Design Driven Research for Countryside Revitalization of a Rural Settlement of the Fujian Province, China

Countryside development is receiving paramount attention in China, where political and cultural agendas promote rural revitalization as the core campaign to mitigate rural-urban disparities. The driving idea is that the rural can emancipate from its agricultural dependence to embrace more complex and integrated cycles of activities, such as leisure, health, productivity, market, and cultural services. The momentum reached by rural development in China has opened a new dimension for contemporary design culture, where the countryside has materialized as a frontier of architectural research. The paper synthesizes research by design experience carried out between 2017 and 2020 against the backdrop of the development program for a rural settlement of the Fujian Province, China. From the site reading to the experimental transformation proposal, the different phases offer sparks and arguments to put forward new understandings of designing in transitional rural contexts.