Project Site:  Wulongpu Village, Chenggong District, Kunming City, Yunnan

        Wulongpu Village is located in the edge of the Chenggong Lake with beautiful scenery, the north side of the Dianchi Lake, only 40 minutes from the center of Kunming by car. In the village, most of houses are made of earth. There are also ten religious buildings, including Chung Temple and Guan Yu Temple. Nowadays, Wulongpu Village has been protected as "ancient fishing village" historical and cultural village. However, due to the village is located in Dianchi Nature Reserve, part of the farmland has been reduced to ecological wetlands. Meanwhile, following with urbanization development, the villagers have less and less land used for agricultural production. Agricultural income can not meet the needs of life. Many villagers chose to be migrant workers. Traditional village patterns and local cultures are being hit. Faced with this challenge, the villagers on the one hand want to develop the local economy, increase revenue and improve the quality of living environment, on the other hand well aware of the large-scale introduction of foreign capital to carry out routine tourism development will lead to transitional landscape and commercialization. It may lose the traditional culture of the village and the cultural identity of the villagers. To regenerate the village and at the same time preserve the traditional culture and architecture there, the villagers spontaneously organized cooperatives to work together, while appropriate to attract the surrounding tourists, operating small-scale industries, taking into account the cultural and educational, demonstration and other functions, to seek an innovative development path.

        According to the actual needs of local villagers and local governments, the village can be used as an important demonstration base for earth construction in Yunnan Province. The construction of building groups can be used to demonstrate the anti-seismic earth construction technology, to protect and enhance the quality and architectural style of local traditional houses. It also allows comprehensive guidance and control at the planning level, the construction level and the technical level. The new villages will provide shelter for non-agricultural villagers and assume the functions of small-scale commercial operations (bed and breakfasts, restaurants, distinctive cultural products, specialty products, etc.). At the same time, the village together with the earth building research and development centre, can be used as earth construction education and demonstration base in the southwest region, assume a series of scientific research, academic exchanges, artisan training and other functions. The centre and the surrounding neighborhoods are closely integrated and promote each other, which can support the local development in a long time and effectively protect the local cultural style and improve the living standard of the villagers.

Collaborating Partner ： Kunming University of Science and Technology

Work Progress

The red area is the traditional building protection area, the yellow area is the core area.

Traditional houses