The development of rural tourism in the greater Xi’an area is in full swing, which is an important indicator for the implementation of rural revitalization. However, there are certain realistic challenges such as the lack of rural culture, the destruction of cultural context, and the loss of “rurality” of tourist areas. It is of vital significance to explore, integrate and revive the rural culture by advancing the rural cultural landscape based on the concept of cultural landscape in human geography. The specific categories of the rural cultural landscape were divided into three perspectives of agricultural production, famers’ lifestyle, and countryside ecology. Spatial reflections of various rural cultural landscapes were carried out based on pluralistic new data. The spatial characteristics of cultural landscapes were studied by using kernel density analysis and creating Thiessen polygons analysis and interpolation in ArcGIS spatial analysis, in order to show the spatial patterns of the special rural cultural areas and the cultural landscapes in greater Xi’an. Above all, our study inventoried and mapped the rural cultural landscapes in the context of rural tourism, identified spatial features of rural cultural landscape and rural tourism, and we proposed solutions that promote the cultural quality of rural tourism which are of vital significance in reviving rural culture.

Zhalantun city is located in a severely cold region of China. The cold climate and long winter bring challenges to the energy-saving design of rural dwellings in this area, while the poor economic conditions restrict the application of energy-saving technology. This paper aims to propose an optimal combination of passive design parameters by investigating, testing, and analyzing simulations of Zhalantun rural dwellings, which have a particular architectural pattern. Field measurements during winter show that the indoor temperature of a traditional house is low and fluctuates greatly, and the inner surface is prone to easy condensation. Through thermal comfort surveys, neutral and acceptable temperature ranges were obtained to provide indoor calculation parameters for an energy-saving design. Numerical simulations of heating energy consumption were conducted on the typical building models using DesignBuilder. The influence of different design factors on energy consumption was evaluated. Orthogonal experiments were designed to optimize a series of design parameter combinations to reduce the energy consumption of Zhalantun rural houses and to determine the sequence and significance of the effect of these design factors on energy consumption. Results show that the optimal parameter combination based on orthogonal experiments can obviously reduce energy consumption and have better economic benefits without considering mechanical methods. This can provide a basis for improved energy-saving designs and indoor thermal environments in such rural dwellings.

The rural residences of Northwest China are characterized by a state of high energy consumption and low comfort due to the limited economic level and awareness of energy-saving compared with the urban residences. To remedy this, appropriate passive design strategies should be adopted first, in order to provide a design mode with low energy consumption and low cost for rural residences under the premise of thermal comfort. In this paper, taking Hanzhong region (Shaanxi Province, China) as an example, we establish a benchmark model based on a field survey and develop an optimization process by combining EnergyPlus simulation software, the MOBO optimization engine, and weighted sum method. The action mechanisms of passive design parameters, including the building orientation, length–width ratio, building envelope parameters, external shading system, and window–wall ratio, on heating, cooling, and total energy consumption are analyzed, and the quantitative relationships between single-parameter and energy consumption are established. Then, the mutually restricted indices of total energy consumption and initial investment cost are taken as optimization objectives, and 17 design parameters are selected as the optimization variables. The NSGA-II algorithm is adopted to conduct the multi-parameter, multi-objective optimization design for rural houses in Hanzhong area, through coupling of the EnergyPlus and MOBO software. In this way, Pareto solutions are obtained and the value distributions of the multi-objectives and design parameters are analyzed. Based on the actual requirements of decision-makers and using the weight method, three design schemes focusing on different performance tendencies are proposed. The results indicate that by using the proposed optimization process, the building energy consumption can be significantly reduced while taking initial investment costs into account, where the energy-saving rate is in the range of 31.9–61.5%. When the EC/IC ratio is 1:1, 2:1, and 1:2, the energy-saving rate can reach 51.5%, 57.8%, and 43.5%, respectively. It can provide a beneficial pattern for the energy-saving design and renovation of rural residences in Hanzhong area of China.

High heating expenses are observed in numerous Chinese rural houses located in severe cold regions due to the high heating demand, inferior envelope performance and low-efficiency heating equipment. The local traditional heating methods include Chinese Kangs and coal boilers with water-based radiators. The intermittent operation and manual regulation of these systems result in significant temperature differences and inadequate thermal comfort. This study presents the cost-optimal envelope renovation solutions with the minimized lifecycle cost (LCC) during a 20-year discount period and CO₂ emissions of annual delivered energy consumptions. A single-family detached rural house in Harbin was used as a case building, illustrating the typical state of comparable houses in this climate context. Simulation-based multi-optimization analysis was conducted in this study using the building simulation tool IDA ICE and its integrated optimization tool AutoMOO. The results indicate that the cost-optimal renovation solutions with intermittent and continuous heating can cut CO₂ emissions by 30% and 40%, respectively. The LCC with intermittent heating is still 7% greater than its pre-renovation case, which may require external financial support to encourage the renovation conduction, while the LCC with continuous heating decreased by 8% after renovation. According to the comparison results, cost-optimal solutions have significant advantages in both reductions of LCC and CO₂ emissions over standard-based solutions. Moreover, utilizing intermittent heating is more effective than continuous heating in demonstrating the positive impacts of envelope renovation on increasing average temperature, decreasing temperature differences and lowering occupied time at low thermal comfort levels.

Limited by the climate, economic level and energy-saving awareness of rural residents in the western China, rural houses are still in a stage of high energy consumption (EC) and low comfort. The passive design strategies should be given priority to provide an optimal design mode. The challenge is to find the best combination of design parameters. In this paper, rural single-storey detached houses are taken as the research objects. Three conflicted indicators are set as the objective function, namely building EC, thermal comfort and economy. The investigated design variables include building orientation, insulating layer thickness, window width & type, and indoor design temperature. A methodology of combining EnergyPlus and MOBO is used for multi-objective optimization, thus getting the Pareto solutions and using the weighted sum method to obtain the optimum parameter combinations. The proposed methodology for simulation-based multi-objective optimization is a useful tool to facilitate decision-making in building design. Highlights