Page 24 - JCAU-5-4

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Spatial morphology of cohesive village

Table 2. Comparison of spatial morphological characteristics of villages in Leizhou, Guangfu, and Fujian
Village Leizhou Peninsula Village Cantonese Village Putian Village, Fujian
Province
Typical Cohesive Comb-type Comb-type Dense
type
Satellite map

Hunan Village, Kelu Town Titang Village, Yang Family Town Fengyuan Village, Conghua, Yangwei Village, Putian,
Gangzhou
Fujian
Residential Courtyard style; large and small Courtyard style; large and small Courtyard style; consistent Courtyard style,
type size row-houses style; large and
small
Residential layout Longitudinal and regular; strong Longitudinal and regular; Longitudinal and strong Longitudinal and irregular;
cohesion cohesion regularity; no cohesion cohesion
Alleyways planning Main lane: village entrance, Main lane: village entrance, Main lane: village entrance, Main lane: village entrance,
surrounding village, longitudinal surrounding village, longitudinal surrounding village surrounding village
and horizontal and horizontal
Branch lane: longitudinal and Branch lane: longitudinal and Branch lane: longitudinal Branch lane: longitudinal
horizontal, consistent width horizontal, consistent width (main), consistent width and horizontal, wide and
narrow
Obvious and regular structure Obvious and regular structure Obvious and regular Inconspicuous and irregular
structure structure
Fengshui pond Village front, other parts Village front, other parts Village front Village front, other parts
Different shapes, protective Different shapes, protective Half-moon shape, oval shape Different shapes
ditches ditches
There are often trees behind the There are often trees behind the There are no trees behind There are no trees behind
pond pond the pond the pond
Ancestral hall Few; front end, core More; front end, core Front end, core Core
Layout

led by many ancestral halls in the front row, that is, a large
number of ancestral halls were built as the premise for the
appearance of comb-type, and the “front row” of a large
number of ancestral halls evolved from the “core” of a
single ancestral hall (Figure 5).

In addition, we also found that there is a spatial
morphological isomorphism between the cohesive village Figure 5. The change of spatial form from “core” to “front row” in
Guangfu comb-type villages. Source: Drawings by the author.
and a radial village in central Guangdong (Figures 6 and 7).
The radial villages radiate around the “core” to the periphery. could not and did not want to be self-centered. This mentality
The core comes from the ancient “choice of the center,” was then reflected in the form of traditional villages, which,
according to the ideology and political system of the ancients in contrast to the “centering” of the imperial family, gave
that building the capital laid in choosing the appropriate rise to the phenomenon of centering on something and
center, because they believed that the chosen center favorably developing around while depending on it (Ding, 1997). This
maximized the timing, geographical, and human conditions. center was not necessarily a geographic or geometric center,
The concept of choosing the center spread to the folk and it but a starting point for building attachment construction, a
has become “centripetal.” The common people of that time factor that dominated the development of the settlement, so

Volume 5 Issue 4 (2023) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1224