Traditional Chinese villages, recognized as national heritage sites, are invaluable cultural assets. Since 2012, efforts have focused on their preservation, though issues remain such as prioritizing authenticity over usability and material over cultural elements. This paper adopts the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach, emphasizing the integration of physical heritage with daily life to shift value assessment. The fundamental argument of this paper is that the HUL method can serve as a new tool for preserving the historical heritage and landscape of rural areas, particularly in the context of assessing and formulating preservation frameworks for traditional Chinese villages. Through the case study of Tangfang village’s new conservation plan, the research demonstrates that the value of traditional villages lies in the continuous interaction between daily activities and physical space, including landscape, functional, and spiritual dimensions. The study concludes that a preservation framework based on local residents’ daily lives ensures more effective heritage conservation and landscape preservation by addressing both material and human values.

Ancient pagodas are usually parts of hot tourist spots in many oriental countries due to their unique historical backgrounds. They are usually polygonal structures comprised by multiple floors, which are separated by eaves. In this paper, we propose a new method to investigate both the rotational and reflectional symmetry of such polygonal pagodas through developing novel geometric models to fit to the 3D point clouds obtained from photogrammetric reconstruction. The geometric model consists of multiple polygonal pyramid/prism models but has a common central axis. The method was verified by four datasets collected by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a hand-held digital camera. The results indicate that the models fit accurately to the pagodas’ point clouds. The symmetry was realized by rotating and reflecting the pagodas’ point clouds after a complete leveling of the point cloud was achieved using the estimated central axes. The results show that there are RMSEs of 5.04 cm and 5.20 cm deviated from the perfect (theoretical) rotational and reflectional symmetries, respectively. This concludes that the examined pagodas are highly symmetric, both rotationally and reflectionally. The concept presented in the paper not only work for polygonal pagodas, but it can also be readily transformed and implemented for other applications for other pagoda-like objects such as transmission towers.

The formation of China’s territory has a long historical process. Prior research has highlighted the diverse historical development patterns across different regions. To delve deeper into the distinctiveness among regions and their nuanced disparities, the research centers on the settlements within Xinyi County, situated in the mountainous terrain of western Guangdong Province, China. The current study employs the research method of “Backward Observation” by conducting a literature review and utilizing ArcGIS for spatial analysis to investigate the spatial distribution and evolution process of regional settlements in western Guangdong. The results suggest a predominant involvement of the state in propelling the advancement of the indigenous community within Xinyi County, a progression primarily fulfilled by the conclusion of the late Qing and initial Republican eras, guided by the persistent localization and gentrification of migrating populations. Xinyi’s advancement pattern and speed exhibited notable distinctions from neighboring areas within Guangdong Province. This investigation additionally delves into G. William Skinner’s inquiries regarding the exceptional attributes and evolutionary patterns of localities, aligning with the South China School’s viewpoint on the varied nature of regional advancement procedures and cadences. This research on Xinyi’s historical evolution is importance in coordinating the preservation and advancement of historical towns, addressing urban-rural development disparities, and formulating future development strategies.

With the advancement of rural construction, the transformation of traditional kitchens faces issues such as uniform design, destruction of traditional aesthetics, high costs, and difficulties in localization, which affect the quality of kitchen renovations and the living standards of villagers. This study explores methods for kitchen transformation in traditional residences of Northwest Yunnan under low-technology strategies, aiming to enhance the quality of rural kitchens while preserving traditional aesthetics. Through field research, case analysis, and climate simulation, a kitchen renovation plan tailored to Tangfang Village in Yunnan Province was developed and implemented, including measures for optimizing functional flow, improving ventilation and lighting, enhancing water supply and drainage systems, increasing energy efficiency, and addressing insulation and moisture prevention. The renovated kitchens showed significant improvements in lighting, ventilation, and thermal comfort, with costs controlled within a reasonable range, achieving enhancements in architectural quality, user comfort, and endogenous motivation for autonomy. This research provides an operable model for rural construction, which, through low-technology strategies and collaborative creation models, not only enhances the functional use of rural kitchens but also preserves the cultural value of traditional architecture, holding significant importance for promoting sustainable rural development.