Echoes of Home : Adaptive Reuse of a Vernacular House / CM Design

Dafeng Village is located on the outskirts of Dongguan's central urban area. Its history can be traced back to the 31st year of the Shaoxing reign of the Southern Song Dynasty (1161 CE), and its long years have accumulated a profound cultural heritage. With the development of urbanization and industrialization, the function of residential houses has gradually shifted from being purely for self-occupation to coexisting self-occupation and rental use. This has led to a transformation in spatial design, moving from serving the daily needs of one's own family to pursuing greater capacity driven by profit orientation. This shift has given rise to two phenomena: on the one hand, a large proportion of residents have demolished old houses and rebuilt multi-story small buildings as their primary method of renewal; on the other hand, some villagers have chosen to purchase commercial housing in the city, leaving the old village to live in the urban area, while their old houses gradually fall into disrepair. Over time, the traditional landscape of the Lingnan water town has been gradually disappearing.