China Rural Workshop

Intructor: Travis Bunt、Jason Hilgefort、Lam Tat

Time：Jun 6- july 18, 2017 

"China Rural Workshop" is a project which we did with Columbia University Studio X and Shanzhai City last year. The goals for this workshop is focused on issues of development in rural China. As China’s urban population begin to overtake its rural population, the question of how to preserve the country’s remaining rural landscape has drawn national attention. This workshop is researching several villages each representing pre, current, and post development. The focus is placed on researching more sustainable models of rural development based on the following points:

The visited villages are unique in its development models. The team had two weeks to do first-hand research, then visited and investigated the following villages, Moganshan in Zhejiang, Lianghu in Shanxi, Haotang in Henan, Tangjiazhuang in Anhui Bishan in Anhui. The team put their focus on the development process, the rural finance, the rural infrastructure, non-governmental organization, community making. And the book was made based on these 5 villages.

The book unfolds in several different aspects like Economies&Policies, Interview, Physical planning, Space Use Situation and so on in the villages based on the research. It provides us with a reference of different types of successful rural villages in China and we hope it can be more valuable for rural village development in the future.