Page 31 - JCAU-6-2

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Regenerating tradition: Empowering rural

revitalization through Li culture and green
infrastructure in a design case study of Yulong

village, Hainan, China

1
2
1
Keshen Wu , Martin Bryant * , Andrew Toland , Yong He , and Bo Chen 3
1
1 School of Architecture, Faculty of Design Architecture and Building, University of Technology
Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
2 Department of Architecture, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University,
Shanghai, China
3 Department of Architecture, School of Art, Sanya University, Sanya, Hainan, China
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Reshaping Rural China)

Abstract

Green infrastructure is an approach to land planning that aims to restore and manage
the natural environment within human contexts. Its widespread use in post-industrial
urban and peri-urban settings recognizes the need to reconcile environmental issues and
regenerate social and cultural connections with the natural landscape. However, green
*Corresponding author: infrastructure is seldom discussed in rural contexts, where efficient production practices
Martin Bryant
(martin.bryant@uts.edu.au) increasingly dominate agriculture, invariably overwhelming cultural associations
with land and its environmental qualities. In China, a government policy has been
Citation: Wu, K., Bryant M.,
Toland A., He, Y. & Chen, B. (2024). introduced to revitalize rural areas in response to the deleterious environmental effects
Regenerating tradition: Empowering of industrialized agriculture. Green infrastructure, in this context, offers the potential to
rural revitalization through Li culture usher in a new transformation toward more ecologically sustainable rural environments
and green infrastructure in a design
case study of Yulong village, Hainan, that embrace environmental, social, and cultural connections. This research considers
China. Journal of Chinese Architecture the role of traditional rural cultures in facilitating this transformation. Through a case
and Urbanism, 6(2), 1304. study of Yulong Village and its agricultural fields in the middle reaches of the Changhua
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1304 River in Hainan, this paper maps the modernization of the traditional Li family’s agrarian
Received: July 13, 2023 culture and its legacy of ecological dilemmas. In projecting forward, this article describes
Accepted: August 15, 2023 a design research process that deploys new and established cartographies and
speculates on the role of landscape design in integrating ancient cultural traditions with
Published Online: March 13, 2024 modern agriculture. The findings suggest a path for the realization of the goal of rural
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). revitalization, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the relationship between
This is an open-access article ecological, economic, cultural, and social values.
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution-
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all Keywords: Landscape architecture; Eco-cultural tourism; Eco-agriculture; Traditional
non-commercial use, distribution, knowledge; Community-led change
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience 1. Introduction
Publishing remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in Over the past century, rapid urbanization and modernization on a global scale have
published maps and institutional
affiliations. caused tremendous disturbances to the natural environment and its ecosystems. While

Volume 6 Issue 2 (2024) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1304