Architecture students help Chinese villagers with eco-tourism plans

Eight architecture students ventured to a remote mountainous corner of China last summer with Architecture faculty member Lisa Findley. The studio had numerous goals. Among them: Expose the students to a new culture; teach them how to travel as architects using drawing and photography to analyze and understand the places they visited; visit a cross-section of living environments in today’s China; investigate the impact tourism has on a range of places and landscapes; and, finally, to work with a small under-served community to leave behind work that contributes to their future. Here is Findley’s report.

The trip began in Yunnan Province’s burgeoning capital, Kunming, a typical mid-size Chinese city, with a population of 6 million. From there the group, traveling by a small chartered bus, visited Dali, an ancient walled city turned into a kind of Disneyland international tourist destination.

Leaving the attractions of Dali behind, the group moved then to less-developed places that are just now being “discovered” by tourism: Xizhou and Shaxi. After 10 days of travel, the group settled into a hotel in remote Tengchong, an ancient town nestled in the high mountains not far from the Myanmar border, and set up their studio.

Over the past 10 years, Tengchong has been popular with tourists (mostly Chinese) who are interested in its historic status as a stop on the southern Silk Road as well as its cool weather, beautiful scenery, golf courses, and famous jade craft and health-inducing hot springs. This tourism, coupled with rapid growth fueled by out-of-province developers, is transforming the region, threatening both its culture and its unparalleled natural beauty.

Studio Project in Lijiazhai

The studio project was in an idyllic, but poor, farming village called Lijiazhai, about 30 kilometers north of Tengchong in its own little valley. The canny villagers understand that they must get ahead of the inevitable development that is sweeping toward them and are proactively working on eco-tourism strategies.

After spending time in the valley interviewing households and studying both the potentials and the possible pitfalls of eco-tourism for the valley, the students designed a set of proposals. These included infrastructure design (limited vehicle access, low-impact roads, access to an already channelized river, fresh water distribution), tourist management (through a “gateway” building where tourists would be gathered, greeted, and matched with local guides for various activities), and visitor accommodations (including a small hotel, a guest house in a renovated abandoned courtyard house, and homestays).

“I felt very fortunate when working with the people of Lijiazhai because I gained a new appreciation for living in a first-world country,” says Eric Sandoval (BArch 2016). “I wanted to use the skills and experiences of living and studying in America to both better the lifestyles and share appreciation for the villagers’ beautiful landscape.”

Jin Shen (BArch 2016) thought the most interesting part of the trip was sketching rather than photographing the places they visited: “I feel like I got to know so much more about the places we were at by sketching along the way.”

Shen reports that she really enjoyed working with the people of Lijiazhai. “Their willingness to make changes to their current life actually surprised me,” she says.

The project was presented to the villagers at a local primary school and the images and drawings left with them and their local advocates as an inspiration for how they might move forward. The villagers recently sent an update to Findley letting her know that they are now renovating the courtyard house as a small hotel.