Research On Spatial Defensiveness Of Traditional Villages In Southern Fujian Based On Space Syntax

Traditional villages are the unique heritage that have embodied both tangible culture and intangible culture values and are continuously in the process of dynamic transformations.Being the cradles that give birth to civilizations,create vivid lives,and pass on values,traditional villages are common legacy of human society.Over a half century,dedicated scholars have built a solid foundation in the research and conservation of traditional villages,and have been unremittingly opened new research angles and dimensions,among which,the interpretation of design wisdoms in traditional villages could provide profound indications for current rural conservation and development practices.However,current rapid urbanization process has posed huge challenges to the survivals and sustainable development of traditional villages,hence a large number of traditional villages are facing hollowing out and constructive destructions.Defensiveness is one of the important reasons why most traditional villages could survive from man-made destructions in history.Different from defensive settlements(buildings)such as Tulou and earth castles in Fujian province,ordinary traditional villages in southern Fujian area,with wider distributions and few obvious fortification features can also meet basic defensive needs by space design.To examine how the purpose of defense has been realized in traditional villages in southern Fujian through space design is the main research focus of this dissertation.By adopting qualitative methods such as literature review and fieldwork,this research firstly discusses the cultural characteristics and types of spatial element in traditional villages in southern Fujian,and secondly constructs relevance among defensive behavior,defensive patterns and spatial elements,and thirdly proposes how to interpret the spatial defensiveness from the perspective of spatial structure and visual relationship,and fourthly demonstrates the applicability and necessity of Space Syntax’ s related indicative quantitative parameters including integration,choice,intelligibility and visual integration in the research.Through the combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis,taking Tanlin village and Xiaocuo village as case studies,the specific defensive phenomena are revealed in this research from the following three levels as village-group-single building,and the characteristics of defensive spatial construction of ordinary traditional villages in southern Fujian are finally discussed,with an attempt to provide indications for the practices and research of conservation and architectural design in traditional villages in southern Fujian area.