The project is a long-term collaboration with the Fairy Water Village to help save and revitalize their nearly 300 years old cultural heritage, i.e. Guanting (the Official Guest Hall and Collective Housing), which is the only communal space housing their ancestral hall. One third of Guanting has collapsed by far. 

The project focuses on building a Communal Center including a new builing where the part collapsed and the rennovation of the existing structure for potential new business to improve their economy status. Based on the survey and the engagement of the community since Nov 2015, we will continuously engage the community to teeth out their need as the programs in the Communal Center.

A local team has been set up to starting up the project, while a local construction team has been organized through the summer workshop with the delegation from The University of Hong Kong. 

The process till now has made a huge impact from the village up to Chen Zhou City. The influx of experts, students and interested outsiders have brought new energy to the village. This interest has led to a series of events, bringing activities for the elderly and young children left behind in the village. Ms. Ma and her team has also built a playground, given money to some of the elderlies and made attempts at improving the water scarcity issue. Julia Ma, who growing up in the village decided to return and help Ma right after her graduation. The local builders, also the villagers in their 50s or 60s, felt quite proud of their work in phase 1 and began to receive inquiries from the neighboring villages. There have been a significantly increasing number of visitors to the Fairy Water Village since the project started.

It also attracted unexpected massive media coverage including Hunan TV (one of the most popular regional program channels in China), the Chenzhou (The biggest city after the capital of Hunan Province with population of nearly 5 millions) TV, and the Mango online news (with followers over multi-millions). Chenzhou TV even produced a documentary for the project (refer to the media link below).

Role of the Community in the Process

Ms. Lianghua Ma, an ordinary school administrator who was born in the village but currently lives in another city in China now, initatied the project and set up a local team to facilitate the execution of the project. She has purchased all the lease inside Guanting in order to streamline the project execution as soon as the financial aid arrives.

The Guanting Committee comprising the head of the village and senior members fully support and will be the decision body for the project.

All the familiers in the villager have participated the survey for specifying their needs. Some attended the workshop for more particular queries.

Julia Ma, 22 years old from the village, recent university graduate, has determined to give up job opportunities in big cities and returned to the village to be the representative of Ms. Ma's team to the outside. She is in charge of all the publicities and might become the executive manager of the community center.

Team Profile

Yan Gao

M.Arch AA School of Architecture

RIBA Chartered Member, ARB UK qualified architect

Assistant Professor at HKU

Principal Architect and Founder, dotA (www.dot-a.com) and IDEA (www.hcd-idea.com)

Alexander Furunes

B.Arch AA School of Architecture

Masters, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Founders of WORKSHOP architecture (www.wrkshp.org)

Received Support

Tiancibangben (TCBB) as a Registered company for developing agricultural business in the village, has funded the start up of the project including providing accomodations and basis daily support for the project team. Their estimated contribution to the project is about 100,000 CNY.

The Education Ministry of China has funded the summer program of HKU to design and build the mock-up pavilion to test the local construction capability. The total sum is 110,000 CNY.