Rural Architecture Renovation Using Prefabrication

Rural culture is a significant component of Chinese culture,and it is incubated and embodied by its physical environment,and is given new vitality through endless cycle.However,what have been inherited since the very beginning of villages,either material or immaterial,is now threatened to be formatted by the modernization.One of the most basic ways,in order to sustain rural culture,is to critically examine the status quo of villages,and into which to introduce an organic renovation.On the other hand,with the ongoing upgrade of national architecture industry,architecture prefabrication is considered prospective due to its advantages of being efficient,economic,and sustainable.And it is possible to apply prefabrication to villages,a virgin land of this new building technology,and a reasonable attempt to meet both the opportunity and challenge.The problems of traditional rural construction,including poor and non-standard building quality,waste of energy and resource,low efficiency,and cultural conflict between the new and the old,should be discussed and dealt with under the new technological system.This thesis takes Huangpen village as an example,and discusses what workflow should be adopted,what factors should be addressed,and how these factors interrelate with architectural design in a rural renovation using prefabrication.After reviewing relative theories and cases,this thesis points out the essential conflict,which is the conflict between standardized architecture manufacture and diversified need in villages in both technology and culture,on which the attitude of designer should be actively improving the current technology into serving villages,while following the limitations of the technology.Then the thesis lists four key issues in design,which are the transportation and construction condition,the physical characters of existing buildings,the participation of villagers,and the representation of culture.From there the thesis studies the architecture of Huangpen categorically,and proposed three typical renovation strategies,to remove and rebuild the existing building,to introduce new counterpart,and to maintain and refurbish.Then an example is given by architectural design of the building cluster surrounding the silk worm factory,through which the attitude and measures are further explicated.In the end,the thesis discusses the future of villages using prefabrication,and the role of architects and architectural design.Also,it is argued that the true value of rural renovation is to create a sustainable mechanism,which can catalyze the self-renewal of rural areas.