Rural Collective Housing in Xialabao Village, Yunnan

Origin

Xialabao Village is part of Wama Township, Longyang District, Baoshan, Yunnan. The local government wanted to build a collective housing project to improve housing conditions for the village’s elderly living alone, and to rent surplus rooms at low cost to families of left-behind children whose schools are far away, easing their commute. The rental income would cover daily maintenance and operating costs. The government required low-cost construction and 22 dwelling units.

In 2018, Xialabao Village responded to the national poverty-alleviation relocation policy by consolidating scattered households into a newly planned settlement. The village layout shifted from organic growth to a deliberate fan-shaped strip arrangement. Building typology also changed — from traditional earth-based houses to modern mixed-use frame structures: a “standard” modern new-village appearance.

The site sits at the eastern corner of the new settlement. Facing a uniform sea of white walls and grey tiles, we chose to work with local materials and carry forward local building traditions — designing an “earth” building to preserve collective memory. We also invited the “One University One Village” team as a collaborative design partner.

Site

The buildable area is roughly rectangular — only 280 m², 10 m wide by 28 m deep. To fit 22 rooms, a central-corridor layout was the most efficient. A single-storey building would give each room an axial width of 2.3 m, too tight functionally. Three storeys would exceed the budget and push the load-bearing limits of earth walls. Two storeys — 11 rooms per floor — struck the right balance of scale and massing.

Design

This was our first project bridging the city and the countryside. Though the users shifted from the so-called wealthy or middle class to low-income groups, the essence of design remained unchanged: the villagers living inside are the core. Beyond meeting the basic functional needs of 22 households, we wanted their life inside the building to be richer, closer to their everyday rhythms.

We made a deliberate trade-off in spatial strategy. We abandoned the conventional model of “minimum shared area + maximum private area.” We reduced individual room sizes, keeping only the sleeping function, and freed up as much shared space as possible — hoping to invite multi-purpose use and enrich the residents' experience.

Entrance and Courtyard

In my memory, every village had a village entrance — a large tree under which people of all ages gathered, chatting about daily life. That distinct place carried the spiritual life of generations. Taking the part for the whole: if this collective housing is a miniature village, our design intention was to recover that lost space of collective memory.

We first set the street-facing facade back by 3 metres. In the middle, we built a red-brick wall, unfinished at the top, to separate inside from outside. The wall blocks sightlines and acts as a screen for the internal corridor.

A village kindergarten sits 100 metres to the north. The left-behind children of the collective housing attend school there. On the outer face of the red-brick wall, we designed a built-in brick bench. Every afternoon, the elderly sit there, *chong ke zi* (a southwestern dialect phrase for lively idle chat), waiting for their grandchildren to come home.

We then set the west building back further to create a small courtyard — enclosed on three sides, connected to the corridor, with an external staircase and a tree. Combined with the entrance area, this forms a “village entrance” space for the collective housing. We hope it brings a sense of community to the residents.

Corridor and Balconies

We widened the 20-plus-metre corridor from the code-minimum 1.2 m to 2.4 m. A purely circulation space gains higher utilisation. Residents can set up dining tables in the corridor, hold a long-table feast during festivals. Children can run and play freely. This shared corridor encourages neighbourly exchange and social bonds, contributing to a harmonious living atmosphere.

We cut a row of light wells into the west side of the first-floor slab — helping daylight the corridor and improving daylight for the six ground-floor rooms on the west. Every household needs to cook independently. Gas lines don’t reach the village; wood-fire cooking is cramped by space. Induction cookers became the practical choice. But cooking fumes still need venting. Each unit needed its own semi-outdoor area for stir-frying and smoke exhaust.

On the east side, adjusting the entry arrangement freed up individual balconies for each room. On the west side, second-floor rooms gained balconies by cantilevering. The west ground-floor rooms had no room to carve out private outdoor space, so we let them spill directly into the wide corridor. We raised the light wells so they double as smoke-exhaust shafts, while leaving access space for cleaning the glass undersides. Each household’s cooking ventilation was solved. When not in use for cooking, these semi-outdoor spaces serve as individual retreats.

Local Climatic Strategy

Xialabao Village lies in a subtropical monsoon climate zone. Although classified as temperate, its mountain terrain climate is pronounced. The annual temperature range is narrow; diurnal range is wide. Annual solar radiation is high. To create a comfortable indoor thermal environment, the design had to respond to mountain microclimate: shade from daytime heat, insulation against nighttime cold.

The 20-plus-metre ground-floor corridor, treated with semi-open elements — the courtyard, balconies, external stair — provides effective shading and adequate ventilation, forming a cool, shaded space below. The external walls fully exploit the thermal-mass properties of rammed-earth walls, which act as a buffer between interior and exterior. During the day, when outdoor temperatures rise, the rammed-earth walls absorb excess heat, dampening the direct impact of outdoor temperature swings on the indoor thermal environment and helping regulate indoor thermal comfort.

We controlled the west-facing window-to-wall ratio. Ground-floor west rooms use small high windows. Second-floor west balcony doors combine a solid-leaf door with a small glazed window — meeting basic daylight needs while avoiding west-sun overheating of the interior.

Annual rainfall in Xialabao Village is around 1,100 mm — above the subtropical average. Local traditional earth dwellings typically use two-storey pitched-roof forms: the ground floor for living, the upper floor for storage, which also serves as a climatic buffer reducing heat ingress into the living spaces.

The roof draws on the local traditional pitched-roof form but is built as a double-layer structure: an upper layer of steel-framed glazed-tile pitched roof, a lower layer of flat concrete roof. The double roof improves waterproofing and forms an effective ventilation layer that carries away excess heat. The collective housing roof is thus a modern translation of the traditional roof form.

Construction

The project adopted a strategy of local materials, local artisans, and local techniques. To meet the low-cost requirement while achieving the “earth” building appearance and living comfort, the earth walls needed to be load-bearing, not merely infill. This required drawing on traditional building wisdom while modernising and optimising traditional rammed-earth techniques.

First, the soil mix ratio was optimised based on local soil particle gradation, improving wall strength. Structurally, reinforced-concrete ring beams and tie columns were introduced to strengthen the rammed-earth wall system overall, improving structural integrity and seismic performance. Second, aluminium-alloy formwork and mechanical compaction were used for rammed-earth wall construction, enhancing surface flatness and density. Additionally, an endogenous-development concept was proposed: training local artisans in modern rammed-earth skills, raising their technical competence, empowering them, and in turn expanding their employment opportunities.

Postscript

A few days ago we returned to Xialabao Village for a project visit and photoshoot. Six households have already moved in; the rest are preparing to follow. Hearing the elderly and children speak well of the building — for an architect, this is the greatest reassurance.

Project Drawings

Project Information