In the interiors of ancient Huizhou buildings in China, a profusion of wood carvings are employed for decoration, with traditional research interpreting their function from decorative and aesthetic perspectives. However, this research suggests that the role of Huizhou wood carvings in interior spaces surpasses mere decoration; they enhance the expression and experience of spatial concepts through narrative imagery. By analyzing the mechanism and intrinsic logic behind the spatial concepts formed in Huizhou residential buildings, this study investigates how wood-carving imagery contributes to shaping spatial concepts through narrative techniques, as well as their creativity and expressiveness in architectural design. Utilizing literature reviews, field surveys for case selection, and case analysis methods combined with observation, interviews, and measurements, this research ultimately employs image analysis to interpret the narrative structures and styles of wood-carving imagery in detail. This study reveals that (1) the spatial concepts of Huizhou residential buildings are influenced by traditional thought, social culture, and other factors, leading to an interweaving of material, cultural, and social spaces that results in a spatial concept characterized by harmony between heaven and humanity, clear hierarchy, and orderliness; (2) Huizhou wood-carvings, through their narrative images, actively engage in the production of spatial concepts, employing thematic juxtaposition narrative modes and utilizing singular-scene narration, composite-scene narration, and cyclical narration to articulate these concepts. These findings significantly deepen our comprehension of the relationship between the spatial concepts of Huizhou’s traditional residential architecture and social culture. By integrating cultural elements with spatial production theory, this research addresses the limitations of existing studies and augments their theoretical interpretative power. Additionally, clarifying the connection between the cultural elements of wood-carving imagery and the formation of spatial concepts offers a novel perspective on the study of Huizhou wood carvings, moving beyond their longstanding categorization as purely decorative elements.

The digital preservation of architectural heritage often remains limited to static documentation, with insufficient support for the structured analysis and contemporary reuse of decorative patterns. This study proposes a shape grammar-based digital approach for analyzing, generating, and applying decorative patterns from Huizhou chastity archways, a representative form of Chinese architectural stone-carving heritage. Pattern images from the Zhang Family Chaste Widow Archway were collected, vectorized, formally decomposed, and encoded as structured design units. These units were organized into a pattern resource library and used to establish eight generative and derivational rules describing the compositional logic of the original carvings. The rule system generated new decorative patterns that retained recognizable cultural and morphological characteristics while allowing formal variation. Expert evaluation of three representative schemes revealed a trade-off between formal innovation and cultural recognizability—the continuity-oriented scheme preserved stronger cultural recognizability, whereas the more variation-oriented scheme achieved higher innovation scores but showed reduced cultural recognizability. The generated patterns were subsequently refined through color and compositional adjustments and applied to textile-based design prototypes. The results demonstrate the feasibility of transforming architectural decorative patterns from static visual records into reusable, rule-based design resources. This study provides a case-based methodological reference for the digital documentation, formal interpretation, and contemporary design translation of two-dimensional decorative patterns extracted from architectural stone surfaces.