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Eco-Houses—A Philosophy for Architecture As our country undergoes highly rapid urbanisation, traditional houses in the rural area are facing drastic changes. Everywhere in the countryside, modern houses built of cement, steel bars and bricks modelled on concrete houses in the city stand monotonously side by side. Traditional rural dwellings that embody a diverse building culture have been torn down to give way to these structures. This has given rise to a number of ecological problems including severe depletion of energy resources, high ecological cost, health hazards, etc. Farmers, moreover, are faced with a heavy economic burden due to their construction of these new houses. PCD has been introducing farmers in Sichuan to eco-houses as an alternative type of home building. Below are a few online information sources on the concept of eco-houses: |
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Handbook on Balcony Farming—Sharing from Beijing Residents Click here to download the handbook (Simplified Chinese only) |
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Appreciating Community Art Together—The Songs of Bolinwan
In 2011, PCD facilitated a community art programme in Bolinwan Village of Huaxi Township, Sichuan. A community survey was conducted and it was found that the villagers knew numerous local folk songs and many elderly villagers loved to sing them. We helped them to set up a folk song learning group and to write down the lyrics, record themselves singing them, and build a file on the folk singers in the village. We also encouraged them to teach the folk songs to the village children and to pass on the local culture. In the process, women and children also created new folk songs. We subsequently collected, documented and selected a number of traditional and newly created folk songs and children's songs and published them as a song book. Copies of the song book have been distributed to the villagers in the hope that they will continue to sing and to pass on The Songs of Bailingwan. |
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A Resource Digest on CSA in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan |