The transformation and continuity of the traditional dwelling in Suzhou, China

Abstract

This thesis is a brief study of factors influencing the transformations of traditional housing and neighborhoods in the context of social change. It aims at clarifying permanence and change in the built environment and identifying the ways in which people express themselves in transforming their place of residence. This thesis examines how the residents of Suzhou transform their traditional courtyard house because of socio-economic change and modernization and yet retain some spatial and social patterns which are important to them. My purpose is to examine the neighborhoods with a positive eye, trying to select the good points and not just looking at what is wrong with it. How can creative involvement in the built environment be supported in the future? How can indigenous design solutions be encouraged. The courtyard houses in Suzhou have undergone many changes during the last four decades. The traditional courtyard house in Suzhou is a type of house that had slowly developed over more than two thousand years. At the beginning of the twentieth century it was still untouched by influences of the West and the industrial revolution. Though the first transformations of the Suzhou courtyard house occurred at the beginning of this century, the most important transformation happened during the last few decades. Due to socio-economic factors, such as the Cultural Revolution, the severe housing shortage, the courtyard house, once inhabited by one extended family, had to be shared among several families. New shelters had to be built in the traditional compound. Building materials and construction techniques also changed. The resulting living environment seems disordered at first sight. But underneath the messiness, the deployment of new additions and people's living patterns show some continuity of the traditional ways. The case study might reveal the traits that have continued to survive in the physical form and social patterns, despite all the complex changes in the society that time has inevitably caused. The case study exemplifies the continuity and transformations of the traditional dwelling environments in Suzhou. An attempt is made at the same time, to identify some basic principles and directions by which the architectural language of housing and urban form in such a study can be considered.