. This is normally the
case in the formal buildings used as a main living house, ceremonial or meeting space. Second,
the stairs are located at the back corner of the side room, which normally occurs in auxiliary
buildings. Beyond these typical cases, one of the reconstruction projects in Lili inserted a
connecting space with stairs to link two buildings and storeys (Figure 8. 20). The stairs help to
link different rooms and are shared by immigrant residents within the same building, enabling
the creation of a social interactive life mode in Lili.

Up to this section, I have used the typological method to examine the physical characteristics
of the house form in plan and section perspectives as the place identity in Lili in architectural
level. In the following section, I will discuss the relationship between house form and socio-
cultural life in Lili and answer the question ‘how do these factors [house form] contribute to
the development of the historic town of Lili?’

Figure 8. 19 Position of the stairs.

Source: Drawn by the author.

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Figure 8. 20 A connecting space with stairs in reconstructed Lili courtyard buildings.
Source: Edited based on the 3D scan data by the author in 2018.

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 The culture and social life in Lili courtyard houses

The division of the houses by families

House form is highly relevant to its social and cultural context and the changing socio-cultural
life in different periods may change the house form. A Lili courtyard house is composed of a
series of buildings with various uses, as part of a complicated system according to traditional
Chinese culture and rituals, such as an entrance hall, a main hall, several living rooms and
subsidiary rooms. As explained in Chapter 7, during the first stage (before 1949) these
buildings were occupied by wealthy land-owning families, while during the second stage
(1949–1997) these buildings were distributed to new immigrant families according to the
number of their family members.

Rapoport (1969, pp. 55–56) argued that family structure has its impact on house form. While
in Lili’s existing vernacular architecture, because of the change in the family structure, although
the house form was not changed, some of the original functions of the existing buildings were
changed and adapted to new use by dividing the buildings. In the first stage, the main hall was
a flexible space that used for ceremony, worshipping the ancestors of a family, or other non-
specific functions (e.g., meeting, dining, working, painting or calligraphy); while in the second
stage, the main hall was divided into three rooms. Two side rooms were re-used as bedrooms
and the middle room was used as a shared living room (Figure 8. 21).

Figure 8. 21 The change of the use of the main hall in Lili courtyard buildings.
Source: Drawn by the author.

In Lili, a majority of the Lili courtyard buildings are two-storey buildings (X3Y6Z2).
According to the position of the stairs mentioned in Section 8.2.3, it is more common that the

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stairs are located at the back of the middle room behind the timber wall. In this situation, the
middle rooms on both floors are used as the shared living rooms, but when the number of
residents exceeds the capacity of the rooms, the upper-middle room is renovated as an
additional bedroom. In other words, each family usually occupies two rooms in the X3Y6Z2
building. To be fair, the two rooms distributed to each family are either the east or the west bi-
level rooms, which also avoids neighbourhood disputes because of the issue of acoustic
disturbance in a timber structure (Figure 8. 22).

Figure 8. 22 The Lili courtyard building division by new families

In another situation, when the stairs are located at the back corner of the side room, the existing
stairs are difficult to share because of the position. Thus, the X3Y6Z2 building is usually
distributed between three families and each family would build new stairs in their bi-level
rooms (Figure 8. 22).

A xiangfang is usually located on one or both sides of an X3Y6Z2 building with two floors.
According to the fieldwork, the first floor of the xiangfang is used as a kitchen by each family.
In some cases, neighbourhood families share a kitchen on the first floor of the west xiangfang

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and use the other xiangfang as a storeroom. The upper floor of the xiangfang is occupied and
used as a reading room or a storeroom by the two families since the xiangfang are connected
to the upper bedrooms.

To summarise, an X3Y6Z2 courtyard building is having been adapted for this use from a single-
family dwelling in the original use and now normally shared by two to three families. When
the building has more rooms and becomes a complicated house form, it could be shared by
more families. For example, Li Meimin said ‘in Lili, we have a building type called 走马楼
(zoumalou), a square-shaped building with a courtyard, and it was shared by eight families in
the 1960s to the 1980s’. This collective life mode contributed to closely linked neighbourhood
relations within the houses that shared a courtyard and a lane, which is further discussed in
later sections.

Behaviour in houses
The courtyard is a significant component in the house form of Lili courtyard house. It is the
primary social place for different families to build neighbourhood social networks so it is a key
site for the collective place attachment. Based on oral history and built heritage, we can infer
that family life, neighbourhood communication and spontaneous construction occurred in the
courtyard. For example, the residents constructed a laundry sink and desktop in the courtyard
(Figure 8. 23). In addition, the laundry sink is next to the kitchen in the xiangfang so that it can
be used for washing vegetables before cooking.

Female household members used to play the role of the ties connecting the different families
who shared a courtyard. During the 1960s to the 1980s, cooking for their families was the
responsibility of the female members, so when they shared the sink and kitchen, preparing and
cooking the lunch or dinner, they also developed strong social networks within and between
families in these spaces. After building up relationships they would invite the neighbourhood
families to have dinner together; especially during traditional festivals, such as the Lantern
Festival or the Dragon Boat Festival, neighbourhood families would gather together to make
traditional food.

Children also contributed to the connection of the different families sharing a courtyard.
Although the one-child policy was implemented in China in the late 1970s, limiting to one the
number of children each family were permitted, children from different families sharing a
courtyard sometimes grew up together like brothers or sisters when they would play, study and

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grow up together. As Ren Xijie recalled, ‘Living in a courtyard house and sharing with other
families brings us more friends in childhood’.

Porch

Laundry sink and desktop

Shared Kitchen

Figure 8. 23 Courtyard, kitchen and porch in a typical house in Lili based on my fieldwork experience.
Source: Edited based on the 3D scan data by the author in 2018.

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 Courtyard Porch

Figure 8. 24 Better sunlight and ventilation in the porch and the shadow in the courtyard.
Source: Edited based on the 3D scan data by the author in 2018.

In addition to the courtyard, the porch is another place of social activity. A porch is a covered
but unwalled space, an interstitial space or a threshold space where indoor and outdoor space
meet, which offers a bright shelter in a Lili courtyard building for social activities such as
chatting, playing chess and trimming vegetables for cooking, especially on rainy or snowy days.
A porch is located at the north end of a courtyard, so it has better sunlight and ventilation than
the courtyard (Figure 8. 24). Because of these advantages, the porch is also used as a place for
hanging clothes and pickled products.

The Lili courtyard houses contributed to the abundant daily family life and neighbourhood
communication that made the house a dynamic social place. However, after relocating to the
new affordable apartments for the development of cultural tourism in Lili (Figure 8. 25, built
around 2012, two kilometres away from the Lili historic core), the original vivid social life in
the historic area of Lili has disappeared in the new apartment area based on my fieldwork.
When asked ‘Why do you think the intimate social interactions have disappeared after the
relocation?’, other than the factor of high vacancy rates in Lili’s new apartments mentioned in
Chapter 5, residents who live in new apartments compared the positives and negatives of living
in Lili courtyard houses and new apartments, as seen in Table 8.2.

From the perspectives of change in house divisions and social behaviours, these two sections
provide us with a comprehensive understanding of the place of Lili. Comparing to the

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disappearing social activities in new apartments, I use the vivid lifestyle in Lili courtyard
houses to suggest that revitalising the life in Lili should reuse the social active Lili courtyard
houses, such as semi-vernacular adaptation.

New
apartments

Lili historic core

(courtyard houses)

Figure 8. 25 Relocation from Lili historic core area to new apartment area.
Source: Edited by the author from Google map.

Table 8. 2 Residents’ evaluation of Lili courtyard houses and new apartments.

Source: Quotes from the interview with local residents.

Lili courtyard houses New apartments

Interactive We have a spacious courtyard and a There is an uncovered plaza in our residential
place semi-outdoor porch with warm sunshine area, but it is scorching in summer and freezing
for daily communication [with family in winter. People only do morning exercises or
members and neighbours]. have social activities in the evening there.

Distribution Courtyards are the social places used in A few small-group interactive places can be
of the the historic area by a small group of found in the new apartment area, but only one
interactive close families. I think it would be a more centralised plaza.
place intimate communal space than an open
square.

Walkability The courtyard and the porch link to the It is so inconvenient to go downstairs to meet
living room and bedroom directly so that others at the plaza, or to visit friends at home
elders do not have to go upstairs or without an elevator, especially visiting those
downstairs. who live in other buildings on rainy days.

Social Social activities occurred spontaneously We have to organise social activities deliberately
activities because they are part of daily life. to activate social life.

Facilities In the past, we had to share the kitchen Since every family has their private kitchen and
and other facilities, which pushed living room, it is unnecessary to share these
different families to communicate and spaces so the connection and interdependence
become friends. between different families are weak.

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 Architectural regeneration based on house form in Lili

Figure 8. 26 Lili community centre designed by Archmixing Studio.

Source: (Hua & Zhuang, 2018).

Semi-vernacular adaptation (defined in Chapter 6) and modernised reconstruction (newly

constructed vernacular architecture with traditional technologies but may use contemporary
materials) are two approaches to maintain the house form to revitalise the social life in Lili.
Specifically, based on the house form in Lili, local authorities have managed to revitalise the
social life through renovating existing Lili courtyard house as semi-vernacular architecture,
such as a community centre, or reconstructing some modernised courtyard houses, such as the
Lili Fund Courtyard. This section will take these two cases of architectural regeneration in Lili
to examine whether reusing or reconstructing Lili courtyard houses is an effective way to
revitalising the community in Lili.

The Lili community centre is a semi-vernacular architecture that was renovated from an
abandoned workshop. The designer chose to access this building from a narrow lane beside the

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gable wall, rather than the front yard, which follows the lifestyle patterns in Lili. The form of
the community centre follows the vernacular house form in Lili with a double pitched roof and
the roof is innovatively designed as an observation deck supported by a modern timber truss
(Hua & Zhuang, 2018). To solve the issue of the darkness of the main hall, architect Zhuang
Shen used 40 skylights to illuminate the inner space (Figure 8. 26). Zhuang explained that this
design derives from his life experience.

My grandma lived in another canal town nearby and I still remember the roof
of the type of vernacular house. Living in the high-density vernacular
buildings, people used skylights or glass roof tiles to illuminate the dark
rooms, which is also used in lanes in Lili. When sunlight illuminated the
room through the skylight, the dust was fluttering in the light beam and the
light beam cast on the walls and floor to form the fascinating light spot. (F.
Wang & Zhuang, 2012)

Zhuang insisted on the construction process involving local people; because it was conducted
by the local craftspeople and respected their construction traditions, the building was
constructed within a short time for a lower price than constructing by outside workers (F. Wang
& Zhuang, 2012).

Although Zhuang’s design follows the house form in Lili and respects the place attachment
based on his experience, the community centre has been abandoned again during my fieldwork.
Two reasons may lead to this abandonment: First, few residents still live in historic core area
to go to the new community centre; second, since there are no social activities there, it has been
locked for a few months because of ‘some unknown management issues’ said Lu Zong, the
manager of Lili Tourism Company.

Other than renovating and reusing existing architecture as semi-vernacular architecture, the Lili
Tourism Company also rebuilt the Fund Courtyard as modernised courtyard buildings on
abolished or vacant plots. Based on the local house form, the Fund Courtyard is a newly
constructed courtyard house that is composed of five modernised courtyard buildings (Figure
8. 27). The Fund Courtyard is rented out as a meeting place for discussion of funding or
financial issues for financial practitioners from other cities.

Although the new construction of the Fund Courtyard follows the house form of Lili courtyard
building, which respects the place identity in its physical characteristics, the Fund Courtyard is
not built to meet the social needs of local residents and leads to a low frequency of utilisation.

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According to the anecdotal conversations with local residents, the Fund Courtyard has been
used one to two times each year and it is locked and unused during the rest of the time (H. Li,
2018).

Thus, these two current projects reflect that architectural regeneration is a necessary but still
insufficient method for rural revitalisation in Lili. A combination of architecture and social life
–tangible and intangible heritage– are needed for village revitalisation. In other words, people
play a key role in rural revitalisation. Neighbourhoods and their social interactions and other
intangible place attachment are significant parts to sustain local community life and revitalise
a place, which matches heritage management strategies in Chapter 2.

E: Banquet hall

B: Office

Office

D: Tea room and

small meeting
room
Courtyard

A: Meeting room

Meeting room C: Side entrance

and service room

Figure 8. 27 The Fund Courtyard in Lili. Source: 3D scan data by the author in 2018.

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 Conclusion: house form and social life sustain a place
Based on the fieldwork, this chapter used diagrams and 3D scanning images to reveal the house
form and physical characteristics in Lili using the typological method. Specifically, the chapter
illustrates how the variations determine the form of vernacular courtyard houses in Lili, such
as width and depth of the timber structure, the positions of the porches/side
entrances/walls/lanes, the size and shape of courtyards, and the connection form between the
main building and the xiangfang.

Lili courtyard buildings are a form of tangible heritage in historic towns and villages; the house
form, a principle of Lili courtyard building construction determines the physical characteristics
of vernacular courtyard houses and shapes the historic cultural landscape. Thus, understanding
the house form is a way to identify the physical characteristics that comprise the place identity
of Lili. Beyond physical characteristics, house form also offers a way to understand the culture
and social life of a place because the house form and social behaviours within the house
informed us how people build and use their houses originally to suit their lifestyle and culture.
The particular house form influences local lifestyles, social behaviours and culture. In section
8.3.2., I have stated the comparison between life in vernacular courtyard houses and new
apartments in Lili and demonstrated that the house form would influence the evaluation of
community satisfaction (further discussion see section 9.3.5).

However, the house form is not the only factor that determines social lifestyle. Even the same
region with the same house form would have different lifestyles given the changing social
context in different eras. Compared with that of the new apartments, the culture of social life
based on the Lili courtyard house form from 1949 to 1997 in Lili offered residents more shared
space and facilities, such as kitchen and laundry space. The special house form and the unique
social background of a particular era pushed different families and family members together to
communicate and spontaneously build their people-to-people (social networks) and people-to-
place relationships. All these changing social lifestyles contribute to place identity.

Up to this section, Chapters 7 and 8 have illustrated the characteristics of the historic cultural
landscape on the urban (morphological) and architectural (house form) levels in Lili. These
two chapters also reveal the significance of social and cultural background in shaping the
physical characteristics and social life in Lili. These chapters illustrate that although the
physical characteristics in both urban and architectural scale contribute to the place identity

229
and, people and their intangible social and psychological place attachment are significant
factors to the management and revitalisation of Lili. Thus, in the next chapter, I will examine
the relationship between physical characteristics and social and psychological place attachment,
and outline the key components and factors in achieving sustainable community based on the
perspective of five aspects in sustainable community proposed by Dempsey and Bramley,
outlined in Chapter 2.

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Chapter 9: Place Attachment and Sustainable
Community in Lili

Introduction
Having discussed the physical characteristics in Lili in Chapter 7 and 8 at the urban and
architectural scale respectively, this chapter aims to examine social and psychological place
attachment in Lili and discuss the factors that promote Lili being a sustainable community. To
achieve this aim, I visited Lili for fieldwork research twice in 2017 and 2018.

According to the review in Chapter 2, Dempsey, Bramley, Power, and Brown (2011) state that
community stability; social interaction/network; community participation; safety and security;
and sense of place are the five indicators of a sustainable community. It is argued that these
five indicators should be organised in a hierarchy, as explained in Chapter 2 with the diagram
(Figure 2.2). The structure of this chapter follows the five indicators of the sustainable
community according to the hierarchy to discover place attachment in Lili.

In the fieldwork, I conducted observations and semi-structured interviews, and collected

narratives, dialogues and responses. After the fieldwork, I used content analysis and mapping
to reflect on how the components of place identity (physical characteristics and collective place
attachment) of a place contributed to the five indicators for creation of a sustainable community.

Community stability

Well-established and long-term residents contribute to community stability as a fundamental

indicator of the sustainable community. High resident mobility, especially outflow of residents,
may create low social cohesion or reduce the attachment to a place, and eventually lead to a
crisis in a neighbourhood or community (Bramley & Morgan, 2003). Residents’ decisions to
stay in or move out of a place strongly relate to their social and psychological attachment to
the place.

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 The outflow of younger generations and an aging society

Community stability is argued to be the foundation of sustainable development of a community.

However, the community in Lili is unstable. Chapter 5 explained dramatic population outflow
as the basic social background in Lili, which has created an aging society. A range of factors
contributes to rural-to-urban migration, including better education, higher potential income and
the comforts and conveniences available in urban areas (Mulholland, 2018). Limited resources
and social infrastructure, especially soft infrastructure, are one of the main reasons for
population outflow. Soft infrastructure refers to institutions that maintain the cultural, social
and health standards of a place, such as schools, parks, hospitals and emergency services. Local
antique store owner Yi Jinwen said:

My brother has decent work as an administrative clerk with his family in

Shanghai. His son, also my nephew, studies in a bilingual school there. I have
to stay in Lili to look after my mother who is unadapted to life in Shanghai.

Of the 39 interview participants, 29 had adult descendants and only three had sons or daughters
still living in Lili. Therefore, the primary social issue in Lili is the aging population.

An aging society is vulnerable because old people usually experience higher levels of poverty
and social isolation in combination with a series of physical, social and emotional issues
(Polson, Gillespie, & Myers, 2018). Therefore, the aging society in Lili, with its younger
generation outflow, runs counter to a stable community.

Table 9.1 Population in different ages in Lili (2017).

Source: Lili Police Office.

Age (years) Male Female Male + female Proportion of total population

0–10 1,058 1,053 2,111 6.0%
11–20 828 876 1,704 4.9%
21–30 1983 1964 3,947 11.3%
31–40 1,696 1,672 3,368 9.6%
41–50 2,792 3,044 5,836 16.7%
51–60 3,296 3,341 6,637 18.9%
61–70 3,374 3,367 6,741 19.2%
over 70 2,175 2,508 4,683 13.4%
Total 17,202 17,825 35,027

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 4000 8000
3500 7000
3000 6000
2500 5000
2000 4000
1500 3000
1000 2000
500 1000
0 0
0 to 10 11 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 over 70

Male Female Male + Female

Figure 9. 1 Age distribution in Lili 2017.

Source: Lili Police Office.

25.00%

20.00%

15.00%

10.00%

5.00%

0.00%
0 to 10 11 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 over 70
Population distribution by age group in
6.03% 4.86% 11.27% 9.62% 16.66% 18.95% 19.24% 13.37%
Lili (2017)
Population distribution by age group in
10.99% 13.11% 17.14% 16.15% 17.28% 12.01% 7.48% 5.84%
China (2010)

Figure 9. 2 Comparison of the population distribution by age between Lili (2017) and China (2010).
Source: Lili Police Office and the State Statistics Bureau.

The age distribution of the population (Table 9.1) demonstrates that 32.6% of the population
in Lili in 2017 were over 60 years old, which is double the percentage (16.7%) of the national
population aged over 60 in 2016 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2016). The number of children
and adolescents of school age was low in Lili; almost half of the relatively low population at
their parents’ age (31–40), which coincides with the one-child policy and nuclear family
phenomenon in China (Figure 9. 1). It is also consistent with parents moving to cities for
improved work opportunities and taking their children with them for a better education. As a

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result, residents in Lili are mainly of the older generation. The population age distribution in
Lili and China (Figure 9. 2) represents the future of the whole nation as it moves forward as an
aging society.

Shrinking education and less vitality from students

Education is a fundamental infrastructure for a community and a primary investment for a

family in China. Retired school Principal Cheng Liangquan argued that student outflow is one
of the reasons for the unstable community in Lili and is the result of the uncompetitive
education in Lili today.

Most excellent schools are located in metropolises and big cities, attracting the best teachers
and students and leading to a severe imbalance in educational resources. Imbalanced education
leads to an outflow of students from Lili. Many rural and suburban families in China send their
children to better schools in cities because they believe such schools offer competitive
education and increase the chances of their children studying at top universities. When referring
to education in the past, Cheng expressed his pride:

Lili High School was excellent in education. After the Cultural Revolution,
the provincial champion of the college entrance exam came from our school,
which never existed in any other school in Wujiang. When I was the principal,
in the 1980s, many of our students obtained offers from top universities.

Cheng also stated that: ‘If there is no good school, there is no future for a town … In the past,
90% of students stayed in Lili. With the university enrolment expansion, more students went
to universities and left Lili.’ He attributed the economic, social and community crisis to the
imbalance in education between urban and rural areas, though Lili is not a typical rural area:
‘In recent years, the quantity and quality of the students have shown a sharp decrease. In my
opinion, constructing a good school is a sustainable way to revitalise a town.’ He had a
blueprint for education in Lili and said:

In the future, students even from cities around, not restricted to local students,
who study in Lili for years will be influenced by the local culture, and build
strong memories and emotional bonds with Lili. If the school is still excellent,
it will attract students every year and make Lili sustainable.

Similar to Cheng, Li Meimin used to be a teacher at Lili Middle School. He explained, ‘I was

234
proud to be a teacher in Lili and the happiest time was when my students came back to Lili to
see me.’ Ding Shi, a history teacher at Lili High School, said ‘As students and I lived in the
same historic area, after class, some students may come to my home, and we chatted like friends.
I enjoy this kind of casual communication with the students as friends.’

As a school principal and teachers, Cheng, Li and Ding felt that school and students made up
a significant part of the place attachment for them. Cheng’s idea coincides with John Dewey’s
viewpoint in his book The School and Society that schools play a dominant role in creating a
sense of belonging in a community and Dewey proposed that schools could be the centre of the
community by educating (P. W. Jackson, 1998). Studying in a place offers the opportunity to
create acquaintance familiarity (‘repeated exposure to a place without having a specific aim’)
and functional familiarity (‘contact with a place and integrating with the facilities through some
activities happening within it’) (Ujang & Zakariya, 2015, p. 714). These familiarities will
contribute to building social place attachment for students and staff in Lili, with social networks
and social activities sustaining psychological place attachment to Lili.

The interview data presented above reflect that the fundamental issue is the social inequity
between urban and rural areas in opportunities, resources and infrastructure. Therefore,
building an excellent school would be a practical but nonetheless inadequate approach to
making a stable community by attracting students only because they live with their family
members. Working opportunities and other resources and infrastructure should be offered as
well to support community stability.

Social interaction/social networks and community

participation

Although Dempsey, Bramley, Power and Brown (2011) define social interaction/social
networks and community participation as two separate indicators, these two factors are highly
interrelated. Based on existing social networks, community members will have more social
interaction (spontaneous) and community participation (organised). Interaction refers to
spontaneous communication between people without any organisation, while participation
refers to people participating in organised community activities and social events, which
contributes to establishing new social networks and producing social capitals (Forrest & Kearns,
2001).

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These two indicators are combined into a single theme in this section to evaluate place
attachment in contributing to a sustainable community in Lili.

Disappearing socially active place in the historic area today

As a result of the declining population and neighbourhoods, the frequency of social events and
social activities has decreased. When referring to social events in the past, almost every resident
spoke about their experience and shared their memories attached to Lili. However, when
referring to the current state of Lili, they often complained that the relocation promoted by the
Lili Tourism Company broke their existing social networks in the historic town.

Disappearing socially active place offered fewer places for social activities and interactions,
which reduced opportunities for residents to build social networks and form social capital. For
example, during the interview, resident Xu Xibo, who was a sports fan, complained that ‘there
is no public basketball or badminton court in Lili, which existed in the past.’ Cheng Liangquan
explained:

Louxia Creek was filled and turned into a basketball court with lighting
facilities responding to the nationwide fitness programs. At that time, four
towns in Wujiang area had basketball competitions as the annual event. Lili
basketball team trained there, and basketball fans of all ages played there as
well, and I made some friends at the court. It was a pity that the Lili team
was always the runner-up and never the winner.

In Cheng’s memory, Lili was lively and dynamic in those days with social events such as
basketball competitions, which gave the place value and meaning (Smith, 2006, p. 3). In
Cheng’s mind, although the basketball court may not be a heritage place, it carried his place
attachment.

When asked whether there was a significant social or public place in their community, almost
all of the Lili local residents mentioned there was a cinema in the past, which was their leisure
and social place (Figure 9.3). The first floor of the cinema was also used as a ballroom for
social interactions in the past. The cinema and ballroom were closed in the late 1990s because
they were running at a loss. The cinema, the most popular social place, in Lili was then
demolished to build an exhibition centre for tourism development.

The weak development of commerce is another example of the effect on social interactions.

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Although most street shops were rented under contract, the majority remained closed because
shopkeepers were waiting for more tourists to consume, and tourists were waiting for more
prosperous commercial atmosphere, which created a vicious circle to social interactions in Lili.

Figure 9.3 Lili cinema (built in 1982).

Source: Local resident’s collection.

Most rented shops in Lili had closed to save on labour and funds before attracting more tourists
to consume in Lili. The manager of the Lili Tourism Company, Lu Zong, stated that the number
of tourists reached 80,000 a year. However, this was still a low flow compared with
Zhouzhuang or Tongli, the world-famous canal towns, attracting 3,000,000 people per year. Lu
Zong explained that Lili could not expect to attract as many visitors as these other towns and
stated that the company’s future projection was four to five times the current number of visitors,
which would provide sufficient income to support all the shops in Lili.

However, tourists argued that the local culture and life disappeared when most local residents
relocated; thus, commercial activity had become unsustainable and more than half of the shops

237
had closed. It was not only tourists that complained about commercial resources, but also
residents. For example, local resident Han Zong expressed his wish that more shops would be
open in the future. Li Meimin argued that, according to the chorography of Lili Zhi, there had
been 400 shops along the canals in Lili during a period of great prosperity. ‘Although visitors
were limited in 2016, 50 more shops had been rented and 50 other shops were under negotiation
to be rented’, Lu Zong explained, ‘We believe Lili will attract more visitors and in our future
prediction and planning, there will be 350–370 shops after the development is fully completed.’

The decline of social interactions: Chengguan in Lili

Sometimes, social interactions are restricted for administrative reasons. During the interview,
some residents blamed the decline of social interactions on 城 管 (Chengguan), an urban
management agency installed in almost every city and town in mainland China to maintain the
urban landscape and create a tidy environment. Residents’ narratives and attitudes towards
Chengguan were divided.

Some saw Chengguan regulations as restricting social life and encumbering fundamental social
dynamics; for example, they prevented street vendors from operating their businesses and
prohibited eating and drinking on the street. Restaurant owner Fan Dian complained:

Chengguan expelled not only the vendors on the street; even neighbours
placing a table on the street for drinking and chatting is prohibited. However,
when there is no inspection by Chengguan, residents still place a table on the
street. Other than the residents, our restaurant sets tables outside along the
canal because customers love to have dinner outside to enjoy the landscape,
watch and interact with passers-by, which is not permitted today.

Resident Li Linxi added to this, recalling:

Before the restrictive administration by Chengguan, street life was

prosperous when residents would eat and chat outside, and you could see the
vivid life in Lili. If a group of people is talking or discussing gossip, their
neighbours will join them.

However, Chengguan was also seen as positively contributing by maintaining a clean and tidy
historic cultural landscape. The overly strict administration by Chengguan was following the
instructions of the local government who wanted to promote a tourist-centric economy by

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offering a clean, tidy and historic cultural landscape rather than a socially interactive but messy
landscape. Sanitation worker Huan Wei was satisfied with Chengguan’s contribution:

Chengguan expelled the vendors’ business to stop customers from throwing

rubbish on the street to make the environment clean. They also demolished
some illegal sheds to provide a tidy urban landscape. With the administration
of Chengguan, as a sanitation worker, I feel my work is respected by the
residents and tourists now.

Li Meimin explained that mutual understanding between residents and Chengguan is important:

Although violent enforcement by Chengguan is reported in many cities,

Chengguan in Lili sometimes works as the security department and helps
residents. Many of them are our familiar local neighbours as well. The leader
of Chengguan decides on the irrational prohibition [vending and setting
tables on the street], and Chengguan members only execute it. Their work
gives us a better environment, which should be understood, not blamed.

From the government’s perspective, the vivid social life carried out on the streets creates a
disordered and unsanitary environment to the disadvantage of the pure historic cultural
landscape. In many bureaucratic departments of China, only ‘authorised heritage’, mostly
physical urban landscape, but not ‘folk heritage’ is defined as heritage. ‘Authorised heritage’
refers to the heritage defined by the power claims of experts, institutes and other cultural
agencies and amenity societies (Smith, 2006, pp. 11–12). Residents did not object to tourism
development, but argued that Chengguan and their upper-level administrators had fallen into
an ‘authorised heritage trap’ that only considered the significance of ‘authorised heritage’ for
the tourism economy. Residents suggested that administrators should consider a balance
between tourism development and sustainability of the community because community life is
part of the cultural landscape and ‘folk heritage’ of Lili.

Social interaction in virtual worlds

In tandem with the development of the internet and mobile techniques, social interactions and
social networks also occur in the virtual world. People who participate in social activities within
their local community frequently build stronger social networks within their neighbourhoods.
These social networks increase their sense of community and in turn enhance their willingness

239
to live in a place stably, which contributes to sustainable community development of a place
(Woolever, 1992).

Casual contacts contribute to the sense of community in a neighbourhood (Nasar & Julian,
1995). Casual face-to-face interactions help to build the social network and attachment to real
places in individuals’ daily lives, thus linking people to people and creating people–place
relationships. However, with the development of communication tools, instant message apps
and other social media on smartphones create a virtual place that influences social interactions
in the real world. When asked ‘Do you still communicate with neighbours from the former
neighbourhood?’ Yu Qingfeng recalled:

When I was a child, we often played games together in the courtyard of the
Shi family house next to my home. Shi family house was occupied by 8 to
10 families at that time so many children lived and played there safely
because everyone knew each other and no strangers would come. Now I
usually watch TV series, play PC games or use social apps and platforms,
such as Wechat [the instant message app that widely used in China]. Only in
the past, neighbours were close and gathered together chatting or playing
mahjong.

Maintaining cyber contacts is straightforward and convenient today, and the community has
become less place dependent (Ireland & Schofield, 2015). Older Lili resident Yi Mu stated that
elders would like to chat with family members and other neighbours, but their sons and
daughters played with the smartphones and shunned real social contact.

Although virtual places create distance between family members to some extent, they are
positive for local–expatriate community interactions in a heritage settlement. Interviewees
were asked, ‘What do you usually do to participate in social activities after work?’ Zhou Gongci
explained that part of her social interactions after work involved Wechat, which she used to
communicate with neighbours and friends as a way to enhance her social network. If something
interesting occurred in Lili and someone posted images or logs in their Wechat Moment,48
others would click ‘like’ or leave a comment. In the virtual place of Wechat, local communities
share daily experiences, and expatriate communities have the opportunity to interact with their

48
Moment is a board function of Wechat on which people can post images and repost media items, similar to
Instagram.

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past social networks. Thus, the Wechat virtual place fosters a sense of ‘rootedness’, belonging
and social cohesion (Harrison, 2009; Plunkett, 2011).

However, Wechat offers social interaction in a virtual world, and if there is no face-to-face
interaction, there are no opportunities for residents to add new friends and expand their social
networks. Moreover, contact in the virtual world is not casual if there is limited face-to-face
interaction. In response to the question ‘who do you often chat with online using Wechat?’ Yu
Qingfeng explained, ‘Mostly relatives, classmates and other friends in real life. All of them
used to live in Lili for at least a short period.’ From this perspective, the virtual place only
maintains social networks and contributes to the sense of community in an acquaintance society;
it does not facilitate new social networks. Therefore, although the virtual place contributes to
social interactions between local and expatriate communities, place-based communication for
the local community is irreplaceable.

Adaptation to multi-use places

Although the street life in Lili is not currently very dynamic because of the community
relocation and administration, the remaining residents still actively create dynamic social
places in historic Lili. These activated places have the common feature of multi-use.

Jonathan Hill (2003, pp. 129–132) argues that complete architectural design is a type of place-
making process composed of the architect’s design, as well as creative use by users. A mismatch
between the function of the architect’s design and users’ innovative use creates multi-use places.
Nasar and Julian (1995) conclude that multi-use areas offer more sense of community in the
neighbourhood.

Multi-use places in Lili offer new opportunities for people to communicate, build or enhance
social networks, and create new people–place connections that contribute to a sustainable
community. Some examples are as follows.

• Dong Bao Barbershop

Dong Bao Barbershop is a case of a multi-use place. It is primarily a place for a haircut, but
from the narrative of the residents, after neighbours relocated, fewer customers came to the
barbershop. Thus, the barber, who was an opera fan, organised a group of his opera club
member friends who loved Kunqu opera to rehearse their opera performance as a club. These
members explained that every Friday afternoon, they would have group training and rehearsal.

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The barber cut hair for his customers against a background of opera singing, creating a multi-
use place that facilitated a dynamic occasion in their community life (Figure 9.4).

Figure 9.4 Kunqu opera group rehearsing in Dongbao Barbershop.

Source: Photo by the author.

• Bridges

Bridges also play a role as multi-use places. A poem written by Chinese poet Bian Zhilin
depicted such a scene: ‘As you stand on the bridge viewing; you are within the sights by another
from the tower up high; and as your window is emblazoned with moonlight, you step into
another’s dreams.’ In this poem, the bridge offers a place for viewing, but also becomes the
landscape itself. In Lili, as described by the residents, bridges are not only two separate walking
paths, but also places for communication.

Zuo Fengqiao recalled that before air conditioners became popular, neighbours would sit on
the handrails on the sides of a nearby bridge in summer because there was wind above the canal
to cool them down. Occasionally, people sitting on the sides of the bridge would become
careless and fall into the canal; however, they could trust that their neighbours would rescue
them.

During the investigation, an old lady was practising playing her trumpet next to the bridge. She
explained that playing the trumpet was her hobby, and she was proud when her performance
prompted others to cross the bridge and listen or talk.

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These activities occurring on or around bridges makes them not only a connection space, but
also a dynamic and interactive social place, giving the place multi-meaning.

• Steelyard shop and hoop shop

Shops can be a multi-use place as well. Since the widespread use of electronic scales and plastic
products, people rarely visited the steelyard and hoop shops to buy their products (Figure 9.5).
In Lili, local craftspeople had revised their handicrafts to cater to tourists and their shops had
become places for showing their crafts as ‘intangible heritage’.

Figure 9.5 Steelyard shop (top) and hoop shop (bottom) as a social interaction place.
Source: Photo by the author.

Steelyard shop owner Chen Qiaojun explained that she and her husband had opened their
steelyard studio at home in the past. Knowing that selling steelyard tools is not easy today, she
modified the designs to create tiny versions as souvenirs, insisting that ‘I have been granted the
intangible heritage inheritor award so that it is my responsibility to stay in Lili as the
representative to show our steelyard making skills to the public.’

Similarly, the hoop shop owner worked in the main street selling wooden barrels and tubs as

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souvenirs. He showed photos of his work taken a decade previously and expressed that he
enjoyed his work. Spontaneously, their shops had become a place that residents visited to talk.

• Side and corner places

Side place and corner place refer to places directly or indirectly attached to a significant street
or plaza. For example, Figure 9.6 shows residents seated at a table and chatting at a side place
along the main street on a weekend. Ding Shi said that she often chatted and had tea with her
close friends. Their topics included culture, economy and social issues in Lili. These non-
specific functional and multi-use side or corner places that support multi-use behaviour
enhance social interaction and strengthen social networks (Marcus, 2013).

Figure 9.6 Side place and corner place.

Source: Photo by the author.

Interactions from the historic area to the new apartment

Although the new apartments offered a tidy environment and a higher living quality, relocated
residents also complained that their social communication and activities had become
inadequate, explaining that this was because of a lack of social places:

XZ (author): Did you prefer to live in the ancient town or the new apartment?
Why?

Li Renjia (interviewee): Definitely the ancient town. There are no social

activities here.

XZ: Why not organise some social events by yourselves since you are old

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 neighbours?

Li Renjia: We hope so, but there is no place for us to organise social activities.
When we lived in the old street, we could watch movies at the cinema, play
chess or ping-pong and read newspapers in the labour union. After moving
here, we don’t even know who our neighbours are and never chuanmen,49
which we usually did in the ancient town since it was only a few steps to
others’ homes.

XZ: I see there are some playrooms for table tennis outside the entrance gate;
why not use that space?

Li Renjia: These playrooms belong to the government who assert that the
older generation should have tea or soft activities. If someone faints or has a
heart attack, they are responsible for that, which they wish to avoid, so they
rent the playrooms to private shopkeepers that run them as a paid mahjong
room. I have been relocated here for three years, and real social activities are
rarely organised, so I miss my life in the old street.

Relocation to new six-storey apartment blocks in Lili was supposed to create a high-density
living. Typically, higher urban densities offer more opportunities than lower-density areas for
residents to meet each other and participate in a variety of outside activities, which positively
influences social interactions (Leyden, 2003; Lund, 2003). However, high-density apartments
do not undoubtfully bring a high density of people and well-constructed social networks.
Because of a high vacancy rate for the new apartments in Lili, neighbours relocated to the new
apartments had fewer social interactions than in the historic area in the past, which created
dissatisfaction.

Morris (2011, p. 406) argues that population density may be negatively associated with the
level of happiness or subjective wellbeing. However, in the historic town of Lili, residents
expressed strong desires and needs for a higher density of neighbours for communication. This
difference may derive from the fact that Morris’s data were collected from cities where young
people were the dominant population competing for limited resources, while Lili is a historic
town where older people who need social engagement represent the dominant population.
Crider, Willits and Kanagy ( 1991) argue that for rural residents, the number of friends is more

49
Chuanmen refers to casual visiting one’s neighbours, friends or relatives.

245
important than income, which for urban residents is a more important indicator of community
satisfaction. A small-scale historic town with an intimate neighbourhood and social
engagement through face-to-face interaction will promote a sense of community and enhance
happiness (Talen, 1999).

Table 9.2 Attitudes of Lili residents relocated to the new apartments.

Source: Interview with local residents.

Attitude Quotes Keywords

Positive Living in the house was crowded in the past. Now we have enough Crowded living
rooms.
We do not have to share a laundry bench with others. Private
Living in the new apartment, we have more private space. Private
Negative No shops, markets and other facilities where neighbours usually share Infrastructure
and meet.
The uncovered square and mahjong room are the only social places. Infrastructure
It is hard to make new friends and build new social networks. Community
In the past, living around the same lane, it was natural to visit other Community
families whose doors were open unintentionally, which is awkward Urban form
today.
As older people, going upstairs and downstairs to visit old neighbours Community
is inconvenient. Urban form

Attitudes of residents who relocated from the historic town to new apartments reflected the fact
that the built environment influenced their satisfaction of a sustainable community (Table 9.2).
Although they enjoyed a comfortable apartment with private space, they felt less socially
involved in their new form of living. Lanes in the old town offered ‘ground continuity’ rather
than ‘height levels’ as a natural way to build intimate social connections through the
unintentional visits that contribute to social interactions.

To build ‘ground continuity’ for social interactions in the new apartment area, older people who
lived on the upper floor used the ground-floor garage as a ‘socially active’ place (Figure 9.7).
Che Ku explained that they loved staying in the ‘garage living room’ because the gate of the
garage was always open and directly faced the public path, so that neighbours would come to
chat before they went home to sleep.

Social interactions and community participation help a stable community to build social
networks, which have a direct influence on social cohesion. Social networks produce a ‘social
support system’ providing community members with feelings of safety and a sense of wellbeing
(Dempsey et al., 2011).

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 Figure 9.7 Garage used as a ‘socially active’ place in the new apartments.
Source: Photo by the author.

Safety and security

As a component of social and psychological place attachment, in Dempsey et al.’s theory, safety
and security is another indicator of a sustainable community. It refers to more than a community
without crime, which includes security in life and property (Siebel & Wehrheim, 2006); it also
includes psychological security.

During interviews in Lili, I noted that psychological security, a sense of support and a sense of
stable living without panic or threat to survival also contributed to a sustainable community.

Table 9. 3 Sense of safety and security in Lili.

Source: Interview with local residents.

Attitude Quotes Keywords

Positive In the past, everyone knew when a stranger came, and every lane had a Life/property/
gatekeeper and a door with a timber bolt to keep it secure. psychological
security
Neighbours were kind-hearted. Whenever someone had trouble, other Psychological
neighbours would help. security
A few months ago, an old lady had a heart attack, and the ambulance Physical features;
could not drive in because of the narrow lanes. Fortunately, her life security
neighbours carried her out and sent her to the hospital.

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 In the past, when couples quarrelled, neighbours would come to Psychological
mediate. security
After tourism development, our turnover grew as we sold more snacks. Psychological
security
Negative After the relocation, fewer neighbours come to my barbershop for a Psychological
haircut and it was difficult to cover my rent. security
I have to work six days a week to help my son pay his home loan. Psychological
security

As Table 9. 3 shows, the acquaintance society in the historic town gave people a sense of
security. The active neighbourhood created a safety network that was more than simply
safeguarding as a ‘monitoring system’ that prevented crimes. It also created an environment in
which community members helped each other and had positive social and economic
interactions. However, when neighbours relocated, the crisis in the original community led to
a crisis in the service industry for residents, which caused social and economic panic for those
who still lived in the historic town, for example, local craftspeople (Figure 9.8).

Figure 9.8 The cobbler and barber in Lili.

Source: Photo by the author.

Xiu Xie was a cobbler who used to work in a shoe factory; he mocked himself as a ‘skilled
beggar’ earning 1 or 2 Yuan to repair a pair of shoes in Lili. He enjoyed repairing shoes as a
non-profitable job. However, two factors prevented him from doing this job and affected his
social engagement. First, because his shoe-repairing stall was set on the street it was prohibited
by the Chengguan team as it ran counter to a tidy and clean landscape. Second, the relocation
project took away his neighbours, which led to his isolation from social engagement. When
asked about his struggle to survive by shoe repairing, he explained he received a pension of
¥4,000 per month after retiring, and his wife received ¥2,900 per month. Xiu explained that:

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 Although the pension in Lili is less than in many city areas, it would be
enough for us to live. However, relocating the old neighbours and preventing
shoe repairing as a significant social engagement for me is irrational, which
causes a sense of emptiness.

Zhu Shifu was a barber who expressed panic and helpless regarding his business:

Before 2012, my business was satisfying, with my small shop usually having
five to ten customers waiting for haircuts. All these customers were
acquaintances and friends of mine. Now, only two to three aged customers
come to my shop each day, and I do a door-to-door service for those aged or
disabled people.

According to Zhu Shifu’s statement, he charged ¥10 for each haircut, which meant that with
only two to three haircuts each day in his shop he was earning less than ¥1,000 per month. He
expressed panic because of the impact of tourism, which had dispersed his neighbourhood
customers.

Tourism development led to a crackdown on the service industry for residents, but other
services for tourists were positively influenced. Snack food shops are favourite places for
tourists (Figure 9.9). Local snack shopkeepers and restaurateurs were satisfied with their
business after tourism development in Lili, which attracted more tourists there, especially on
holidays. They explained that sales were spectacular on national holidays when people would
queue up for snacks.

In the participants’ words, a sense of security derived from a decent income and social
engagement. Following tourism development, most shops sold souvenirs or snacks, or ran as
restaurants. However, the old community servants such as barbers and cobblers who were an
important part of the culture and social attachment were ignored. To sustain a historic
community, such people should be given a sense of security about living in the community.

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 Figure 9.9 Snack food in Lili.
Source: Photo by the author.

Sense of place (place attachment)

Sense of place is knowledge of a place, connection through identity and attachment, and is also
an indicator of a sustainable community at the top hierarchy. As discussed in Chapter 3,
people’s past experiences in a place influence their attachment to the place (Manzo, 2005),
which derives from long-term habitation or frequent visits to the particular locality (Gustafson,
2001). The physical environment acts as both a trigger and a vehicle for attachment to a place
and comprises the place identity. Loss of physical characteristics affects people’s perception of
and attachment to places (Ujang & Zakariya, 2015). Therefore, mapping significant places with
place attachment of Lili prior to the process of rural revitalisation and regeneration is
meaningful.

Mapping place attachment in Lili

Rural revitalisation and regeneration is a process of remaking places so that finding significant
places with particular physical characteristics that contain residents’ memories is helpful in
future regeneration. This links to the following sub-research questions: What are the significant
places in Lili?; Why are they important to you?; Do you have any memories attached to these
places?; and What are the characteristics of these places?

To answer these questions, I initially invited local residents to identify and mark their homes
and significant places on an aerial map (Figure 9.10). Home is a significant place in one’s life.
A house, an apartment or even a room is the vehicle for memories of home. Other places that

250
one has frequently visited also contribute to memories of the past regarding special social
activities. Home was indicated with a red dot by residents on the map; other significant places,
most of which were public and social places, were tagged with yellow dots (Figure 9.11).

Figure 9.10 Mapping significant places in Lili with residents.

Source: Photo by the author.

Narratives are also part of intangible heritage and play a dominant role in the place attachment
(X. Chen & Kalay, 2008). Based on residents’ narratives, I listed significant places they
mentioned and created Table 9.4 to illustrate the residents’ memories and their attachment to
these significant places.

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Figure 9.11 Mapping ‘home’ and ‘significant places’ in Lili.
Source: Drawn by the author.
 Table 9.4 Qualitative data on significant places for local residents.
Source: Interview with local residents.

Place Key elements Memory, narrative and expressions

Home Canal; bridge; My first home was located between the Old Kuaijia Lane and
new building; Shengluzhai Lane. Shengluzhai is a courtyard grocery with six to seven
lane; dock houses. The first two houses were demolished to build a department
steps store. Then, we settled in to the opposite side of Liu Yazi Museum in
Mupai Creek until 2013.
Home Roof; lane; Our house is next to Dongsheng Temple. This is our house because I see
solar panel; the loquat tree in the middle of the courtyard and the loquats are sweet.
loquat tree; Moreover, there is a shed with a solar panel on the roof in the west of
temple the yard.
Home Bridge; canal My home is located in Shijia House in the west of Lili, next to the
Qingfeng Bridge, where eight families live together. The façade of
Shijia House is Western style, which is unique in Lili. It has a huge
courtyard in the centre, and we usually play games there.
Home Bridge; lane; My home is located to the west of Daonan Bridge, and there is a lane
platform; trees connecting to my house. A platform for laundry and trees are in the
courtyard.
Home Road; catholic My home is located in Hejia Creek Road, the widest road in the east of
church; temple Lili. Dongsheng Temple is on my east side, and the catholic church is on
the opposite side of the canal.
Courtyard Lanes; rockery When I was a child, friends always played games together. Since the
(Home) lanes connect all the courtyards between houses, playing hide and seek
was popular. At that time, there was a rockery in my courtyard, and we
often caught bugs around it.
Duanben Garden Island; creek There was a vacant lot, now the office of the community, located to the
west of Duanben Garden, which is built on a small island with a creek
around it.
Convenience Largest In the 1990s, Lili had many convenience stores selling goods. The
store supermarket largest one was called Hualian supermarket, where I often bought
cigarettes. The business ran at a loss and closed when many residents
moved out.
Church Style; tower The Christ Church in Lili was built in a Chinese style. The church has
been renovated in a Western-style with a white tower. Every Sunday,
Christians go to church.
Exhibition centre The old The exhibition centre was the old cinema in the past. If you ask
cinema residents where the exhibition centre is, they may have no idea; but if
you ask where the old cinema is, everyone knows that.
Funding Forum Triangular; Two or three years ago, the Funding Forum Courtyard was built on a
Courtyard bridge; canal triangular vacant lot facing the Mingyue Bridge. The courtyard was
used only once, for a financial symposium event in Lili.
Feng’s Fried Pie Taste; bridge Both tourists and residents love Feng’s fried pies because of the good
Shop taste. I can see there is always a queue in front of the shop and tourists
sitting next to the canal or the bridge to eat fried pies.
Hujing Lixin Bridge Hujing was a creek in the past and was filled in to create Dong Fang
Hong Square, where public condemnation took place during the
Cultural Revolution. Hujing was then constructed as a road connecting
with Lixin Bridge for vehicle transportation.
Jiuzhou Lane; Jiuzhou Barbershop was the oldest barbershop, in the centre of the main
Barbershop community street of Lili. It was so close to the community centre that many

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 Place Key elements Memory, narrative and expressions
centre administrators went there for a haircut.
Lixin Bridge The widest The widest bridge over the canal for vehicle transportation is Lixin
bridge Bridge.
Louxia Creek Wide creek; When I was seven years old, Louxia Creek was already filled in as a
Road basketball wide road where farmers sold fish and vegetables at a market. It was
court; canal; then turned into a basketball court with lighting facilities responding to
parking nationwide fitness programmes. Now it is used as a parking area.
Lili Elementary Water tower; I studied at the Lili Elementary School next to the United Clinic and the
School United Clinic water tower. The school has been demolished and rebuilt as ancestor
hall for Zhou’s family.
Mulan Liu Yazi Next to the Liu Yazi Museum, there was a snack shop called Mulan
Restaurant Museum Shop, which sold wontons and other snack foods. This shop has been
converted to the new Mulan Restaurant.
Mattress factory Bridge; water I used to work in a mattress factory, which was demolished, to the south
tower of Lixin Bridge and next to the water tower.
Opera Square Stone The recently constructed Opera Square is lively when there are art
columns; performances. This place used to be a Taoist temple. The two stone
performance columns from the temple are preserved in the centre of the square.
Teashop and Bridge; The teashop occupied three buildings within the courtyard house to the
storytelling stage square; tree east of Miao Bridge. There used to be a storytelling stage in the teashop
in the days before TV and the internet, which attracted audiences to
consume in the teashop. When there was no performance, people liked
to sit under the tree to chat in front of the teashop.
United Clinic Pailou50 Behind a pailou, there used to be a United Clinic next to the elementary
school where all residents had their medical care.
Water tower Bridge; water The tower is next to Lixin Bridge. It is the highest point in the ancient
tower town with a nameplate saying ‘Wujiang Knitting Factory’ at the top of
it. Someone said the tower does not match the townscape, but I don’t
think so. The tower represents the history of the late 1970s to 1980s
with its industrial economy, and I suggest keeping it as a landmark and
reusing it as an observation deck or a museum.

After reading and analysing this table carefully, I discovered three features in the narratives on
places:

1. Cross-referencing to other places; for example, when describing one significant place,
residents always used other significant places as a reference to depict its position. All
significant places were interlinked to create a ‘place network’.
2. Natural elements were referenced; for example, creeks and trees were significant natural
elements used to locate a resident’s significant places.
3. Built elements were referenced with less detailed description of physical forms, features
and spatial relationships between places, but the use of the intended function of a place

50
Pailou, also known as a paifang, is a traditional style of Chinese architectural arch or gateway structure.

254
 instead; for example, the memorial gate, dock steps, basketball court, United Clinic,
carpark, the old cinema, community centre, teashop and public buildings. This finding
reflects that for residents, the tangible heritage aspect of buildings—that is their physical
characteristics—is less prominent than the social activities—the living heritage—that
they associate with places in their daily lives.

Objects trigger place attachment

As argued in Chapter 3, it is not only physical place characteristics that can trigger collective
place attachment and define places, but also meaningful objects. Souvenirs are examples of
meaningful objects for tourists that remind them of their trips. Similar to tourists, some
residents also collected meaningful objects as the physical trigger of their memories attached
to places.

Thus, I used daily goods as a clue to discover place attachment in Lili. Li Meimin guided me
to the home museum of local collector Chen Ran, who had a strong psychological attachment
to Lili. Chen led us to his storeroom and introduced to us his collections from Lili with a
rapturous facial expression. His interest broadly covered calligraphies, posters and letters from
local historic figures, as well as commodities. According to the research aim of establishing
place identity, daily goods that have a direct relationship with places are useful. Among these
collections, there were a label, a ticket and some old photos. Chen explained that these daily
products reminded him of a particular period of Lili. For example, he picked up the label from
a soy sauce bottle and recalled ‘there used to be a soy sauce factory’, pointing out where the
factory was on the aerial map when he noticed rows of soy sauce containers on the map. In
addition to pointing out this place, he shared memories and stories that he experienced as a
child around the factory. He said that the logo of this soy sauce brand, shown at the top-right
corner of the label, derived from a historic building known as 中立阁 (Zhongli Ge) (Figure 9.12),
which had unfortunately been demolished. According to the chorography of Lili Zhi, Zhongli
Ge was built in 1744 and rebuilt in 1869. However, in folklore, there was a different legend, as
explained by Li Meimin:

In the Ming Dynasty, a Fengshui master told Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang that
the landscape in Lili looked like a dragon, which meant that the Emperor of
the next dynasty would be born here and replace the Ming Dynasty. Emperor
Zhu Yuanzhang was worried and ordered the local government to build the

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 Zhongli Ge, located at the ‘dragon’s head’ to prevent the birth of the Emperor
of the next dynasty. Zhongli Ge was later built as a three-storey octagonal
pavilion for worshipping Buddha and deities in Taoism. Zhao Gongming, the
Deity of Wealth in Taoism, mounted on a tiger was consecrated on the ground
floor. People would come to worship Zhao for wealth and touch the tiger’s
tail for health. People would also come to 求签 (qiuqian) [pray for divination
sticks] and burn incense for good luck towards Guanyin [Avalokiteśvara]
Buddha, who was consecrated on the second floor. According to legend,
divination sticks in Zhongli Ge were famous for their accuracy of
the prediction, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people to pray.

Figure 9.12 Label of Lili soy sauce (left); a drawing of Zhongli Ge (since demolished) (middle); and a
photograph of Zhongli Ge (right).
Source: Local collector Chen Ran and Li Meimin.

Zhongli Ge was a landmark with abundant legends, stories and other attachments in Lili, and
was used in logos, pictures and postcards, and depicted in some ancient poems. The mixture of
worship in two religions in one building (Figure 9. 13), Buddhism and Taoism, was rarely seen
elsewhere in China, which created a unique identity for the place. Unfortunately, Zhongli Ge
was demolished because the Buddha and deities were defined as feudalistic superstition during
the Cultural Revolution, which ran counter to the Marxist historical materialism promoted by
the China Communist Party (CPC).

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 Figure 9. 13 An image of the Deity of Wealth Zhao Gongming seated on a tiger (left) and Guanyin (right).
Source: Google Images.

The next item was a ticket for Liu Yazi Museum (Figure 9.14). Liu Yazi (1887–1958) was a
national patriotic poet of the 20th century. The illustrations on this ticket include a portrait of
Liu Yazi and his former residence in Lili, which has been listed as heritage by administrators.
In the early 20th century, Western ideology was imported to China by overseas students. For
example, Chen Duxiu, one of the founders of the CPC, had studied in Japan since 1901. He
established the magazine 新青年 La Jeunesse (Xin Qingnian) [New Youth] in 1915 to criticise
the outdated Chinese political system and to promote democracy and science along with
Marxism and socialism, which led to the formation of the New Culture Movement. Influenced
by Chen Duxiu’s ideology, similarly, Liu Yazi established the first modern revolutionary
literature group 南社 (Nanshe) [South Group] in 1909 and, along with other local intellectuals
in 1923, published the local newspaper 新黎里 (Xin Lili) [New Lili], which contributed to the
spread of the new ideology and culture (Figure 9.15). Liu joined Kuomintang (KMT) in 1924
and was elected as a member of the Central Supervisory Commission. However, Liu did not
agree with the KMT president Chiang Kai-shek’s ambitious political idea to isolate the
Communist Party from the governmental power during the first KMT–CPC cooperation period
(1924–1927). Having different political views from Chiang, Liu left KMT and joined the CPC
as he had the same political viewpoints and aspirations as Chairman Mao Zedong. Liu
contributed to spreading communist and socialist ideology by writing poems and other
literature, and participating in CPC administration. Thus, Liu Yazi became one of the key
figures in the revolutionary period and represented local and national identity in Lili.

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 Figure 9.14 Entry ticket to the Liu Yazi Museum.
Source: Local collector Chen Ran.

Figure 9.15 The magazine 新青年, established by Chen Duxiu and the newspaper 新黎里, established by Liu
Yazi
Source: (Y. Wang, 2019) (left); (H. Li, 2013, p. 232) (right).

Thirty years previously, Chen Ran used had lived in the house in which the Liu Yazi Museum
was located, and he recalled his harmonious life with neighbours before he moved out. Chen
told us confidently that all Lili residents were proud to have Liu Yazi as the town’s
representative.

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The final precious item in the collection was a photo of Qinglong Bridge on the east side of
Lili taken in the early 1980s. To compare changes over time, I took another photo from the
same perspective in 2018 (Figure 9.16). Comparing these two photos, it is easy to notice the
rebuilding of houses, the growth of trees and the demolition of the bridge on the right side in
the photo. It was the Qinglong Bridge itself, with its characteristic archway, and the canal that
helped to identify the location where the original photo was taken. To the residents, this kind
of identification raises memories from experiences attached to this place and moulds place
attachment.

Figure 9.16 Photograph of Qinglong Bridge taken in the early 1980s (left) and 2018 (right).
Source: Local collector Chen Ran (left); Photo by the author (right).

Chen insisted that the soy sauce label, the museum ticket, the old photo and many other items,
like triggers, reminded him of the development of Lili in both its physical and social
environments and enhanced his sense of place attachment to Lili. Li Meimin added that there
is a social event called ‘antique appreciation’ in every mid-autumn. ‘Antique appreciation’ now
is authorised as a local intangible heritage that offers residents opportunities to bring their
calligraphies, paintings, porcelain artefacts and other antiques together to communicate with
the neighbourhood, which builds strong social networks and contributes to the sense of place
among the residents. In addition to the built environment, local collections and antiques acted
as signs or ‘triggers’ for association with various place attachment, making people connect to
a particular place.

Discussion

To explain the relationship between the components of place identity and the indicators of a
sustainable community, some typical interview data were chosen for display in Table 9.5.

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 Table 9.5 Positive and negative place identity in Lili in response to indicators of a sustainable community.
Source: Interview with local residents.

Indicators Quotes Keywords + or - Place

identity
Community My son/daughter lives in Shanghai/Suzhou and Family member - SPA & PPA
stability invited me to live with them in Shanghai.
There is no suitable work and opportunities for Working - SPA & PPA
my son, and the income here is quite low. opportunities
Cities have better educational and medical Infrastructure - SPA
resources. The gaokao [college entrance exam] in
Shanghai is much easier.
Students in Lili now are the children of migrant Migrant - SPA & PPA
workers. Neither their parents nor the students
will stay here for a long time.
The best hospitals are in cities. When physical Infrastructure - SPA
illness cannot be treated in Lili, we have to see
doctors in Suzhou or Shanghai.
I love the landscape and peaceful life in Lili and Landscape; + PC & SPA &
would not adapt to life in Shanghai. lifestyle PPA
Social Vendors were expelled from the street, and Administration - SPA
interaction/ placing a table on the street for drinking and
network, chatting is also prohibited by Chengguan.
participation
The cinema and ballroom were demolished to Social place - PC & SPA
build an exhibition centre for tourists.
When we lived in the old street, the community Social place + PC & SPA
usually organised and participated in social
activities in the labour union.
Many old neighbours move to cities with their Neighbours - SPA
children and there is no chance to build new social
networks.
Sports facilities and entertainment places in Lili Social place - PC & SPA
are inadequate.
Visiting neighbours was easy in the past as we Physical - PC & SPA &
lived next to each other and shared the same lane features PPA
and street. I love the environment of new
apartments, but miss the communication between
neighbours as well.
After moving to the new apartment, I am Physical - PC & SPA
unwilling to go upstairs and downstairs features
unnecessarily.
We established a Friday Lili music club by Social place + SPA
ourselves; some of the members are my previous
students.
Safety and In the past, everyone knew when a stranger came, Property/psycho + SPA & PPA
security and every lane had a gatekeeper and a door with a logical security
timber bolt to keep it secure.
Neighbours were kind-hearted. Whenever Psychological + SPA & PPA
someone had trouble, their neighbours would security
help.

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 Indicators Quotes Keywords + or - Place
identity
An old lady had a heart attack and the ambulance Life security - PC & SPA &
could not drive in. Her neighbours carried her to PPA
the hospital.
Since tourism development, we sell more products Psychological + SPA & PPA
and snacks. security
Since the relocation, fewer neighbours come to Psychological - SPA & PPA
my barbershop for a haircut and earning sufficient security
income to cover my rent is hard.
Sense of Lili is my hometown. I love the simple life with Hometown; + PC & SPA &
place my friends here. In Shanghai, I always lose my friends; PPA
way, but I can clearly remember the roads, streets memories
and lanes here.
I studied at Lili Elementary School … Now the School - PC & SPA &
school has been demolished and rebuilt as the PPA
ancestor hall for Zhou’s family.
Changes in the urban landscape and the use of Landscape; + PC & PPA
shop buildings are acceptable, but it should be memories
done in a progressive way to respect our
memories.
The historic architecture is valuable. However, in Townscape; + PC & SPA &
terms of emotional attachment to Lili, I value my friends; emotion PPA
old friends more than the townscape.

*Note: PC: physical characteristics; SPA: social place attachment; PPA: psychological place attachment.
(positive: ‘+’; negative: ‘-’)

From interviews, social place attachment emerged as the most significant factor influencing all
indicators of a sustainable community. Physical characteristics have more of an influence on
social interaction and sense of place, though it also influences community stability and security
in particular scenarios. Psychological place attachment influences community stability, safety
and security, and sense of place. Therefore, to turn a historic town into ‘living heritage’ and
sustain its community, all these three components of place identity are important. If the physical
characteristics and psychological place attachment contribute more to the ‘heritage’ part of a
community, social place attachment contributes to making the ‘living’ part to sustain a
community.

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 Conclusion

Figure 9. 17 Framework for a sustainable community in Lili.

Source: Drawn by the author.

Based on the observations and interviews during the fieldwork, this chapter organised the
qualitative data according to the indicators of a sustainable community. Although Dempsey et
al. (2009) do not emphasise the significance of authorised heritage and personal place
attachment as indicators of a sustainable community, this qualitative research shows that place
identity and heritage contribute to a sustainable community. Place identity and heritage have
overlapping components embedded in the indicators as a framework to evaluate the sustainable
community (Figure 9. 17):

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 • Physical characteristics—tangible heritage. In Lili, the built and natural landscapes are

the tangible heritage that gives a place physical characteristics that differ from other

places, which influences social interactions/networks, participation and sense of place.

• Social place attachment—‘living heritage’ with social activities. Social place

attachment includes all the social interactions and social relationships within a place,

such as income, networks and engagement. Social interactions in Lili bring this heritage

place to contemporary life and make a living heritage, which contributes to all of the

sustainable community indicators.

• Psychological place attachment—intangible place characteristics. Psychological place

attachment involves intangible place characteristics (unacknowledged heritage) that

can be divided into public spiritual and private emotional attachment, which play a

significant role in community stability, and a sense of safety and security.

Many social issues in Lili were revealed in both Chapter 5 and this Chapter. Lili is confronting
severe population outflow because of limited resources compared with surrounding cities as a
result of a long-term urban–rural binary structure.51 The initial point of sustaining a community
in a historic settlement is balancing resources and infrastructure distribution in urban and rural
areas to create community stability from a policy perspective.

Moreover, the social place, interactions and participation in Lili are decreasing because of the
relocation and inadequate social places. Social interactions and participation will strengthen
social networks among community members and make living heritage through people–heritage
interaction. During the fieldwork it was observed that through innovative multi-uses of existing
places, residents in Lili were attempting to build socially active places to enhance social
interactions spontaneously.

Because of the neighbourhood outflow and the breakdown of social networks in Lili, some
residents experience a sense of panic in their lives. The narrative data explained that a decent
income, healthy and stable social networks and active social interactions offered community

51
An urban–rural binary structure has arisen as a result of two different resource allocation systems and
restrictions on mobility between urban and rural China since 1958. After the introduction of the Temporary
Residence Permit in the 1980s, the rural population had free mobility to live in urban areas, but did not enjoy the
same authority and access to resources as urban citizens.

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members a sense of life/property/psychological safety and security.

By mapping the sense of place, this chapter linked collective place attachment with some
significant places in Lili, and summarised six common features of these places. Places with
strong attachment are:

1. Public nodes, such as bridges.

2. Space with a large capacity, such as the Opera Square.
3. Socially active public space, such as the cinema and labour union.
4. Space relating to daily behaviours and habits, such as lanes and courtyards.
5. Space relating to historic events or figures, such as the Liu Yazi Museum.
6. Space with a special smell or taste in memory, such as Feng’s Fried Pie Shop.

The data suggest that physical characteristics contribute more to place identity for tourists or
migrants, whereas long-term residents care more about social place attachment—the
contingent social interaction between a heritage place and its community. Beyond physical
places, collections also act as a trigger for place attachment and sense of place.

Up to this point, this research has used the heritage town of Lili as an example to identify the
significance of physical characteristics and social and psychological place attachment in
sustaining a community in a heritage setting. Above all, sustaining a community within a
heritage settlement requires change and development at an acceptable pace that respects place
identity. The acceptable pace of change can be compared to a ‘coding–decoding process’.
Existing heritage and social networks store the collective place attachment for community
members in a ‘coding process’. Community members have contingent interactions with other
members and the place is a ‘decoding process’ of sustainable development.

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Chapter 10: Discussion and Conclusion: A
Sustainable Community Model for Rural
Revitalisation in China

10.1 Review of the research

As explained in the research background in Chapter 1, an increasing number of rural historic
towns and villages in China are losing their local tangible and intangible heritage and
confronting with the issue of rural hollowing or rural depopulation. For example, Lili is a
typical rural historic canal town in China that is currently undergoing the process of tourism
development and confronting the issues noted above. Therefore, the Chinese central
government has proposed its Rural Revitalisation Strategy as the primary agenda for future
rural redevelopment.

To respond to this strategy, from the perspective of sustainable development, this research
aimed to formalise the significance of place identity in heritage management in rural China.
Specifically, this research also aimed to introduce a model to devise principles and
recommendations for the revitalisation of rural historic towns and villages in China.

Based on the findings of the research, the thesis outcomes include an innovative Sustainable
Community Model that intends to guide the revitalisation of historic rural towns and villages,
which will be discussed in the latter part of this chapter. The model is designed to support
architects, urban designers and local government decision-makers in the protection of place
identity (defined in Chapter 3) as a significant contributor to community sustainability from a
socially sustainable perspective. To conclude this model, the thesis has taken Lili as an example,
and has been written in steps that address the primary research question and secondary
questions.

The primary research question of the thesis is:

• How should the concepts of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘place’ be understood and

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 applied to the management of Chinese rural historic towns and villages, such as Lili?

To answer this question, the following secondary questions (paragraphs with dot points) were
addressed with each chapter:

• What are the dimensions of sustainable development and how are they understood in
heritage management? (Chapter 2)

To address the research questions, the thesis commenced in Chapter 2 with the identification
of the key dimensions of socially sustainable development and a discussion of the place-based
sustainable community. Key philosophies in heritage discourse relating to sustainable
development were critically evaluated in the chapter, and it was argued that conservation
philosophies changed from being object-centred to more human-centred in their values. The
human-centred values in heritage management require an approach that combines and balances
the conservation of heritage and sustainable development for local communities. This change
leads to a link between human and built heritage as a ‘whole’ place, which was discussed further
with the next secondary research question in Chapter 3. This review of sustainable development
and heritage management provided key dimensions for a socially sustainable community that
should be integrated into all urban or rural revitalisation projects. Based on Dempsey et al.’s
(2011) five factors of a sustainable community — i.e., sense of place, safety and security,
community participation, social networks and community stability — Chapter 2 concluded
with a preliminary framework for application to a specific case study of rural historic towns
and villages, such as Lili.

• What are the dimensions of ‘place’ and ‘place identity’? What is the relationship
between these dimensions and how are they understood in heritage management
discourse? How to understand these dimensions and their relationship using the case
study of Lili? (Chapters 3 and 4)

Chapter 3 reviewed the concepts of place and place identity from the perspective of human
geography and environmental psychology, respectively. In doing so, it was revealed that place
has physical, social and psychological dimensions and place identity is composed of the
physical characteristics of a place and collective place attachment (social and psychological
place attachment), which makes the place a dynamic and distinctive form of living heritage. In
the context of rural revitalisation in China, living heritage conserves heritage as a dynamic
place with rural communities and offers a complex sense of social and cultural place with

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identities. Chapter 3 concluded with an understanding of place as living heritage rather than a
type of museified scenery, which lay the theoretical groundwork for the management and
revitalisation of Lili and other similar rural historic towns and villages.

To understand and analyse different dimensions of place identity, Chapter 4 described the
methodology that has been used in this research, which can be categorised into two parts
(Figure 4. 1). Digital technologies, including photogrammetry and 3D scanning, were used to
capture and analyse physical characteristics. The selection and application of these digital
technologies were summarised in Chapter 7 so that readers could better understand how the
digital technologies were used in the study of the morphological characteristics (physical
characteristics at the urban scale) in Lili. Chapter 4 described the qualitative research methods
used to examine social and psychological place attachment in Lili. Specifically, this chapter
explained how the participants were selected, how the data were collected and stored, and how
the thematic analysis of interview materials was conducted. In summary, Chapters 2–4 of the
thesis established the theoretical framework and methodology to be used as the basis for
fieldwork and analysis in the remainder of the thesis (Chapters 7–9).

• What are the issues, policies and approaches to rural revitalisation in China? (Chapter
5) What strategies are used by Chinese architects in rural revitalisation? And how
should these strategies be evaluated? (Chapter 6)

Although rural historic towns and villages are located in rural China, development in rural and
urban areas are closely related. Therefore, to answer the above question, Chapter 5 analysed
the current context of urban regeneration in China and explained how urbanisation in China
has influenced development in rural China, especially in the social and economic dimensions
of sustainable development. For example, the wealth gap between urban and rural China is still
increasing, while social infrastructure is centralised in cities and offers fewer opportunities for
villagers. These factors have led to a population outflow and the emergence of hollowed
villages in rural China. Chapter 5 then examined some of the typical problems associated with
Chinese rural historic towns and villages, how these have been addressed in policy by local
governments, and how local people, authorities and architects have responded to these issues.
In the latter part of the chapter, the general history of rural Jiangnan was explained and the case
study of Lili was introduced and justified for the fieldwork research to follow.

To understand how architects have responded to the rural revitalisation specifically and
profoundly, Chapter 6 examined the work of two Chinese architects to illustrate two types of

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rural revitalisation practice aimed at sustainable development in communities. These two
approaches were the neo-vernacular (buildings with a vernacular appearance but constructed
using contemporary methods and materials) and semi-vernacular (buildings that reuse or
renovate vernacular buildings in combination with modern and traditional building techniques).
Both approaches aimed, respectively, to reshape or sustain the place identity in rural historic
towns and villages. The chapter concluded that semi-vernacular adaptation is a possible
approach for vernacular conservation and rural revitalisation because it meets the requirements
of a sustainable community in rural China that maintains social networks, local memories and
a place where local residents grow and live with strong attachments.

In summary, Chapters 5 and 6 provided more context for current issues in China’s rural
development from the national, regional and settlement levels. This background information
offers an understanding of the dilemma of rural development and the significance of rural
revitalisation in China.

• What are the dimensions and their key factors of place identity in Lili? How do these

factors sustain the characteristics and contribute to the development of the historic

town of Lili? (Chapters 7–9)

Chapters 7 and 8 examined place identity (the physical characteristics dimension) of Lili from
an urban and architectural perspective. Specifically, Chapter 7 explored the historical, social
and cultural influences that have shaped the morphological changes of the historic cultural
landscape in Lili based on oral history, interviews, archival research, chorography (books of
local history), and historic maps. Chapter 7 explained urban morphology theories and key
concepts, including plots, plot series, street block and urban tissue. Chapter 7 also examined
the current morphological characteristics of Lili based on novel digital techniques using 3D
laser scanning and photogrammetry to capture large areas of the town. In doing so, it concluded
that morphological characteristics determine the tangible dimensions of a historic cultural
landscape at the urban scale, such as the plots, streets, lanes and bridges, which also carry the
local memories, stories and other attachments in Lili as intangible heritage. In other words,
morphological characteristics at the urban scale contribute to the place identity of Lili in its
physical characteristics. The tangible dimensions of Lili’s historic cultural landscape offer solid
evidence for the local intangible heritage attached to its relevant tangible heritage, which helps
to make this place function as living heritage.

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House form is a type of local knowledge as intangible heritage that guides the vernacular house
construction in the result of tangible vernacular houses with local identities. Therefore, Chapter
8 examined house form and culture that determines the historic cultural landscape of Lili at an
architectural scale. The chapter used diagrams based on an architectural typological approach
to illustrate the variation in vernacular house form in Lili. It also used observations, interviews
and oral histories to explain the influence of social and cultural backgrounds on house form.
Digital diagrams were used as well in Chapter 8 to visualise traditional vernacular buildings,
reused semi-vernacular buildings and modernised vernacular buildings in Lili. This chapter
concluded that understanding house form is a way of logically categorising and identifying
physical characteristics at an architectural scale, and also a way of understanding the culture
and social life as intangible dimensions of heritage and place identity (place attachment).

Chapter 9 aimed to examine the social and psychological place attachment in Lili and discover
the social issues that disturb the development and revitalisation of Lili today based on the five
factors of sustainable community explained in Chapter 2. In Chapter 9, quantitative data from
the Lili Police Office was initially used to reveal current issues relevant to the sustainable
community framework and community stability in Lili — i.e., an outflow of younger
generations and ageing of the remaining population. Qualitative methods based on
observational studies and semi-structured interviews undertaken during the fieldwork were
then analysed to explain the social and psychological place attachment in Lili. Chapter 9
applied thematic analysis to resident interview transcripts to reflect on how social and
psychological place attachment, along with tangible and intangible heritage, contribute to
supporting a sustainable community in Lili. This chapter also used mapping to indicate the
significant places in Lili, linking physical characteristics to place attachment and explaining
their significance to sustaining a community.

In summary, Chapters 7, 8 and 9 examined place identity in Lili, concluding that place identity
contributes to the living heritage of rural historic towns and villages by connecting physical
characteristics with social and psychological place attachment characteristics. The findings in
Chapters 7–9 relating to Lili are presented as a Sustainable Community Model that reveals the
key factors in rural revitalisation in similar rural historic towns and villages in China.

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10.2 Contribution: Sustainable Community Model

10.2.1 Defining the Sustainable Community Model

Figure 10. 1 Sustainable Community Model.

Source: Drawn by the author.

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This research linked the concept of place identity, heritage and a sustainable community and
proposed a Sustainable Community Model (Figure 10. 1). The model is offered as a way
forward, a means of developing workable/practical solutions in future developments and/or the
revitalisation of rural China.

Dempsey et al.’s (2011) five factors of a sustainable community — i.e., sense of place, safety
and security, community participation, social networks and community stability — were
discussed in Chapter 2. The Sustainable Community Model proposed by this research adds
place identity and living heritage as important contributors to the definition of a sustainable
community, particularly for revitalisation in the rural historic towns and villages context.
Living heritage contributed both tangible and intangible factors to the Sustainable Community
Model. In the Sustainable Community Model, neither tangible nor intangible heritage is
restricted to the authorised natural and cultural heritage defined by the World Heritage
Convention or National Cultural Heritage Administration. Heritage, in this model, also includes
community-based and place-based public and individual heritage, such as meaningful objects,
local social networks and personal memories. Community-based and place-based heritage are
suggested to be composed of the non-authorised, dynamic and vivid life of a place that
contributes to the place identity that sustains a community. All tangible heritage and part of
intangible heritage is visible; while some other intangible heritage is invisible but perceivable,
such as the sound and smell of a place, which also plays a significant role in living heritage and
contributes to place identity (Figure 10. 1). Living heritage is acting as the carrier or trigger of
place identity in the form of physical characteristics, and social and psychological place
attachment. Thus, in this Sustainable Community Model, place identity and living heritage help
to build a stronger sense of place and contribute to community stability. In this way, both
architecture and landscape contribute to the identity of a place.

10.2.2 Significance and application of the Sustainable Community Model

The Sustainable Community Model established in this thesis offers a framework for architects
and decision-makers that aims to guide sensitive future development in Lili and other rural
historic towns and villages. The model, based on extensive fieldwork undertaken in Lili,
exposes the uniqueness of place, communities and people. To apply the model to other rural
historic towns and villages, architects and decision-makers need to begin by investigating a
place to discover the essential place and community-based information, then correlate such
information against factors identified in the model that are relevant to their specific

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revitalisation project.

Firstly, from the perspective of design, the Sustainable Community Model will inform
architects’ and urban designers’ understandings of place identity by prompting the early
discovery of those physical factors that are considered significant to a particular community’s
understanding of heritage. Given that the elements in the model that sustain a community are
attached to the historic cultural landscape, rather than individual buildings, the model also
encourages designers to focus on a holistic landscape rather than an architectural scale.

Secondly, the relationship between heritage, place identity and sustainable communities
supports the creation of comprehensive and coordinative design strategies that are sensitive to
tangible, as well as intangible, heritage. The model guides the integration of those essential
place-based tangible and intangible factors that are most important to sustaining and
revitalising communities in rural China. The significance of the integration of tangible and
intangible heritage in rural revitalisation is supported by the semi-vernacular cases discussed
in Chapter 6. The model simultaneously guides a cooperative partnership approach to rural
revitalisation between architects, local communities, organisations and government authorities.

Thirdly, from the perspective of residents in local communities, the model encourages
reflection on what are the essential elements of local place identity, place attachment and
heritage value. This supports a process of educated feedback to architects, local organisations
and government authorities prior to revitalisation.

10.2.3 Other contributions: digital technologies in place studies

This thesis has developed a unique methodological process using digital technology for
research into place identity and rural revitalisation. Specifically, the study has innovatively
combined photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning as a new approach to capturing and analysing
the morphological and typological characteristics of rural historic towns and villages in China.
Compared with the traditional study of urban morphology using 2D maps, photogrammetry
and 3D scanning offer an effective way to build 3D digital models to support the analysis of
urban morphology. Rather than analysing the urban built environment through plan views, a
3D digital model supports the visualisation of a built environment sectionally and in
perspective. The typological study undertaken in this thesis used 3D scanning to capture
architectural cases for a database that reveals vernacular architectural types and their
construction principles. This process illustrates that digital technologies can effectively store

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the spatial information of a place for the study of place identity as a prerequisite for rural
revitalisation, and potentially offer designers new ways to coordinate and visualise design
proposals. It also demonstrates that using the digital technologies is a valuable and innovative
approach to link 3D space and the abundant place attachment in morphological as well as
typological studies, which is a unique aspect of the thesis research.

10.3 Recommendations for the Sustainable Community Model in

practice
The following section presents recommendations in three areas — design, social events and
governance — to accommodate the Sustainable Community Model in guiding future rural
revitalisation projects in Lili and other similar rural historic towns and villages.

10.3.1 Recommendations in design

• Built heritage in historic cultural landscapes

Built heritage in historic cultural landscapes is the trigger for the sense of place (place
attachment) and contributes to place identity. In rural historic towns and villages, vernacular
architecture is a significant component of the built heritage. By examining the rural
revitalisation projects in China, as Chapter 6 argues, there was a vernacular frenzy in which
Chinese architects designed new buildings in a vernacular style using (most commonly)
reinforced concrete and other contemporary materials as neo-vernacular architecture, or ‘a
contemporary interpretation of vernacular building’ (Turkušić 2011). However, neo-vernacular
architecture does not incorporate the tangible or intangible values that are present in extant
vernacular buildings, but merely the architects’ architectural language.

Along with neo-vernacular, Chapter 6 coins the term ‘semi-vernacular’ to describe the
combined work of original vernacular architecture and new architectural designs and
construction. Semi-vernacular architecture reuses (changing original function) or renovates
(maintaining original function) existing vernacular architecture to meet the contemporary
needs of both local communities and tourists. Specifically, semi-vernacular architecture
differentiates building characteristics from different time periods and conserves the historical
significance and memory of a place, while still supporting vernacular building techniques.
Moreover, renovating and reusing built heritage associated with social meaning, such as

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schools, libraries and larger streetscapes, supports place attachment. Therefore, a semi-
vernacular approach balances the development and protection of place identity and is
recommended as a means of sustaining the physical characteristics and socio-cultural life that
contribute to a sustainable community in rural historic towns and villages.

• Environmental design in public space

Design strategies can be used not only for vernacular architecture, but also for public spaces.
For example, during the interviews undertaken for this thesis, many interesting stories relating
to place attachment and the lanes in Lili were evident. However, linking these stories and lanes
in a specific way is difficult, because the lanes are so similar that even local residents confuse
them, not to mention tourists. Therefore, a site-specific recommendation stemming from this
research is that the lanes with heritage value in Lili should be renovated according to design
guidelines that differentiate key characteristics. So, when referring to a lane with specific
characteristics, residents can tell where this lane is located and the history associated with it.

Furthermore, with the increasing use of smartphone technology, interactive multi-media can
also be applied to wayfinding, memory and communication in Lili (see discussion of virtual
place in Section 9.3.3). For example, the development of mobile internet technology means
that quick response (QR) codes, which store histories and other place attachment stories
associated with the lanes and other heritage places, can be developed so that tourists can use
their smart-phones to better understand the local attachment to the place. This type of
interactive design would enhance the enjoyment of a place, not restricted to Lili, and help to
build interactive connections between residents and tourists.

10.3.2 Recommendations in social events

In addition to revitalising the design of physical space by reusing existing vernacular built
heritage, revitalising social events is another approach that will maintain and enhance
intangible cultural heritage and sustain the community life.

Festivals, one domain of the intangible cultural heritage (UNESCO, 2003, Article 2), are
significant social events that contribute to building strong social networks and social capital.
In addition to the Temple Fair in Spring Festival in most settlements in China, Lili has its own
annual social events, such as the ‘antique appreciation’ in the mid-autumn festival, which is
mentioned in Section 9.5.2, Chapter 9. The antique appreciation event offers residents the
opportunity to bring their calligraphy, paintings, porcelain artefacts and other antiques together

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to share with neighbourhoods, which builds strong social networks among the residents.

Other than traditional social events, new events should be encouraged to maintain an evolving
local cultural heritage. For example, after becoming famous for its historic cultural landscape,
the canal town of Wuzhen established the annual Wuzhen Theatre Festival in 2013. In 2019,
the 7th Wuzhen Theatre Festival (October 25th to November 3rd) had 141 drama performances
and 34 dialogues between artists, directors and drama masters, which offered the drama lovers
a place for communication (“Wuzhen Theatre Festival”, 2019). In addition, Wuzhen also
established the annual World Internet Conference in 2014. The conference invited politicians,
principals in world organisations, leaders from world-famous internet companies, and scholars
in different fields to discuss internet technology with smart community, smart medical system,
big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and many relevant themes (“World Internet
Conference”, 2019). These two contemporary social events have turned Wuzhen into a regional
cultural centre, developing tourism in the historic town and supporting employment
opportunities within the local community.

10.3.3 Recommendations in governance

Being located in rural areas, rural historic towns and villages in China have a different socio-
cultural system to urban China. This includes neighbourhood communication, management and
traditional customs. This socio-cultural system is deeply embedded in the local place and
sustains the development of a rural historic town or village. Because of the rural depopulation,
the destruction of these local socio-cultural systems is becoming a pressing issue for
contemporary rural China. Statistics illustrate that, in China, the rural population was decreased
at rates of 0.867% and 1.306% annually from 1985 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2016, respectively
(United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2018). This thesis argues that the
social and psychological place attachment contributes to repairing, sustaining and developing
these local systems and forms a significant step towards rural revitalisation. Specifically, local
socio-cultural systems include social networks and self-management (autonomy), which
should be combined in a balanced way with appropriate government administration. Repairing
systems means establishing residents’ self-management as having an equal authority with that
of the local government, which socially and culturally sustains Lili’s development.

According to the Sustainable Community Model developed in this thesis, community stability
is fundamental to ensuring the vitality of a local socio-cultural system. The resident in-and-out
flow in Lili cannot reach a balance to sustain a stable community. This has caused a diminishing

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of the [town/village] social networks and neighbourhood sense of place. Without
communication among local neighbourhoods to enable an understanding of local culture, many
temporary residents may inadvertently disrupt the local ethical and social norms, so that with
high mobility, many urban and rural areas may be confronted with the loss of trust across the
community.

Based on interviews with the residents in Lili, this thesis revealed that a decent income and a
sense of self-contribution would help to stabilise the community. This feedback requires local
governments to support local businesses with preferential policies, such as tax incentives or
exemptions. An additional strategy would be to invite those former Lili residents, who are now
entrepreneurs in other cities, to invest in their hometown because they still have an attachment
to place and are willing to contribute to the development of Lili (Démurger & Xu, 2011). For
example, such investments could be used to revitalise the abandoned silk factory or brick
factory in Lili. Although these industries may not be suitable for the economic development in
Lili today, renovating these abandoned buildings still sustains the tangible dimension of
industrial built heritage, while introducing new industries strengthens intangible dimensions
relating to place identity. For example, new industries can offer employment opportunities and
contribute to building new social networks. Investment can also be used to revitalise the local
handicrafts industry. This would provide craftspeople with a higher income and again, help to
sustain the intangible cultural heritage that contributes to place identity in Lili. Such an
investment invitation has to be executed as soon as possible to capture those entrepreneurs who
had lived in Lili and have the necessary attachment to place. While their descendants who have
not lived in Lili, may not have the same interest in supporting development and revitalisation.

10.4 Concluding remarks

This research takes Lili, a historic canal town in Suzhou, China, as a case study and, through
fieldwork and the application of a place identity theoretical framework, develops a Sustainable
Community Model to guide future development in rural historic towns and villages in China.
With reference to this and the aims of this study, the thesis makes the following conclusions:

1. Both urban and rural areas are similar in terms of the need for development, yet the
urban-rural binary structure in China has promoted inequitable support for urban, rather
than rural, development. As a result, the development of rural China has fallen behind.
In recent decades, the rural development model in China has followed the urban

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 development model. However, both sectors are facing different issues and the scalar
distinction between city and countryside requires distinct approaches for urban and
rural development, respectively. To tackle this issue, the Chinese government has
proposed its Rural Revitalisation Strategy. This thesis reveals that the essence of rural
revitalisation is to repair the socio-cultural systems of a place by revitalising social
networks, while at the same time taking full advantage of their important links to
historic cultural landscapes. This will lead to a more sustainable community in place
emerging from the revitalisation process.

2. The heritage value lies in both morphological and typological characteristics, as well
as connections between tangible and intangible heritage, and issues of place identity.
However, current morphological and typological studies, such as spatial analysis,
mapping urban form and building types, do not fully take the intangible elements of
place into account. In this thesis, Lili was used as a case study to illustrate the heritage
value by examining its morphological and typological characteristics and linking them
to the intangible place attachment.

This thesis demonstrates that a combination of research methods and procedures — i.e.,
digital technologies (3D scanning and photogrammetry technology), collecting image
data (historic maps, satellite maps, and photos), and text data (local chorography,
historic stories and events), along with fieldwork (observation, interview, oral history)
and thematic analysis — can be adapted to conduct overlapping research of living
heritage and place values in other rural historic towns and villages.

3. Heritage contributes to the place identity and a sustainable community for revitalisation
in rural China. Although rural residents typically want to improve their outdated living
conditions in a vernacular built environment, conservation and development do not
need to be viewed as conflicting or opposing. Stagnant socio-economic environments
in rural China are not simply the result of conserving historic or vernacular architecture.
There is a far more complex interplay of factors, including the loss of residents to urban
centres where there are more employment and economic opportunities. Even if
vernacular houses are replaced by contemporary concrete houses, social issues will still
exist in rural communities. Conservation, including renovating or reusing tangible
heritage and sustaining or developing intangible heritage (semi-vernacular), protects
the physical, social and psychological dimensions of a place that contribute to

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 sustainable development.

4. The Sustainable Community Model developed in the thesis offers architects guidance
on how to integrate place-based and community-based issues in the process of rural
revitalisation. The thesis advocates the retention of place identity and of developing and
understanding a rural place as living heritage. Using examples of semi-vernacular
design, the thesis defines rural revitalisation strategies that can be implemented through
good design. However, understanding the impact of renovation by design in existing
rural environments is still limited. Therefore, rural revitalisation requires architects to
help local residents to build their self-management organisation along with the local
government. The Sustainable Community Model also suggests that rural revitalisation
should coordinate the built environment revitalisation with the management of social
development. Specifically, this coordination refers to the management of historic rural
towns and villages that should not only consider the tangible heritage in its historic
cultural landscape, but also how to enhance social networks and resident participation.
This coordination would strengthen a sense of place and place identity and create a
stable and secure community in the Chinese rural revitalisation context.

10.5 Limitations and future work

Finally, attention is drawn to the following two limitations in this research. Firstly, the digital
model/database for morphological and typological research in Lili is still incomplete and the
connection between place attachment and the physical environment relies on static mapping.
The static map has not maximised the advantages of the digital model with every social and
psychological attachment of Lili. Secondly, it is not possible to show a complete social and
psychological attachment of Lili through a static mapping exercise because the nature of places
and place attachment is constantly changing. The place attachment of non-local residents who
also have a relationship with Lili has not been studied as part of this research. This may,
therefore, lead to an incomplete view of place identity in Lili.

Based on these limitations, future research should focus on dynamic interpretations of place
identity for rural revitalisation, possibly by combining Geographic Information System (GIS)
or Building Information Modeling (BIM) platforms. Adding the components of the Sustainable
Community Model into these platforms would build an interactive ‘digital place’ to connect a
physical environment with place attachment. Such a digital place could constantly collect and

278
synchronise the latest information on a changing physical environment, place attachment and
other qualitative and quantitative data (based on local demographics and other statistics). From
the perspective of development and revitalisation, such a digital place may monitor the
development status and offer complex and comprehensive suggestions, guidance and
instructions for the development of a place. From the perspective of heritage, the digital place
digitalises the tangible and intangible heritage of a place. Thus, the digital place can be used as
a multi-dimensional and place-based database for researchers from different academic
backgrounds to study the place. Furthermore, the digital place is also an exhibition platform
for people who share an interest in understanding the history and culture of this place.

279
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Appendix A

320
Appendix B

Question Schedule – Interviews (For Residents)

Project Title: Research on Place Identity and Social Community in Lili, a Canal Town in China

Principal Investigator: Xiaoxin Zhao, PhD Student, The University of Queensland

Co-Investigator: Dr. Kelly Greenop, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Dr. Chris Landorf, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland
Dr. John Macarthur, Professor, The University of Queensland
Version: Version 1.2 dated 12 March 2018

To all residents

General

• How long have you lived in Lili?

• Where does your family live? Do they all live in Lili or elsewhere/do you live
together?
• What helps you distinguish this place from the other water towns?
Place associations

• Do you have a significant memory related to a specific place in Lili? Could you
describe it? (take note of the physical elements that the participants mention)
• How has Lili changed in the last 5-10 years? How do you feel about that?
• To what extent do you expect Lili to change in the next 5-10 years (demolished and
rebuilt)?
Social associations

• Do you know your neighbours and, if so, how did you get to know them?
• Where do you communicate with them most frequently?
• Could you describe and draw a plan of the place where you communicate with your
neighbours most frequently?
• Do you still communicate with neighbours from the old neighbourhood and, if so,
how do you communicate with them (any social activities)?
• Is there adequate infrastructure and public facilities in Lili today to help you
communicate with your family and neighbours?
To residents who have moved to the new apartments

• Do you often go back to the historic town area? Why?

• What are the positives and negatives of living in the new apartments?

321
访谈计划 （居民）

研究标题: 关于黎里场所认同与社会社区关系研究

主要研究人: 赵潇欣, 博士研究生, 昆士兰大学

Dr. Kelly Greenop, 高级讲师, 昆士兰大学

合作研究人: Dr. Chris Landorf, 副教授, 昆士兰大学

Dr. John Macarthur, 教授, 昆士兰大学

Version: 2018 年 3 月 12 日，1.2 版

所有居民

一般问题

• 您在黎里居住生活多久了？
• 您的家人在那里居住，在黎里或是外地？你们一起居住生活吗？
• 对您来说，黎里与其他水乡有什么不一样的地方？

场所相关问题

• 黎里的哪一个具体场所，在您记忆里很重要？请具体描述一下。
• 在您的印象中，最近 5-10 年，黎里有何变化？有何评价？
• 你对黎里今后的 5-10 年发展有什么想法或期待？

社会相关问题

• 您认识您的邻居吗？你们是如何认识的？
• 邻居之间交往密切吗？
• 您请您绘制一下您经常参与的邻里交往空间的位置与平面吗？
• 您与搬迁之前的老邻居还有联系吗？一般有些什么活动？
• 您认为现在的基础设施与场所是否足够您的家庭与邻里社交活动？

搬迁至新公寓的居民

• 您还常回老街区看看吗？为什么？
• 住在新的公寓小区有什么满意与不满意的地方？

322
Question Schedule – Interviews (For Tourists)
Project Title: Research on Place Identity and Social Community in Lili, a Canal Town in China

Principal Investigator: Xiaoxin Zhao, PhD Student, The University of Queensland

Co-Investigator: Dr. Kelly Greenop, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Dr. Chris Landorf, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland
Dr. John Macarthur, Professor, The University of Queensland
Version: Version 1.2 dated 12 March 2018

To tourists to Lili

• How do you know about Lili? Why did you come to visit Lili?

• What is your general impression of Lili?

• Have you been to other canal towns? What is the difference between Lili and other
canal towns?

• What physical characteristics should be protected in any development of a historical

canal town? What is important to you?
• What intangible characteristics should be protected in any development of a
historical canal town?

• Will you communicate or interact with the local people? Do you think it’s important
that there is a community of local people living in the historical town of Lili?

• To what extent do you think tourism changes a historic town?

323
访谈计划 （游客）

研究标题: 关于黎里场所认同与社会社区关系研究

主要研究人: 赵潇欣, 博士研究生, 昆士兰大学

Dr. Kelly Greenop, 高级讲师, 昆士兰大学

合作研究人: Dr. Chris Landorf, 副教授, 昆士兰大学

Dr. John Macarthur, 教授, 昆士兰大学

Version: 2018 年 3 月 12 日，1.2 版

所有游客

• 您如何知道黎里这个地方？为什么来这里旅游？

• 对黎里的总体印象如何？
• 您是否去过其他水乡古镇？黎里与其他的水乡有何不同？

• 对您来说，一个变迁中的古镇来说，什么物理环境因素对您很重要？
• 什么样的非物质文化应该保留？

• 您愿意与当地居民交流互动吗？您认为当地居民与社区的存在与互动是否重要？

• 您认为旅游经济如何改变一个历史城镇？

324
Appendix C

Rural revitalization projects by architects

Year Project Region Architect Type

2004 Ali Apple Primary School Xizang Wang Hui School

2004 Yuhu Primary School Yunnan Li Xiaodong School

2005 Eco Rammed Earth Building Zhejiang Ren Weizhong House

2005 Cicheng Renewal Zhejiang Zhao Chen Planning

2006 Jinze Chris Church Shanghai Scenic Community

Architecture

2007 Huaxi Community Centre Guizhou West-line studio Community

2007 Ecological Demonstration Primary Gansu Edward Ng / Mu School

School Jun

2008 Changmeng Care Centre Beijing TAO Infrastructure

2008 Zhujiajiao Cultural Centre Shanghai Scenic Museum

Architecture

2008 Qinmo Primary School Guangdong RUF School

2009 Taiping Bridge Guizhou RUF Infrastructure

2009 Qinmo Community Centre Guangdong RUF Community

2009 Zhujiajiao Aged Care Centre Shanghai Scenic Community

Architecture

2009 Bridge Library Fujian Li Xiaodong Library

2009 Museum of Handcraft Paper Yunnan TAO Museum

325
2009 New Bud Study Hall Sichuan Zhu Jingxiang School

2010 Xiaoquan Primary School Sichuan TAO Hotel

2010 Miao Lu House Yunnan Li Xiaodong House

2010 Jintao Community Centre Shanghai Scenic Community

Architecture

2010 Minle Village Public Sapce Sichuan aYa Community

2010 Hongdeng School Gansu Edward Ng / Zhu School

Jingxiang

2010 Zuda Primary School Sichuan Zhu Jingxiang School

2010 Guangji Primary School Sichuan Urban School

Architecture

2010 Heihu Primary School Sichuan Biechu Space School

2010 Chayuan Primary School Sichuan aYa School

2010 Zhangwu Village Zhejiang He Yong Planning

2011 Liyuan Library Beijing Li Xiaodong Library

2011 Meishui Chen Bixia Primary School Yunnan Zhu Jingxiang School

2011 Datan Village Gansu Edward Ng Planning

2011 Huarun Xibopo Village Hebei Li Xinggang Planning

2011 Dayu Artist Village Shanghai Scenic Planning

Architecture

2012 Luxu Jiangsu Atelier Hotel

Archmixing

2012 House for All Seasons Shaanxi RUF House

2012 Linzidi Bridge Shaanxi RUF Infrastructure

2012 Treeyard House Jiangsu Atelier Community

326
 Archmixing

2012 Lili Lili Jiangsu Atelier Community

Archmixing

2012 Yucun Village Market Zhejiang Atelier Community

Archmixing

2012 Rural Industrial Factory Jiangxi aYa Industry

2012 Mulan Primary School Guangdong RUF School

2012 Yongxin Secondary School Jiangxi RUF School

2012 Tongjiang Brick School Jiangxi RUF School

2012 Haotang Village Henan CNRPD Planning

2012 Jintai Village Sichuan RUF Planning

2013 Lukzuk Community Centre Guangdong RUF Community

2013 Angdong Health Centre Hunan RUF Health

2013 Bamboo Raft factory in wuyi Fujian TAO Industry

mountain

2013 Tea seed oil factory Jiangxi Imagine Industry

2013 Jixi Museum Anhui Li Xinggang Museum

2013 Yangyuan Village Fujian Zhao Chen Planning

2014 Dali Kitchen Yunnan TAO Hotel

2014 Ladder House Shaanxi Ibrahim Ma House

2014 Rural Bank Jiangsu Zhu Jingxiang Infrastructure

2014 Liangyou Museum and Community Henan He Wai Community

Centre

2014 Bamboo Pavillion Zhejiang Chen Haoru Community

2014 Chaoyangshan Spring Water Factory Liaoning Bai Yang Industry

327
2014 Lin'an Pigpen Zhejiang Chen Haoru Industry

2014 Zhangwu Garment Factory Zhejiang Atelier Industry

Archmixing

2014 Bishan Library Anhui Ou Ning Library

2014 The Pinch Yunnan RUF Library

2014 Zhengding Primary School Hebei Zhu Jingxiang School

2014 Jinpin Village Fujian Zhao Chen Planning

2014 Changjing Historic Town Jiangsu Ding Wowo Planning

2014 Xinchang New Town Shanghai Atelier Planning

Archmixing

2015 Tsingpu Tulou Retreat Fujian TAO Hotel

2015 Yi Hotel Yunnan YD Design Hotel

2015 Daijiashan Hotel Zhejiang Zhang Lei Hotel

2015 Banwu in Moganshan Zhejiang SU Architects Hotel

2015 Grandpa's BNB Zhejiang He Wai Hotel

2015 Half Space Half Courtyard Shaanxi Yuan Architects House

2015 Chetian Tourist Centre Guizhou West-line studio Commercial

2015 Tea House Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Commercial

2015 Chetian Cultural Centre Guizhou West-line studio Community

2015 Chai Mi Duo Community Centre Yunnan Zhao Yang Community

2015 Pingtian Village Centre Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Community

2015 Songyang Sugar Factory Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Industry

2015 Shenwan Library Hubei SLOW Architects Library

2015 Daijiashan Library Zhejiang Zhang Lei Library

328
2015 Shen'ao Library Zhejiang Zhang Lei Library

2015 Shequ Rural Child Playroom Gansu Zhu Jingxiang School

2015 Chaimen Village Primary School Gansu Zhu Jingxiang School

2015 Guangxi Dabao Village Primary Guangxi Elisabeth Lee School

School

2015 Sijiji Primary School Sichuan aYa School

2015 Liangshan Children Hope House Sichuan aYa School

2015 Beicun Village Fujian Zhao Chen Planning

2015 Bulu Village Guizhou Lv Pinjing Planning

2015 Huashu Village Jiangsu Zhou Ling Planning

2015 Zhongli Town Sichuan Zhao Chen Planning

2015 Wencun Village Zhejiang Wang Shu Planning

2016 Yishe Shanju Beijing DL Atelier Hotel

2016 Weichi BNB Zhejiang SU Architects Hotel

2016 Yemaling BNB Zhejiang GAD Hotel

2016 Backyard House Beijing CCDI House

2016 Macha Village Gansu Mu Jun House

2016 Zhu'an Yunnan Zhao Yang House

2016 Guangming Village Revitalization Yunnan Wan Li House

2016 Longquan International Bamboo Zhejiang Studio Cardenas House

Commune Conscious Design

2016 Taichi Shuijian House Zhejiang Forest Architects House

2016 Wuyi Liangjiashan House Zhejiang Forest Architects House

2016 New Cave Dwelling Shaanxi hyperSity House

Architects

329
2016 Macha Village Community Centre Gansu Mu Jun Community

2016 Mendeng Village Community Centre Guangxi Mu Jun Community

2016 Children's playground Guizhou CNRPD Community

2016 Shitang Village Auditorium Jiangsu Zhang Lei Community

2016 Wulong Temple Urban Design Shanxi URBANUS Planning

2017 Enshi Hotel Hubei Li Baofeng Hotel

2017 Pusu BNB Shanghai Jihua Design Hotel

2017 Yucun Village BNB in Moganshan Zhejiang Natural Build Hotel

2017 Gushe BNB Zhejiang DAS LAB Hotel

2017 Huchen Barn Resort Zhejiang Ares Hotel

2017 Shifang Shanju Sichuan Zhang Ming/ Hotel

Zhang Zi

2017 Tongling House Anhui Zhuang Ziyu House

2017 Xiaoxijia Fujian Wei Na House

2017 Captain's House Fujian Vector Architects House

2017 Tianshui Street Gansu CNRPD House

2017 Deep House Jiangsu SU Architects House

2017 Linqi Yingu House Zhejiang SU Architects House

2017 Zhoushan Yunhai House Zhejiang Evolution Design House

China

2017 Tianjingsha Post Jiangxi Any Scale Infrastructure

2017 Shimen Bridge Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Infrastructure

2017 Huangwei post Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Infrastructure

2017 Public Toillet in Nihegou Villlage Shaanxi Tang Yong Infrastructure

330
2017 JIM Restaurant Yunnan AML Studio Commercial

2017 Shangcun Village Community Centre Anhui SUP Community

2017 Baogai Wu House Anhui SU Architects Community

2017 Mulan Weichang Library Inner HDD Community

Mongolia

2017 Dongziguan Village Community Zhejiang GAD Community

Centre

2017 Chenjiapu Library Zhejiang Zhang Lei Library

2017 Wang Jing Memoria Hall Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Museum

2017 Qiyue Museum Zhejiang Xu Tiantian Museum

2017 Anji Rural Memoriral Gallery Zhejiang CAA Design Museum

2017 Yueyang No.3 High School Hunan SUP School

Auditorium

2017 Xinchang Kindergarten Sichuan Deshaus School

2017 Jixian Kindergarten Sichuan Atelier Y School

2017 Shangping Village Fujian He Wai Planning

2017 Dongziguan Village Zhejiang GAD Planning

2018 Yunjian Rural BNB Jiangsu One Take Hotel

Architects

2018 Lei House Zhejiang Zhang Lei Hotel

2018 Yunman Songjian BNB Zhejiang CAA Design Hotel

2018 Tasha Tudor BNB in Moganshan Zhejiang ATDESIGN Hotel

2018 Yugang BNB in Moganshan Zhejiang ATDESIGN Hotel

2018 Boutique Hotel in Yang Simiao Shaanxi Yuan Architects Hotel

2018 Housing in Mountain Jiangxi Jin Feng House

331
2018 Song House Shanghai Zhang Lei House

2018 Tibet house adaptation Xizang hyperSity House

2018 Market in Xiafu Village Zhejiang Bengo Studio House

2018 Renovation of Beipo Bridge Chongqing CNRPD Infrastructure

2018 Jiangshan Fishing Village Jiangsu Mix Architect Infrastructure

2018 Stage of Hedong Village Shandong Fu Ying Infrastructure

2018 Gate and Stage of Shantou Village Shandong CNRPD Infrastructure

2018 Nanshi Hall Anhui SU Architects Community

2018 Zhuli Sichuan Yuan Feng Community

2018 Sanhe Village Community Centre Shaanxi Yuan Architects Community

2018 Xinzhai Coffee Manor Yunnan TAO Industry

2018 Pingqiao Youth Centre Guizhou SCUT Library

2018 Louna Village Architect's Library Guizhou SCS Library

2018 Chongli Rural Library Hebei TAO Library

2018 Shiyu Shanfang Library Zhejiang Forest Architects Library

2018 Temple of Wealth in Taiyang Village Anhui CNRPD Religion

2018 Shigu Primary School Renovation Guangdong Mu Jun School

2018 Qianshan Village Renovation Shandong He Wai Planning

332
Appendix D

Point Cloud model of Lili (photogrammetry and 3D scanning)

333
Appendix E

Street Sections in Lili

334
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Appendix F

Gradient of lanes in Lili

Name Δ h (m) Δ d (m) Gradient

OLD KUAI-JIA LANE 1.31 60.30 2.1%
HONG-SHOU LANE 1.21 36.50 3.3%
NEW KUAI-JIA LANE 1.06 48.50 2.1%
MID-DING-JIA LANE 0.72 40.53 1.7%
HU-JIA LANE 0.86 44.96 1.9%
HUANG-TAI-XIANG LANE 0.85 40.10 2.1%
DUAN-BEN GARDEN LANE 0.98 51.82 1.9%
MID-LING-JIA LANE 0.65 21.39 2.7%
ZHU-GE LANE 1.17 27.54 4.2%
NAN-XIN LANE 0.75 21.96 3.4%
CHEN-JIA LANE 0.31 15.91 1.9%
XIA-JIA-QIAO LANE 0.50 17.89 2.8%
WU-JIA LANE 0.76 25.43 3.0%
RU-JIA LANE 0.87 48.62 1.8%
RU-JIA-WAN-TANG LANE 0.73 22.4 3.2%
YONGXIN LANE 1.18 55.53 2.1%
XIA-JIA LANE 1.67 55.31 3.0%
JIN-JIA LANE 1.21 33.21 3.6%
HENG-FENG-TAI WEST LANE 0.99 36.22 2.7%
HENG-FENG-TAI EAST LANE 0.93 33.23 2.7%
SAN-TAI LANE 1.17 46.20 2.5%
RAN-FANG LANE 0.90 39.53 2.2.%
RU-JIA-QIAO LANE 0.72 38.41 1.9%
HUA-CHE-DA-XING LANE 0.34 30.18 1.1%

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Appendix G

3D Scanning of the vernacular house

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