Architecture can revitalize, spark rural self-confidence, and turn
wasteland into a welcoming space--and it can do it at a low cost. This
is the mission statement of architect Xu Tiantian, founder and principal
of Beijing-based studio Design and Architecture (DnA). In 2014, Xu began
to work in the remote Songyang County in China's Zhejiang Province. Her
holistic concept does not engage in erasing existing structures but is
instead guided by the concept of Architectural Acupuncture, which
prefers smaller interventions to extensive redevelopments, and which has
gained much recognition as a model for similar regions around the world.
For Xu, architecture as a language should address the traditions of
Songyang County--each solution is unique; only the small budget is
common to all of them. Yet all of them are interrelated and serve the
broader goal of mutual enhancement.
The Songyang Story introduces Xu's concept of Architectural
Acupuncture and discusses the influence of architecture on cultural
self-understanding and economic renewal in twenty-first-century rural
China. Richly illustrated, it features some twenty new buildings and
conversions of existing structures with diverse functions. These
interventions work in the local context and greatly affect Songyang
County's social fabric, housing, culture, industry, agriculture,
landscape conservation, and tourism. Published alongside the
illustrations are essays by international economists, sociologists, and
curators as well as by the secretary of the Songyang County Party
Committee, examining the social, political, and economic implications of
sustainable planning and collective action in the Chinese province.
