Four friends went to a poor village in Guizhou and built 10 cabins, witnessing the rebirth of a village with their own eyes.

"There are no direct roads and not many tourist attractions. How can we give a once poor village a new life?"

Walking in Guizhou Unity On the village's country roads, the Fallow team pondered the possibilities.

The mountain in Tuanjie Village

The natural platform halfway up the mountain

Tuanjie Village, where is this place? A few years ago it was a poor village in the mountains of Guizhou, surrounded by a wild and tranquil natural environment. It does not have much cultural inheritance, but it has mountains and rivers, and it still retains the original natural atmosphere.

When these architects from Shanghai climbed up to the platform halfway up the mountain for the first time, the scenery in front of them left a deep impression on them: < /p>

"As you walk to the edge of the platform, the presence of nature becomes so strong. The mountains surround you in all directions, and the sounds of birds, insects, and wind suddenly come to you. Coming. There are only mountains in front of you. When you look at the mountains, the mountains are also looking at you."

They want to leave the feeling of this moment in the architectural space. , convey it to more people who come to the village.

Visitor Center in the Clouds

Log Cabin Hotel on a Rock Slope

In half a year, With the joint efforts of the owners and architects, Tuanjie Village has built a rich agricultural tourism base, including 10 cabins with fallow designs, as well as restaurants, bars, and a visitor center.

In the past, young people in the village went to the city to work; now, people from the city come to the village to eat, drink tea and experience farm work.

Not only does the village have more jobs, but the agricultural products grown have dedicated people to help sell them. While the income of every household has doubled, they can also receive additional dividends at the end of each year.

Overlooking Tuanjie Village

City dwellers will even spend an afternoon in the village’s exhibition hall, specifically Study the history of this village:

How did a village that was once extremely poor regain its new life step by step?

Shen Hongliang (right) and the owner working on site Personnel visited villagers’ homes

In October 2017, the fallow team came to Tuanjie Village for the first time.

In the eyes of the old people in the village, these young people from Shanghai are not used to eating hot peppers, cannot understand dialects, and can build beautiful houses. They are "foreign style" city ??dwellers.

However, the positioning they give their team must be "down-to-earth". They must think about how to find the same language as the village under different backgrounds and capture the Strike a balance.

Fallow designers: from left to right are Shen Hongliang, Cai Yuying, Chen Xuanru

As architects, their My professional life has also gone through a reorganization.

Ten years ago, they all worked in Arata Isozaki’s Shanghai studio. Arata Isozaki is a representative figure of Japanese Metabolism and has designed a series of iconic cultural buildings in Japan. Mr. Lao's studio in Shanghai also adheres to a consistent rigorous and fast-paced working style.

In the years when they worked in the Master Studio, the intensive and high-intensity work allowed them to accumulate rich project experience and lay the foundation for understanding the entire architectural field. Gradually I made the decision to go my own way.

Fallow Architecture’s studio on Urumqi Road

In the spring of 2017, they decided to open a studio together - named For "fallow".

They rented a small courtyard of 890 square meters in the alley of the French Concession in Shanghai, trying to find a sense of balance between work and life here, and try to slow down the pace of work. slow.

Daily life on Urumqi Road, Shanghai

Shen Hongliang said that he likes the living environment around the courtyard very much:

"As long as you walk out of the alley, you can see the Shanghai aunts enjoying the cool under the plane trees, and you can also encounter the Internet celebrity ladies taking photos on the street; I just passed by a fried dough sticks and shaobing shop, and in the blink of an eye I saw another Go to a cafe with exquisite retro decoration. All kinds of people gather here! ”

He likes to find design inspiration from these fireworks.

Works of the Fallow Team - Strange and Quiet Architecture

Jiangxi Fairy Lake Mushroom Tree House (left) and Seed Tree House (right)

In architectural design, they also adhere to the same concept as in life: "The so-called fallow does not mean to let the land become barren, but to allow the tired land to recuperate and restore nutrients and fertility." < /p>

They emphasized that the building should leave room to breathe, and the design process should constantly reflect on how the power of design is just right: “Sometimes a bright and restrained space is not as suitable as a restrained and rough space; sometimes Seemingly strange buildings can also quietly blend into the environment. ”

The buildings in Tuanjie Village are a way of blending the architecture into nature and disappearing into it. Try it gently.

The water channel on the cliff of Tuanjie Village< /p>

Tuanjie Village is located in the middle of a mountain. The mountains are high and the rocks are steep. Because the land cannot store water, rice cannot be grown. The villagers can only grind the drought-resistant corn every day, steam it and eat it as a staple food.

Later, Huang Dafa, the village party secretary who grew up eating the food of hundreds of families in Tuanjie Village, spent 36 years leading the villagers to use steel drills, hammers, and hoes on the cliffs. A 9.4-kilometer "sky canal" was cut out.

When this section of the canal was being built, Huang Dafa was already 58 years old

Still taking the lead and hanging the rope on the cliff to measure

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The "Tian Canal" bypasses three major mountains, passes through three cliffs and three dangerous cliffs, and finally introduces the water of the Luosi River a few kilometers away into the village. Tuanjie Village thus uprooted the root cause of "water shortage".

Huang Dafa is known as the "Foolish Old Man of Modern Times". The villagers also named this canal "Dafa Canal".

The village party secretary Huang Dafa, known as the "contemporary foolish old man"

still lives here, guarding this canal that he is willing to pay for with his life

A villager who participated in the construction of the canal said that when the clear canal water flowed into the slopes that had been dry for a long time. Huang Dafa quietly hid in a corner, tears falling uncontrollably.

Villagers who came to participate in the on-site construction

It is not enough to grow food, but to make young people willing to return to the village , you must also have financial income and jobs.

Therefore, the fallow team who came to Guizhou from Shanghai became the second batch of people to "reclaim" this land.

For them, Unity Village is a special project. There are not only touching stories about the canals here, but also many villagers who rely on their buildings to improve their lives. Here, architecture no longer only assumes the function of space, but also has social responsibility.

Rocky steep slope

The difficulty of construction is also obvious: the base of the wooden house was chosen halfway up the mountain, the mountain road is steep, and all the Building materials need to be carried up the mountain manually. They can only try to use local materials, reduce the size of glass and other materials, and minimize transportation costs.

Rural construction brings "surprises" every day, and design drawings often need to be readjusted based on on-site conditions. In addition, the construction period was only a few months, so the Fallow team stayed at a farmhouse in the county town closest to the site.

From this "nearest" farmhouse to the construction site, you still have to drive nearly 40 minutes on a winding mountain road to get there. After being on site for more than three months, they tried their best to control every design change.

Stone walls in the village

In terms of architectural form, Tuanjie Village does not have a classic architectural form that can be passed down. The old houses in the past were built with the most abundant local rough stones and wood.

Since the 1990s, concrete frame houses with low cost and fast construction cycle have appeared in the village one after another. The former stone houses are becoming increasingly rare.

Construction process diagram

The Fallow team decided to use local traditional building materials such as rubble and wood to make this The history of the village has been continued:

"I hope that after a few decades, our building will still be a special existence: maybe the function has changed, but it can still live as a museum. Carrying a little memory of the village"

2018. In September 2019, the wooden house hotel, Guizhou Dafa Tianqu Visitor Center, mountain restaurants and bars were completed one after another.

In order to minimize the impact of construction on the environment, all wooden house hotels use high-ceiling steel structure platforms as their bases. At the same time, the overhang design can also reduce the impact of the local humid and foggy climate on the living space.

Log cabin hotel

The average area of ??each log cabin varies from 40 to 50 square meters. In order to cooperate with the fast construction cycle, the simplest geometric form is selected for the building shape.

The exterior walls of the wooden house are made of dark-colored quenched wood. This material can withstand changing weather such as wind and sun, and the textured dark color naturally blends with the original appearance of the site.

Each wooden house is not far from each other, but the views between each other have been fully considered to ensure that each of them can look at the mountain. without disturbing each other.

The balcony is built-in, which allows for easy viewing while providing sufficient privacy.

Mountain restaurants and bars

Restaurants and bars are also built according to the terrain, with an elevated structure at the bottom. A single-story building with a height difference.

The restaurant at the lower level is projected forward, allowing the sight range to embrace the mountain view as much as possible; the bar at the upper level is connected by a staircase, creating a spatial atmosphere in the flow line. Light and dark transitions.

When designing the restaurant, the Fallow team wanted to bring the mountain view indoors while adding a little space expression, so that the building can respond to the light and light of the site. Climate change moment.

They use floor-to-ceiling strip blinds. The windows can be fully opened to take in the boundless greenery; they can also be closed to let the sunlight pass through. The blinds shine into the interior, creating different light and shadow effects at different times and in different weather conditions.

Sitting in the restaurant, you can see not only natural mountain scenery and rough stone landscape, but also farmland for parents and children to pick and fish. of creek. While you are looking at the people down the mountain, the people down the mountain also regard restaurants and bars as scenery.

Dafa Tianqu Visitor Center

In addition to wooden cabin hotels and restaurants and bars, there is also a tourist attraction named after the water canal in the village. Visitor Center - Dafa Tianqu Visitor Center.

As the largest public building in the village, the visitor center assumes the functions of tourist reception, operation office, rural exhibition hall, and villagers’ leisure and entertainment square.

The visitor center is also built according to the mountain. It uses a stepped roof to reduce the pressure of the building on the environment and also forms a harmonious relationship with the terraced scenery in the mountain. echo.

The lower you go, the wider the span of the building becomes; forming an architectural form that is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom.

Reception space

Office area

Exhibition hall

Entire visitor center The total area is 3280 square meters. In addition to the operating office area and tourist reception area, a part of the internal space is also set aside as an exhibition hall.

The historical appearance of the village, the story of the village party secretary leading the villagers to dig canals for 36 years, and the poverty alleviation process of the agricultural tourism company... are all written into the exhibition hall. In the annals of history.

Stepped roof

The stepped roof is both a square and a stage. As a new community center for the whole village: here you can not only enjoy the mountains and rivers, but also hold festival performances, or be used for walking and chatting.

The entire exterior wall of the building is made of dark stone, which is a common rough stone in nearby traditional residential courtyards, echoing the architectural elements of the original village.

Dark colors easily blend in with the environment, making it difficult to shoot "Internet celebrity blockbusters". But compared to checking in with internet celebrities, what they care more about is: "Do the users of the building feel comfortable? Is it integrated with the environment? And can the building activate the memory of the homeland of the people living in this land?"

This is indeed the case. After its rebirth, Tuanjie Village continues to attract tourists from surrounding cities.

If city dwellers ask villagers where there is fun in the village, they will naturally say: "Go sit on the roof!"

After the house is built, the story of the village has actually just begun!

Different from ordinary poverty alleviation projects, Tuanjie Village, in addition to drastic infrastructure renovation, also implements subsequent poverty alleviation mechanisms based on the principle of "teaching people to fish" .

Visitor Center Office Area

Not only did the villagers join the construction team in the early stage to receive labor remuneration, but they also received subsequent services from hotels, restaurants, bars, The operation of the visitor center can also provide long-term employment for young people.

Many young people who previously worked in Zunyi, Guiyang and other places returned to their hometowns and became employed after receiving systematic training.

For the villagers who are engaged in traditional agricultural labor, the owner has established a professional agricultural company to provide guidance and grow organic vegetables, crab rice, rapeseed oil, Chinese honey bee and northern Guizhou black pig.

"Zhufeng Rice Oil" is the four main agricultural products under the Legeng sweet brand and is sold in stores in the city. Villagers can invest in shares with their own land or labor, and receive additional dividends from hotels and other tourism projects at the end of the year.

There is an endless stream of new news from Tuanjie Village: a music festival will be held on the rooftop square today; there will be a literary and art market in a few days. The community is full of energy with events held in the village and more.

The young people have returned, the income of every household has doubled several times, and the village has become more and more lively. Even the expressway leading directly to Tuanjie Village will open to traffic next spring.

When the time comes, I believe that people from further away from this small village will also come to Tuanjie Village, sit in the small square on the roof, watch the clouds and mist, and listen to the birds. Cry and sing in the wind and feel the sense of security brought by being wrapped in layers of mountains!

Thanks to Fallow Architecture for accepting the interview and providing materials

Photography: Laurian Ghinitoiu, Tian Fangfang, Le Gengtian, ZJJZ

Some pictures are from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original All rights reserved by the author

Project address: Tuanjie Village, Bozhou District, Zunyi, Guizhou

Owner: Guizhou Dafa Tourism Development Co., Ltd.

Lead creative and design team: Cao Zhenyu, Chen Xuanru, Shen Hongliang, Cai Yuying

Reprinted from the public account "Borrowing"