Hengyuan Yang Qingqing Dong
China
Originally built in Ming Dynasty, Xi Xi Village a 400-year-old village with more than 200 houses in Dong Guan city, Guangdong province, the Southern part of China. The village is orderly organized and well-preserved, which was the idealized village prototype in the history. However, it causes the lack of public space in contemporary vernacular using. We find a special Formula VEX to solve the problem, which rediscover the value of the ruins of collapsed houses scattered among the village and turn them into pocket garden plugging-in the neighborhood as new public spaces.
We regard the ruins as the symbol of old vernacular convention, and we believe these historical traces should not be demolished by modern civilizations. In the design, we follow an approach of ‘Acupuncture’, which comes from the concept of traditional Chinese medical skill. Our design, The garden of ruins, is the tiny ‘pin’ pinning at each right acupoint of the whole village, playing a role of self-regeneration and agitation.
We keep historical traces, slightly even the topography, use local materials as pavement cover for better accessibility, leaving disturbance of natural presence, keeping the trees as important anchor center of the site. We adopt the system of verandah as new structural and shading element. Like root spread in between the foundation and ground, the verandah sutures the ground and the building, as well as the interior and the exterior, creating variable circulation in the garden and redefining a new boundary in the neighborhood.
The new garden will be a catalyst in the village, an ideal playground for children and a lively open air greenery for the neighborhood. Great many activities will happen in the garden, and these are the key energy of the vernacular agitation.