BUILDING PALIMPSEST

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Guiding Vernacular Urban Life

How Can the Agenda of Conservation Secure a More Diverse Use of Public Space in China’s Urban Villages?

Melanie (Ran) Miao Wolfson College 19 April 2016

Essay 2: Pilot Thesis An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil Examination in Architecture & Urban Design (2015-2017)

Key words: Informal urbanism Historic Urban Landscape Vernacular Conservation Urban Village

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Abstract The growth of Chinese cities is indicative of what is happening all over the developing world. Globalisation has dramatically shaped urban design in the Global South with a particular adverse outcome – the accelerating destruction of indigenously developed urban spaces and their replacement with homogenised urban forms.

In Guangzhou, the third largest city in China, an example is the phenomenon ‘urban village’. Rampant in cities across the south of China, these areas are historic rural villages engulfed in urban expansion and are developed by individual villagers in an informal, unplanned manner. Their history and current existence are inseparable from local, indigenous traditions and techniques and they create unique areas of urban heritage. However, these areas are congested and in the process of deterioration. The current dominating regeneration approach is to demolish and replace with homogenous tower blocks. This pilot thesis argues that a feasible response to urban village issue need to stop their physical decline and demonstrate the adaptability and subsequent value of local traditions and technologies in the city design and development. It proposes using the agenda of conservation of historic urban landscapes to manipulate the fabric of the urban village and guide its development. The specific aim of this manipulation is to answer the urban need for securing a more diverse and inclusive use of public space for urban villages’ migrants. This is then evaluated using three criteria – political, environmental and social adaptability. Findings illustrate that the use of the agenda of conservation is promising and there is an urgency to begin testing this on the field.

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2. Growth of Guangzhou City (highlighted = Pearl Village)

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Introduction Urban village is a phenomenon rampant across China, especially in a southern city like Guangzhou (Liu & Meulder et al., 2011). Guangzhou was designated as one of the 14 coastal open cities in 1984 and its urban area has expanded significantly in the last thirty years (Liu & Meulder et al., 2011). As a result of this rapid expansion, rural villages are continuously swallowed by urban developments. The resultant ‘urban villages’ are stark contrasts to the orderly and heavily designed urban fabric. An ‘urban village’ is an unplanned, informal and highly-dense conglomeration of apartment buildings lived in mainly by rural migrants (Wang & Liu et al., 2016). Some scholars have compared China’s urban villages to slums and favelas of other developing countries because of their self-built, self-governing and informal manners of urbanism (Huang, 2015; Webster & Wu et al., 2016; Wu & Zhang et al, 2013; Zhang & Zhao et al., 2003). Being individually and indigenously developed, these urban villages have roots in their local vernacular nature, forming unique historic urban landscapes in Chinese cities.

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The environmental and social sustainability of these urban villages are however, worrying. Over the past fifteen years, urban villages have grown to become notorious for their deteriorating living conditions, being frequently described as ‘dirty, chaotic and awful’ (Wang, 2015). Villagers have built apartment blocks to the maximum height and width in order to produce the largest amount of rentable floorspace. In Guangzhou, China’s third major city, urban villages account for 20% of the total land area (Huang, 2015) but more than 60% of its fifteen million migrant population (He, 2014).

‘Hand-shake buildings’, ‘kissing buildings’ and ‘one line sky’ (Wang, 2011) are just some of the terms used to describe the extreme proximity between apartment blocks. Without proper guidance and regulations, villagers have created a migrant settlement that lack in natural lighting and ventilation and hold serious fire and flooding risks (Wang, 2011). The lack of environmental sustainability is, however, not the only issue in the urban village. Urban villages are also socially unsustainable as the scarce availability of open space and the territorialised nature of space 1 means that migrant populations do not have space for social interaction (Du & Si, 2010) and integration into the larger community (Du & Si, 2010; Huang & Li, 2014).

1 Observation and interviews with migrants at Pearl Village, Guangzhou indicate that there is no interaction with villagers other than in a landlord-tenant relationship. Interviews were conducted during the period of 10-18 December 2015 Page 6

3. Shipai Village Alleyway

The typical government response to the situation is also problematic. The regeneration model is a complete demolition of urban villages and replacement with commercially-drive, middle-class and modern-looking large-scale urban blocks. This model of urban design and development is replicated across the city (He, 2013) and results in the homogenisation of urban form (He, 2013) and displacement of migrant populations (Quan & He et ac., 2013; He & Qian et al., 2012).

The aim of this pilot thesis is, therefore, to find an alternative urban regeneration approach that looks into the adaptability and resilience of local urban traditions and technologies in the city design and development. The essay proposes using the agenda of conservation, which is used here as an umbrella term referring to conservation legislation and the constituent planning process and design techniques. By using the agenda of conserving historic urban landscapes, we can begin to manipulate the fabrics of the urban village to make public space for migrants that is inclusive. This alternative method of manipulation is then evaluated using three criteria – political, environmental and social adaptability.

This pilot thesis begins with identifying the core problem of urban villages. Using the agenda of conservation as a method is then presented as a potential solution and carefully evaluated using both research and design. Finally, the conclusion outlines some of the limitations of this research and urgent need for field tests.

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4. Xian Village Demolition

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5. Caiwuwei, Shenzhen (before)

6. Caiwuwei, Shenzhen (now)

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Government’s Method – Eliminating the Rural and the Vernacular The quality of life in urban villages is deteriorating and regeneration is a key. Since 2000, governments have attempted to solve the urban village problem by removing any trace of it (Wang & Cai, 2010). In most executed regeneration cases, urban villages are demolished completely (Wang & Cai, 2010). Indigenous villagers are given moved into high-rise apartments (Wang & Cai, 2010) while rural migrants are entirely displaced (Wang & Cai, 2010). From the government’s perspective, this is a triumph – the ‘dirty, chaotic and poor’ urban village has been replaced with ‘white, rich, pretty’ towers fit for modern living (Wang, 2015).

However, there is an increasing number of voices from academia recognising that this type of state-led regeneration might not be most suitable solution (Chu, 2012; He & Wu, 2007; Li & Yang et al., 2012).

Firstly, state-led regeneration is displacing rural migrant population and creating a homogenisation of the urban environment socially and physically. Between 2000 and 2008, local governments were actively carrying out urban village regeneration and testing out new policies (Wang & Cai, 2010). In Guangzhou’s model of urban village regeneration, both the local government and developer were revenue-driven and incentivised to orient the development to middle and upper classes (Wang & Cai, 2010). Local governments have been evaluated yearly on GDP growth (Wang & Cai, 2010) and they positioned these city-centre regeneration projects as potential drivers of GDP growth through property transactions and Page 11

consumer spending (Wang & Cai, 2010). The developers, on the execution side of the project, have spent a large sum on demolition and providing compensation to indigenous villagers (Wang & Cai, 2010) and needed to recover these through an economically-lucrative development (Wang & Cai, 2010). The result is a repeatable model of shopping malls and gated communities built exclusively for the middle class (Wang & Cai, 2010), as seen in Liede Village in Guangzhou, Caiwuwei in Shenzhen and Zhouzai Village in Zhuhai, just to name a few.

g. Guangzhou Gated Community Distribution

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7. rural village

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10. Demolition of market (2009)

12. Xian Village now (2015)

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11. Public protests (2009)

This model of regeneration adds to the homogenisation of urban form to gated communities has been criticised by scholars (Taylor, 2012). On the other hand, the displacement of rural migrant is equally worrying. Fulong Wu and others (Andersson, 2014; Li & Liu, 2011) have detailed the lack of social housing for urban poor and the impact of displacement on their inclusion into urban society Secondly, this method of land expropriation has caused increasing distrust and violence between government and villagers to such a degree that any form of intervention in urban villages is viewed with suspicion. The imposition of formal planning has exposed the fundamental clash and struggle for power between the government and villagers. For example, Xian Village, within Guangzhou’s CBD area, has been undergoing demolition for seven years . The expropriation process was forcefully started with armed policemen entering at night and destroying the village market (Sack, 2012; Young, 2012). Resistance from villagers came in the form of protests (Sack, 2012), demonstrations (Young, 2012) and ultimately ‘nail houses’ which still persist amongst all the rubbles and dust even to this day (IUD, 2015).

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The political sensitivity surrounding regeneration has also meant that any government actions are viewed with suspicion from villagers. In an interview with a planner from Guangdong’s rural-urban planning department, Li expressed frustration over the level of distrust which has led to violent clashes during planners’ visits to urban villages.2 This has significantly set back the ability of the government and even academics on understanding these areas. In fact, the Guangzhou government has begun to assume a passive position and no longer initiates any form of intervention unless specifically requested by the urban village.3 The only regeneration projects that are carried out now are sites with close proximity to major development areas in the city and in Guangzhou this means 3 out of 139 urban villages are being regenerated.4 Not only is the amount of intervention insufficient, the methods of these new regeneration projects follow the same old model of demolish-and-replace.

2 Interview conducted on 15 December 2015.

3 Interview with Li 4 Ibid

13. Xinqian Village, Guangzhou, proposed rendering

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14. Lingtang Village, Guangzhou, proposed rendering

15. Xintang Village, Guangzhou, proposed rendering

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16. Urban villages - results of urban-rural divide

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Core of the Urban Village Problem – the Urban-Rural Government’s attitudes towards urban villages have been clear – they are a remnant of the past and need to be eliminated. The core of the issue lies in the deep urban-rural divide in China and the political labelling and positioning of urban villages as an ‘non-urban’ state of exception becomes a justification for its demolition.

A large number of scholars have pointed to China’s political rural and urban divide as the underlying conflict causing the urban village phenomenon (He, 2013; Zacharias & Hu et al., 2013; Webster & Wu et, at., 2016; Wang & Liu, 2016). The political difference between urban and rural exists in China in two key aspects, land ownership and right to social security. The first aspect is a legal differentiation between two types of land ownership models, one defined as ‘urban’ and owned by the state and the other as ‘rural’ and owned by a rural collective organisation (Xiao & Lu et al., 2013).

However, the term ‘collective ownership’ is a red herring and largely a theoretical and political statement of collectivism (Shepherd & Yu, 2013). In practice, each villager retains development rights over a particular plot of land and private ownership is the unspoken rule of thumb governing villages.5 In an interview with the village chief of Pearl Village in Guangzhou, Pan expressed his unwillingness in meddling with villagers’ lands and changing the status quo to anything that will impact his support.6 An urban village is the result of individual plots of ‘rural’ land being privately developed into urban-scale buildings.

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Interview with Village Chief of Pearl Village, Guangzhou Interview conducted on 18 December 2015 Page 23

This decision to develop properties, however, is villagers’ necessary reaction to the prohibition of free movement between urban and rural statuses (Lin & Meulder et al., 2011; Li, 2009). Known as hukou, a household registration system stamps people as either ‘rural’ or ‘urban’ – ‘rural’ villagers have farming land to depend on for livelihood while ‘urban’ residents are provided with social security by the state (Lin & Meulder et al., 2011). The movement between these two statuses is highly controlled (Lin & Meulder et al., 2011).

Villagers who live geographically in cities, are unable to transfer their ‘rural’ status for ‘urban’ social benefits (Lin & Meulder et al., 2011). With farming land taken away by the state for urban use and a lack of guidance in skill-upgrading, landless farmers are forced into renting out apartments for survival (Li, 2009). The same urban-rural divide also denies social security to the entire population of ‘rural’ migrants in the city (Dror, 2015) and provides them with a negligible amount of housing assistance (Du & Li, 2010). Urban village is therefore the meeting place of poor migrants needing cheap housing and landless farmers seeking renters.

This political divide between urban and rural is the core conflict of which ‘urban village’ is a manifestation. Urban villages exist in a state of exception, as an abnormal place legally excluded from the urban. This political disownment of urban villages as part of the city and rejection of its legitimacy as urban land has been used by the government as a way to legitimise its demolition. In Guangzhou, the overriding sentiment amongst the public remains that urban villages are to be removed from the city, like a ‘cancerous Page 24

tumour’ (Bai, 2013). This is despite the historical fact these Guangzhou’s urbanisation story, which picked up speed only since the 1950s, is one dominated by the physical inclusion of urban villages into the city’s expansion (Manguruan & Ray, 2014). Urban history and urban heritage therefore necessarily includes urban villages. In an interview with Lixun Li7, one of the first academics studying into urban villages and identifying their urban value, he expressed his controversial idea of creating a museum for urban villages in order to record this important piece of urban history. However, not many share his wishful proposal and urban villages continue to be seen as 7

Interview conducted 17 December 2015

17. Banner propaganda during demolition of Xian Village Page 25

18. Liede Village Redevelopment: Isolated Village

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having no place in modern cities.

The treatment of heritage reflects the same mentality that urban village does not belong to the urban. In Guangzhou’s Liede Village Regeneration, for example, traditional shrines are demolished and reconstructed in a tight cluster on the edges of the former village land and right next to huge apartment towers (Tao & Ye, 2015).

This method of isolation demonstrates the attitude towards urban villages and their heritage – that it is a thing of the rural past and essentially ‘non-urban’.

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Conservation of Vernacular – Adapting the Urban to the Rural?

The essay makes the argument that making urban village more ‘urban’ could the stop their trend of decline and deterioration and prevent their total demolition. I propose that there is potential to adapt the local urban traditions and techniques to urban densities.

Showing their adaptability to city development is key to creating a more inclusive definition of what is ‘urban’ in Chinese cities and starting the conversation surrounding the value of urban villages in the urban context. Using the agenda of conservation of historic urban landscape is proposed as a way to manipulate the urban village fabric. This approach fundamentally reverses the urban-rural dichotomy into one that gives more priority to the latter – the rural, vernacular and traditional and use that as a basis to inform urban development.

The agenda of conservation is here defined as the search for methods and techniques to change and manage the rate of natural or intentional decay (Earl & Saint, 1996). These methods and techniques include but are not confined to preservation, restoration, reuse, reconstruction (Earl & Saint, 1996). The subject of conservation is historic urban landscapes, which is a term put together by UNESCO and defined as ‘the result of a historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes … in the broader urban context and its geographical setting’ (UNESCO, 2011). The conservation of historic urban landscapes then necessarily recognises the ‘living’ characteristics of urban heritage (UNESCO, 2011) and addresses its survival in context of urban design and planning.

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This essay is part of the larger theoretical framework looking at the conservation of urban heritage. It takes on a position described by Christoph Brumann as heritage agnosticism (Brumann, 2014). He has defined it as a new theoretical middle path that avoids ‘the pitfalls of both the reverential approach of ‘‘heritage belief ’’ and the overly critical one of ‘heritage atheism’’’ (Brumann, 2014). The conflict between the two dominating approaches is rather acute in Chinese cities such as Guangzhou - the academia stressing the intrinsic values of cultural heritage (Chu, 2012; Chen & Zheng, 2007; Li & Yang et al., 2012) while sociologists and practitioners view heritage in its artificiality in arresting cultural change and suppressing creativity (Li & Lin et al., 2014). A large gap exists between the academia and practice (Hugentobler, 2006) and this has yet to be reconciled. This study takes on the middle which leaves the value of heritage and its impacts as an open question for empirical investigation. Specifically, in the context of this project, the value of urban heritage is evaluated in its adaptability and contribution to city design and development. In this pilot thesis, the specific aim of securing public space for migrants is identified to be an important element of urban life especially in Guangzhou where half of the city’s population are migrants. Securing migrants’ needs for healthy and inclusive public spaces is a crucial aspect of addressing needs of urban development.

Therefore, the basis for choosing what to conserve in the urban village is its ability in securing a more diverse use of public space designed for migrants. The identified principles to be conserved inPage 29

clude private land ownership, responsiveness to climate and added social value of landscape elements. Other principles, such as religious beliefs in siting and orientation of objects, are excluded because they are less useful in adapting the urban villages to include migrants. These three identified elements are analysed and justified both through research and design. The following sections evaluates the method of using the agenda of conservation to secure a diverse use of public space in urban villages with three criteria – political, environmental and social adaptability.

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Criteria 1: Political Adaptability Conservation as a Cultural Framework Over the years, urban village regeneration has become a highly sensitive issue (Young, 2013). Any potential strategies need to address its politics both in respect to the government and the indigenous villagers.

Due to the awkward position that urban villages exist in the urbanrural divide, there is currently no definite laws or regulations that address the legal status of urban villages or the rights of villagers and migrants in them (Webster & Wu et al., 2016). The Guangzhou government has produced a well-advertised ‘one village, one plan’ slogan (Guangzhou Planning Department, 2015) which is a pretext for a lack of clear definitions for the political identity for these urban areas. The framing of urban villages as sites of urban heritage, gives urban villages a cultural legitimacy and an urban identity based on cultural heritage. This might enable regeneration to circumvent the political sensitivity felt by the government. This framing fits neatly with the larger state-led operation to use cultural heritage as the basis for a Chinese identity (Ai, 2012; Shepherd & Larry, 2013), instead of political ideologies (Shepherd & Larry, 2013). Ai explains this as a ‘demand for internal legitimacy’ whereby ‘the official reevaluation of China’s cultural tradition is part of the party’s desire to legitimise the ‘socialist rule’ of a capitalist economy and control the disintegration of Marxism as a political/social movement.’ We can see this support for cultural heritage groups also directly practiced in the field. In China, there has been a very limited number of non-government organisations (NGOs) and the largest sector where NGOs could legally operate in is in cultural heritage (ShepPage 31

herd & Larry, 2013). A number of them have engaged with historic rural villages in the larger Guangdong province (Yan, 2015; Zou, 2015). The concept of conservation and its cultural basis also appears less politically-driven. Grassroots organisations dealing with villager or migrant empowerment are almost non-existent because of the sensitivity around distinctly political statements. Cultural heritage NGOs can avoid using charged terms such as ‘movement’ (Shepherd & Larry, 2013) and take on a much more educational approach framed around cultural awareness (Yan, 2015; Zou, 2015).

Conservation as a cultural framing could potentially help it navigate around the sensitive issues of political power and rights of villagers and migrants.

Conservation and its cultural basis could also enable the architect to enter as an apolitical construction expert to advice on the best way to construct. This is built on the fact that there is a lack of expertise in building knowledge (Chen & Zheng, 2007) and indigenous villagers are open to advice in this respect. In other words, their decision-making process – in developing the physical fabric of urban villages – is malleable. Take for example, Jiuxian Village in Guangxi province. This is a village where intervention is successful only because of its apolitical and skill-based nature. In an interview with one of the workshop organisers, I was able to speak to Ziruo Li and listened to the story of the incremental changes happening in this village. Having its beginning as a workshop ran by teachers of South China University of Technology, the regeneration picked up pace and started receiving attention. One of the people getting Page 32

on board was a French architect who bought a couple of houses and renovated it in hopes of using them as a demonstration and educational tool to conserving vernacular buildings. His efforts were met with little enthusiasm however, as people were not involved in the construction processes and in fact preferred him to buy their houses in return for cash. As the project died down, the architect left but the French engineer decided to stay on in the village as a place to live. People started asking him for his expertise knowledge on how to do good conservation. The villagers heeded his advice on construction materials, techniques and processes and incremental changes are currently being seen at Jiuxian Village. This illustrates that the individual decision-making process in urban villages is malleable and can be guided by construction experts. This malleability would mean that the vernacular way of private land ownership in urban villages is not a hindrance to urbanisation but instead could be adapted to create good urban environments. This step of recognising individual agency as the basis of this local urban heritage is the first step to opening up the possibilities of an alternative, culturally specific mode of urbanisation, as an alternative to homogenised urban forms currently rampant across Chinese cities.  

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Criteria 2: Climate-Responsiveness Making Open Spaces Environmentally Sustainable The rural beginnings of urban villages contain valuable vernacular knowledge about responding to the local climate. This knowledge could be adapted into a dense urban environment.

These environmental strategies responding to Guangzhou’s subtropical climates originate in the historic ideal world view of ‘being one with nature’ (Coggins, 2015) that heavily influences rural villages. This philosophy has roots in Taoist and Confucian thoughts and manifests as fengshui practices (Coggins, 2015) that villagers follow. Vernacular principles in this region is especially evident in the way ventilation is created. There is an emphasis on the siting and orientation of ‘openings’ which include windows, doors, courtyards and alleyways (Coggins, 2015). These are believed in fengshui practices to be pathways for air and hence enable the buildings to literally breath and be one with the natural environment (Coggins, 2015). These practices are now understood to have a scientific basis in climatic responsiveness of the built environment.

This is composed of three elements: built form, street layout and siting. In terms of built form, these traditional buildings are made of timber frames and enable a fully open space underneath. Together with the spatial sequence of courtyards, these buildings allows air to pass through uncumbered by walls.

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19. courtyard building for ventilation

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20. timber frame construction

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In terms of street layout, these are narrow alleyways of 2m wide with tall flanking buildings. This provides shade from direct sunlight and creates an air corridor drawing cool air into the village interior.

21. narrow alleyways for shade

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Expanding on a larger scale of siting and orientation, villages typically have a pond in front of the village and a mountain on its back.

This creates a microclimate allowing cool air above the water to enter into the village alleyways and drawn up towards the mountain at the back, hence creating ventilation flow.

22. open relationship with water for cool air above water to enter into narrow alPage 38

When we look at the village in its entirety, the comb structure created by the streets is very clear. This is because the streets are borders to historic private plot lines and guide the growth of the village in a linear fashion along the direction of the alleyways.

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Restoring Social Value of Landscape Elements – Making Open Spaces Socially Inclusive As we have seen in the previous section, vernacular principles can be understood in three scales, building, street and siting. We can also study public space through the same three lenses and begin to define public space in urban villages in three ways: public space as building, as street and as square. This allows us to break down the design of public space for migrants into three key scales.

1. Building Scale Buildings lining the borders of traditional villages are usually public buildings such as shrines or temples. They are usually bigger and more grand than the buildings behind them and act as a frontage to the village that hides the residential interior from the outside world.

This frontage works as a visual representation of the social status of the village.

In the urban village however, buildings have engulfed the traditional shrines and removed their fronting function in order to create more rental space on the open space between village and pond.

The public function of these buildings are deteriorating and instead many of them are abandoned.

There is an opportunity to reinject public use to these buildings as access streets to the rest of the residential complex. Instead of being separate from the public realm, these buildings can be opened up as vertical streets and return to their social use as public buildings.

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2. Street Scale Vernacular buildings are arranged with narrow alleyways in between buildings to create cool corridors for air to flow through, perfect for the region’s hot and humid climate. These alleyways are typically 2m wide and are used often for social gatherings, festive events and markets.

Urban village buildings are typically six-seven stories. Following the original plotlines, these new apartment buildings block out sunlight from getting into the streets and these streets become dark access routes devoid of public life.

There is an opportunity to retain vernacular street patterns - its directionality and horizontal growth - through layered streets. This is created through a stacking process of cross-ventilated apartments in alternating directions. This cris-crossing process creates the streets with which ventilation could continue to occur through every apartment. These 2m-wide streets would have flaunting buildings at a maximum of 2 stories in order to allow sunlight penetrating onto the street. Each block is hence stepped back at higher levels to maintain the building height to street width ratio. Little alcoves in the street creates covered ‘interior’ spaces within the streets, hence producing a series of enclosed-open-enclosed series, evoking the sequential movement through space much evident in the linear courtyard sequence in traditional buildings.

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3. Village Scale (siting) Spaces in traditional villages are very often imbued with meaning because of their proximity to landscape elements. Water, for example, in the form of rivers and ponds, exists extensively across Guangzhou due to its geographical location in the Pearl River Delta. Urban villages in Guangzhou often grow around rivers and these rivers are lifelines in the past because they provide a source of water for drinking and irrigation and a way of transporting people and goods. It is hence inevitable that rivers also became a central part of social life. Every year Guangzhou’s urban villages come together to celebrate dragon boat festival for half a month in June (Chu, 2011).

Dragon boats from each village travel along the extensive water networks to visit different villages in the area following a specific route (Chu, 2012). In Pearl Village, for example, dragon boats used to be rowed through the ninety-nine bends of the Pearl Rivers (Chu, 2012) to visit the temples and shrines in the village. The open waterfront spaces in front of these buildings then become areas where people from all over the place gather and celebrate through feasts, firework displays and dragon dance performances (Chu, 2012).

Open spaces and buildings are imbued with importance through their proximity with water.

In their growth into an urban village however, Pearl Village has many of its rivers either covered up or filled to build apartment buildings. Dragon boating route no longer enter the centre of the village. As a result, open spaces in the village that used to front the Page 46

river has become disused and abandoned as garbage collection stops or filled in with more buildings.

The open spaces that do exist, are mainly found as squares front of important ancestral shrines and are territorialised by indigenous villagers. Being owners of the land, these villagers have almost absolute power to exert political and social control over these areas (Chu, 2012). This form of control has been tightly guarded by a closed system operating on family ties (Chu, 2012). Migrants and villagers typically do not have social interactions outside of their renter-landlord relationship (Liu et al., 2016) and the existing open spaces in the urban village are avoided by most migrants who instead find public spaces outside urban villages to use (Huang & Yuan, 2015).

In other words, for the migrant population, there is a lack both in the availability of open space and actual publicness of open spaces.

In this situation, restoring the social value of water would be a process of recovering waterways and reinjecting open, waterfront spaces into the urban village fabric. By reconnecting spaces with water, there is possibility to reintroduce event space around the dragon boat festival. These pockets of open spaces could be neutral spaces that invite migrants to participate in festivals and at other times, remain activated as social spaces that migrants can appropriate.

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Conclusion This pilot thesis has analysed the adaptability of vernacular principles and traditions using three criteria, political feasibility, environmental appropriateness and social sustainability. From the analysis of this essay, it seems that there are opportunities to address the urban-rural divide with a different approach - one that uses the agenda of conservation and gives much weight to the rural as the starting point for urban design and development. This essay suggests that there is a high adaptability of vernacular principles of construction, planning and siting and private ownership to city planning. However, these elements would need to be tested and verified in the field. Due to the legal uncertainty that urban villages exist in, there is much unknown as to any new plans and regulations that the central or local government might roll out. This suggests that there is an added urgency to start the process of field tests, stop the decline of these urban villages and show the opportunities for its survival and potential success in urban development. It is necessary to urgently show positive results in order to legitimise any alternative to the rapid wholesale demolition of urban villages in Chinese cities.

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Author’s photograph Growth of Guangzhou city, obtained from: Mou, Fengyun, Zhang, Zengxiang, Tan, Wen, Bing & Liu, Fu (2007). Guangzhou city’s spatial morphology and transformation analysis. Geo-Information Science, 9(5), 94-98 Author’s photograph Author’s photograph Lin, Xi (2011). Shenzhen, finding itself in regeneration. China Economics Paper, 9 July 2011, Available from: [http://www.ceh.com.cn/ceh/shpd/2011/7/9/82163.shtml] Guangzhou’s gated communities distribution, obtained from: Breitung Werner (2012). Enclave Urbanism in China: Attitudes Towards Gated Communities in Guangzhou. Urban Geography, 33(2), 278-294 Author’s drawing Ibid.

Ibid.

Obtained from: Sack, Peter (2012). Protests: ‘Great Greed Cannot Be Dealt with in One Day, Nor Will the Heart of Xian Village Villagers Die in One Day.’ Xian Village Blog. Available at: [https://xianvillage.wordpress.com/] Ibid.

Obtained from: Young, Adam Robert, (2013). Children, Propaganda and Death In Xiancun (Behind The Wall – Xiancun Village Today Part 2), Adam Robert Young Wordpress, Available from: [https://adamrobertyoung.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/children-propaganda-and-deathin-xiancun-behind-the-wall-xiancun-village-today-part-2/] Obtained from Guangdong Province Urban-Rural Planning Department Ibid.

Ibid.

Obtained from: Sack, 2012, ibid.

Ibid.

Obtained from: GGD (2016). Liede Village Li Clan Feast, 5000 gathers for free meal. Ganguangdu, 23 February 2016, Available from: [http://ggd.oeeee.com/article/detail/2265.html] Author’s drawing Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

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