Dwellings in Lishui Mountains, Zhejiang, China: A Housing Prototype

Dwellings in Lishui Mountains, Zhejiang, China: A Housing Prototype This dissertation is the final product of a collective work done by students and professors at the Politecnico di Torino. The research group was created with the aim of making analyzes and proposals for the new urban plan of Lishui, China - after participating with the South China University of Technology in the contest whose theme was ‘Future ShanShui City: International Urban Design Competition - Dwellings in Lishui Mountains’. Subsequently to a brief moment of group work, each student went deeper into a specific question from Lishui new urban plan - which resulted in this thesis, focused on the housing issue of the elevated part. During the contest, the city masterplan was divided in three major areas: agricultural valley, dwelling on the mountains and ecological reserve. In order to promote reflections on the second topic, efforts were made to ascertain, diagram and exemplify what this new dwelling could be. Therefore the idea is to explore a prototype “Dwellings in the Mountains”, represented by the new residential settlements of Lishui - placed like a ring at the foot of the mountains. These typologies interpret the traditional urban block with a central gap space, lifted above the infrastructures and connected to the topography. It was intended to analyse how this block organizes the distribution of housing and services, along with local and metropolitan mobility. This vertical mixed building seeks to promote communication, reduce energy consumption and enriche places. Besides studying this proposed system - which integrates mountains, housing and urban infrastructure -, some case studies were also analyzed, both in theory and practice, complementing the research. In addition to these, the first part comprises a succinct study of urban conditions in China, contextualizing Lishui and explaining the premises of the competition held in 2020, which gave life to such studies. Following this path - theory, examples and propositions - the dissertation was built up and hereby presents the features and challenges of a new Lishui.