New courtyard housing in China

Abstract

Beijing courtyard is a traditional type of residence in Beijing, China. In ancient times, a courtyard would be occupied by a single, usually large family. Today, Beijing courtyard are still used as housing complexes, however, many lack modern facilities, and also the users of courtyard become multi-families, instead of one single big family. The overpopulation issue also changed the courtyard's appearance and function, reducing its formality, consistency and traditionality, because people living in courtyard started to add extra elements to meet their growing demands. Moreover, because the land value around courtyard is so high that governement can only provide a limited number of public toilet to people living in courtyard, which lead to a poor standard of hygiene in the traditional courtyard area. And also, there are other issues, like lacking necessary facilitiess, inconvenient transportation and negative aspect for historic preservation. In a word, there is a great protential to make people living in the traditional courtyard enjoy a better life.