Youfangping Village Landscape Design / ADEA

Curated by 韩爽 - HAN Shuang

Architects: ADEA; ADEA
Area: 5000 m²
Year: 2017
Photographs:TrimontImage, Xiaoyang Zhou, Yang Tong
Landscape Construction Team: China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Corp. Ltd.
Landscape Deepening Team: China Northwest Architecture Design And Research Institute Co.Ltd-ADEA- Art studio

Text description provided by the architects. Youfangping Village is affiliated to Joujianfang Town, LantianCounty, facing Mountain Jade across the Bashui River. It is located at the northern foot of Qinling Mountains within the basins of seventy-two valleys, with numerous mountains surrounded and affiliated to basins and watersides.

Youfangping Village Landscape Design / ADEA - Stairs — Changting. Image © Xiaoyang Zhou

As the village is located in the mountainous area, it is a great summer resort for a large number of people from surrounding cities and counties every middle summer. Except for this period, there are few people visiting the village. Most people in the village are left-behind and the labor force drain is severe.

2017，under the joint leadership of Xi'an Municipal Government, Lantian County Government and China State Construction Northwestern Regional Headquarters, in response to the national poverty alleviation efforts, our design team try to discuss the New Interpretation of Local Landscape, poverty alleviation through technology.

Every resource in the village presents single and disordered, and its traditional scenes and tourism resources need effective excavation. The degradation of the village is mainly connected with human. The lacks of motivation for returning and employment opportunities are the inducements which lead to insufficient vitality in the village. Therefore, the design aims at providing villagers with the reasons to return and arousing visitors’ nostalgia.

Taking the chance of “returning”, a physical carrier of cultural inheritance and memory lasting should be provided firstly. That is to provide a functional space for gathering and communications. A transparent semi-indoor place will be designed to form a public place with a sense of constraint as well as an interface of mountain viewing whichcan broadenthe horizon. The façade of the long pavilion is constructed withplain dimension stone, rooted in the primitive and tough appearance of Qinling Mountains. And the staircases on the side of the pavilion constitute a connection between corridors and fields, forming an interworking space structure loyal to traditional life and labor mode.

Youfangping Village Landscape Design / ADEA - Stairs, Facade — Changting details. Image © Xiaoyang Zhou

The original village committee square is the only spacious place in the whole village. Yet because of its single function and the great security risk in original ramps, there are few villagers staying there.

The design firstly sets up parapets serving as guidance, considering the image demonstration of the main entry as well as people’s activities. In this way, an entry space with avivid image will come into being to undertake the flow of outsiders. And also, a sign of the village will be set up, which tourists can easily recognize from all directions. And then a new corridor will be established to provide a more comfortable space for the villagers to keep the traditionof chatting, with the combination of steps and tree pools to transform the scarp in the place. The join of terrain and corridor creates an intensive and abundant space with high participation. Besides, part of the original place will be reserved to provide more possibility about this space.

Deriving from the chimneys common in Youfangping Village, the design of the village sign aims at demonstrating a typical vulgar painting about farming civilization, with the remote villages which boast“curling smoke” as the conception. The static are old cottages with a profound history and the dynamic are those wisps of curling smoke, showing lamps and candles of myriad families which have been passed down generations by generations.That is exactly the tranquil and comfortable normal life inherited from ancient times.

As the great dispersion between the township roads brings inconvenience to people, the down footpath will be displayed in the form of zigzag cloister with guardrail integrated with steps. Draw a modern stroke under the extremely wild and natural environment, agile and moderate.

Aplatform joined the secluded and quiet path and stream at one side, forming footpath and viewing platform with differentiated feeling. One lives among the mountain and stays for a moment when coming across a stream of water. That is the most peaceful and real way in which people get along with mountains.

Youfangping Village Landscape Design / ADEA - Handrail — secret path. Image © TrimontImage

The purpose of the discovery and experiences in Youfangping Village is not only to present resolutions to prevent the degradation of villages, but also to analyzevillage cultures and spatial relationships from the perspective of humanistic concern and sociology and simultaneouslyremodel the solutions to the needs of context inheritance.