The Spatial Forms Of Small Towns In The Hilly Areas Of Northern Hunan

Near the end of the 20th century, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council made some regulations about the development of small towns in a healthy way, advocating it a significant strategy to provide impetus to the economy development in the countryside. It is the common understanding of governments at all levels to speed up the development and construction of small towns.Small towns are geographically widely spread in China. Due to the variation in historic and cultural environment, they came into being with municipal cultural features that vary by geographic location. Conditioned by external objective factors, traditional villages have turned into a living environment that orchestrates natural environment, social structure and living of villagers, which symbolizes the construction ideas of integration with territorial conditions and symbiosis with the nature. Combined with topography, optimal land utilization, consideration of climatic conditions, energy conservation, emphasis on environmental ecology and landscaping, superb construction techniques, local construction materials, and a localized way of building, they formed into natural and artless architectural styles, exemplifying the harmony between human and nature. It is the dominant idea to take actions that suit local circumstances and comply with the nature when building spatial forms for traditional towns.However, along with the increase of both speed and scale of construction, the construction in small towns tends to result into identical appearances seen in big cities and demonstrate lack of features of town. It is therefore urgent to provide some reference information about the spatial design of small towns as a guide.Based on the precursory related research findings, this article brings up the topic"the spatial forms of small towns in the hilly areas of Northern Hunan". With a thorough understanding of architecture, urban planning, geography and economics, the author pointedly explores this selected topic with the hope of contributing and offering ideas to the construction of small towns in the hilly area of Northern Hunan and even China.This article consists of five chapters. The structure and main content are as follows: Chapter 1 is the introduction. It gives the background of this selected topic, the value and goal of the research, related definitions, summary of related resources and documents, research approach and overall structure.Chapter 2 sets up the context for the analysis and exposition in latter chapters of this article by providing five cases on small town construction which reflect the state of the construction of towns in hilly areas both in and out of China.Chapter 3 mainly focuses the analysis of the ecological characteristics in the hilly areas in Northern Hunan and the advantages and disadvantages of the development of small towns. Some issues existent in the construction and planning of small towns in the hilly areas of Northern Hunan are also raised here.Chapter 4 is the key part of this article. It elaborates the evolution of the spatial forms, spatial element characteristics and technical factors impacting spatial forms of the small towns in the hilly areas of Northern Hunan. Examples of local town constructions are shown along with analysis.Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of this research. It explores construction forms suitable for small towns in hilly areas.In summary, this article targets the small towns in hilly areas of Northern Hunan for research purpose, starts with the spatial elements and characteristics of towns, and presents analysis and research of the characteristics and forms of small towns in hilly areas of Northern Hunan. It probes ways to take advantage of topography to exemplify the territory individuality of small towns in hilly areas for the purpose of providing valuable theoretic support to small town spatial form design.