The Spatial Form And Layout Of Traditional Villages In Hainan

Traditional villages are the product of long-term development of the agriculture society. With the elaboration of our ancestors, reflecting the ideology and culture, value concepts, production life style, social organizational structure as well as economic and technological level of the traditional society. Known as the "living fossil of the traditional culture", they are precious historical and cultural heritage left by our ancestors to future generations. However, under the background of rapid expansion of new rural construction and urbanization, the problems and misconceptions of people’s awareness towards the protection of traditional villages and the practice of regulation planning lead to current situation of "thousands of similar villages". Faced with natural and cultural pressure brought by urbanization,the contradictions between local conditions and customs, residential buildings and landscapes and the modern city image and lifestyle become increasingly apparent.The thesis takes 19 traditional villages in Hainan island as the research object, and makes in-depth analysis and research on Hainan traditional villages in terms of site-selection features, spatial layout, evolvement laws, morphological structure of buildings and composition and application of plants and so on, so as to explore the planning ideas and building techniques. The results are as follows:1.The site selections and settlement patterns of Hainan traditional villages(1) The site selection and layout of Hainan traditional villages lays emphasis on the security, food and clothing, landscape and other essential factors. It follows the clan and religious beliefs as well as the basic principles of traditional geomantic theory. The ideal base address of those villages should not only contains the environmental characteristics of picturesque scenery, fertile land, sunniness and security defense, it should also meet the spatial structure features of geomantic layout.(2) Traditional villages depend on the natural landscape terrain and form the village pattern of "forests-buildings-fields(water)". Original-settlement and movement villages attach themselves to forests by groups. Affected by deep clan and geomantic consciousness, their architectural compositions are compact and organized while the boundaries are obvious. The inner constructions of regional-development and resident-migration villages show "cluster’ with certain regularity, and the external structures of the villages are scattering without clear boundary. The architectural layout of historical embedded villages is scattered without regularity. Such type of villages usually locate at developed areas with convenient transportation2. The spatial location laws of traditional villages in Hainan(1) Influenced by the suffering consciousness, traditional villages form multi-level defense layout of "courtyard-village lane-watchtower(defensive tower)-alley door-village gate (wall)-plants-terrain (mountain)" from inside to outside. And the public space is connected by inside and outside roads to from "point-line-face" village spatial structure.(2) Water environment is closely related to residents’ production and living, so it is usually set inside or around villages. Wells have various shapes and their number is proportional to the scale of villages. They are distributed at places with convenient transportation for villagers to get water easily. In addition to aquaculture production, ponds are full of spirits of mountains and water. "Centripetal" spatial structure of villages is often centered around ponds. Fields and ponds are both regarded as the bodies of water in the geomantic theory, so their functions and layouts are similar in traditional villages. But in the perspective of architecture, pools are superior to paddy fields. Besides, the landscape construction of water gap garden is the top priority in village construction. Usually, bridges, pavilions, workshops and other constructions are built to achieve the purpose of locking water gap and keeping fortune3. The architectural forms and constructions of Hainan traditional villagesThe constructions of traditional villages are divided into residential buildings, ancestral temples and landscape architectures, whose site selection and building are all restricted by the geomantic theory. In the meanwhile, the traditional residential buildings in Hainan are influenced by central plains culture as well as the geomantic culture, so they continues the spatial characteristics of Chinese traditional courtyard buildings. They emphasize the sense of closure and stress axes, primary and secondary distinction as well as inside and outside differences. Ancestral temples are the areas for villagers’ spiritual life, so they are generally separated from material living areas and set up at the edge of villages. Landscape architecture, geomantic tree and geomantic forests are all set up according to the theory of geomantic layout.