Jintai Village is located near Guangyuan, Sichuan Province—one of the places hardest hit by the May 12th Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008. The disaster left nearly 5 million people homeless and it is estimated that 80% of all buildings in the affected area were destroyed. Over the past five years, major reconstruction efforts have taken place. However, in July 2011, after heavy rainfall and landslides in the region around Jintai Village, many of newly rebuilt homes and some in process were once again destroyed. Despite this tragic event, locals were left without further donations or aid. With support from the local government and NGOs, this project demonstrates a socially and environmentally sustainable model for earthquake reconstruction while examining the many nuances of reconstructing a community.
A total of twenty-two houses are to be rebuilt including a community center. The design strategy provides four different types of houses, differing in their roof sections. These demonstrate new use of local materials, a green stepped-roof, biogas technologies, and accommodation for pigs and chickens. A vertical courtyard increases light and ventilation and channels rainwater for collection. The design also invests in reed bed waste-water treatment and collective animal rearing. By relating various programs of the village to an ecological cycle, environment responsiveness is heightened, transforming the village into a model for nearby areas. Importantly, close proximity of these units encourages village interdependency in addition to porosity, as ground spaces are shared by the community.
This is an investigation into modern rural livelihood. Generally understood as a naturally-transforming place that one originates from, a planned village is odd compared to a planned city. With tens of thousands of newly planned villages occurring in China today, the challenge is to reassert the village as an ontological ideal—to plan villages as authentic places whereby the spatial organization and physical expression is derived directly from its relationship to its natural environment.
