This thesis presents research in which a set of contemporary computational digital techniques have been applied to investigate and interpret traditional Chinese architecture. The techniques involve algorithmic representation, digital modelling and digital fabrication. The research provides a methodology that can be utilised for future research employing the digital techniques in the context of understanding, investigating, interpreting and representing traditional Chinese architecture. The ancient rulebooks that describe the traditional Chinese architectural styles and construction technologies are used as the basis for the algorithms and parametric rules and the application to the modelling and fabrication process. Building on the work of producing systematic analysis on both rulebooks and contributing knowledge from extant buildings, the possibility of modelling traditional Chinese architecture using digital techniques is proposed and tested. This augments research already undertaken by architectural historians (who provide traditional approaches and analysis) by offering a new perspective to understand and recreate the Chinese style, as well as solving difficulties that traditional methods struggle with. The research is significant as it demonstrates how digital techniques can advance knowledge and understanding of significant Chinese architectural styles, especially considering a large number of heritage buildings are lost or damaged, as well as there is a lack of systematic and complete records. Consequently, this enhanced understanding can then be used to rediscover, restore, refurbish and recreate the traditional Chinese architecture. The research is significant as it also illustrates how digital techniques, especially parametrics, can be applied to a novel target, traditional Chinese architecture, which is beyond the common area of complicated shapes of contemporary architecture that they are usually applied to. Consequently, this attempt extends the function of digital techniques and bridges the gap between the traditional Chinese architecture and contemporary parametrics. Three case studies of significant elements in the understanding traditional Chinese architecture are used to present and advance the methodological process provided. These are the parametric recreation of the floor plan, the parametric interpretation of the design principles of the ting tang and dian tang sections, and the study of a typical Chinese joint structure, the dou gong. Each case study offers its own contribution to achieve the two significances. An example of the integrated digitally represented conceptual model is then given based on the three case studies. Three applications are also included to further prove the findings of this research. The findings illustrate how contemporary digital techniques can be used to augment and enhance knowledge of traditional Chinese architecture by turning descriptions and definitions into rules and algorithmic representations through the study of the rulebooks and the process of digital modelling. During this process inferences have to be made as representational source data such as architectural drawings are almost always incomplete and ancient language used in rulebooks is hard to understand accurately. The key here is the systematic and logical advancement that digital techniques bring when compared against design styles of architecture that was established in a pre-digital context. The findings also demonstrate enhanced understanding of using digital techniques to investigate and interpret traditional Chinese architecture. During this process, the cultural aspects, Chinese history, ancient politics, Chinese traditions and styles are all integrated into the consideration and representation of the digital techniques, which add new inspirations to the contemporary computational techniques.

The Dong is a minority mainly living in southwest China. The Dong people do not have written language, the dissemination of knowledge mainly relies on the oral education and practice, forming a unique process and method of oral education, of architectural construction and the use of architecture. In this thesis these three processes are linked together and understood to produce ‘Oral Architecture’. Oral architecture is a process through which the Dong architectural activity is reproduced and passed down through generations, letting people participate and observe phenomena, and thus apprehend the meaning of things and community. It is built on the relationships between people, activity and building. The series of activities that relate to buildings are simultaneously the motivation to construct intra-community relationships, to maintain traditions, and promote the broader process of living closely within their particular environment. Through field research, interviews, literature review, case studies and other methods, I have collected information about the process and methods of the Dong oral education, of architectural construction, and the use and meaning of their architecture. Informed by architectural phenomenology, the thesis offers a qualitative analysis of this data in order to summarise and understand the mode and concept of Dong oral architecture. The structure of the thesis provides a broad introduction to Dong society and culture, before analysing the education and practice of Dong Carpentry; the construction of the Dong House and the Drum Tower (the most important public building in any Dong village). Concluding chapters focus on how systems of meaning and ‘reading’ are supported by Dong building and their practices of everyday life, as well as the significant events of birth, marriage and death. All translations from Chinese are by the author unless otherwise stated.

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Yunnan is an economically underdeveloped region in south-western China, in which many ethnic settlements are preserved well. Within the last two decades, many ethnic communities at a grass-roots social level have been conducting a series of tourism-related developments of Bai and Naxi dwellings in Yunnan. They are altering, restoring, rebuilding, refurbishing and renewing ordinary Bai or Naxi dwellings into multi-function dwellings, which are not only the residential homes of families, but are also capable of providing an exotic cultural experience for tourists‘ consumption. Nevertheless, Bai and Naxi dwellings are representations of a living culture, embodying a complex set of vernacular architectural traditions which have been transmitted for many generations. When the Bai and Naxi dwellings are involved in tourism development, the transmission and adaptation of these vernacular architectural traditions are changed, and the manner in which such traditions aresustained in new circumstances becomes an interesting problem. This study explores the influence of tourism development on sustaining the vernacular architectural tradition embodied in Bai and Naxi dwellings in Yunnan, China. The researcher has conducted three rounds of fieldwork, choosing 30 Bai and Naxi dwellings involved in tourism development, from four ethnic minority settlements in Yunnan, for investigation. Observation, interview and questionnaire have been applied to collect data, and template analysis has been used to analyse the data. The results of the analysis show that if tourism development is conducted mainly at a community level, itcan enhance the sustaining of the vernacular architectural tradition embodied in Bai and Naxi dwellings. In summary, the sustaining of vernacular architectural tradition is not simply influenced by the nature of tourism, but is highly dependent on the social level of the developers, the construction pattern they choose, and the socio-cultural interaction they produce.

The development of modern architecture, which was first introduced to Taiwan by the Japanese when they occupied the island, has destroyed the identity and continuity of traditional Taiwanese architecture. Modern architecture, with its emphasis on materialistic and technological aspects, is fundamentally different from traditional architecture. The former depends on denying what is essential to the latter. However, modern technology is genuinely international and most people in Taiwan seem to want to enjoy its advantages, such as new methods of building construction, which have offered a better technical solution to many problems than traditional architecture could. However, architecture is not merely a technological product, it is also an embodiment of the worldview of the people of a region. The most important question in the contemporary architectural development of Taiwan is, therefore, to see how modern innovations could be embedded in the regional heritage so as to achieve a new architecture within the parameters of modern referents while maintaining a quality relying on nourishment from regional traditions. The thesis is an inquiry into the prospect of developing such a new architecture for Taiwan, which, it is argued, can be achieved by a Critical Regionalist approach. Critical Regionalism is a concept as well as an approach that attempts to evoke a condition of authenticity in which a new architecture can be consciously originated out of the traditional architectural characteristics of a particular region in order to withstand the domination of Modernism. The contents of the thesis are centred on the following themes: differences between traditional and modern architecture; problems of the contemporary architectural development of Taiwan; the development of Post-Modernism, Alexander's Pattern Language, the Phenomenology of Architecture, and Regionalism in architecture; the dialectics of Critical Regionalism; characteristics of traditional Taiwanese architecture; and the discussion of the regional consciousness in contemporary Taiwanese architecture. Today, society in Taiwan is no longer completely traditional although a number of traditions still survive. People live in a society codified according to two different sets of values and beliefs. The problem of how to preserve the valuable aspects of the regional heritage, including regional architecture, in a situation where tradition is in rapid decline is crucial. It is demonstrated in the thesis that Critical Regionalism presents a possibility that an authentic architecture can be developed out of contradictory elements and sources. In the past, most criticisms of modern architectural development were based on either the purely functional aspects or the style of the building which are only parts of architecture. The Critical Regionalist approach enables both architects and critics to emancipate themselves from such narrow interpretations. With the help of this approach, both architects and critics can now look at architecture from a much broader point of view. The thesis aims to show the way towards this new understanding of architecture.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references. / If one were to seek a unifying factor in this relatively short period of a modern Chinese tradition, it might be surprising to find that amidst the jolts of passing out of a feudal era into the twentieth century, the ancient principles of yin and yang still provide the jagged thread with which to attach the modern Chinese culture to the ancient one. This integration of opposing forces causes the pendulum to swing in any cross section of both material and nonmaterial form. Although this idiosyncratic leitmotiv is often to be found locked in a state of contradiction (the antithesis), the principles nevertheless provide a flexible structure and the leeway for change; as Chinese history has proven that rigidity most often results in decline and defeat. Moreover, it has provided a base for the growth of knowledge, readily adapting to the Marxist and Maoist methodology of dialectical materialism in this modern era. / by Karen K. Marcus. / M.S.