Legacy Regeneration

Hainan Agri Village



An organic process of village preservation manifests in a series of cultural villas that integrate sustainable eco-cultural industries.

Rural villages face an increasing threat of extinction. The conjunctive macro and micro trends on Hainan Island bid particular dangers to its coastal villages: the macro trend of rural-urban migrations, as well as the micro trend of burgeoning tourism-driven development along the coastal areas of Hainan Island.

Resisting the development model of large scale developers, a village on Hainan Island is currently being sensitively transformed into a cultural village. Conducted in a participatory process, this project was collectively initiated by the local villagers, a foreign social entrepreneur and Spatial Anatomy.
The cultural offerings and defining industries of the village were defined through an in-depth mapping of the ecological and geographical qualities of the village. A green path is identified to connect the village to other key cultural environmental nodes.

Modelled after a Public-Private Partnership development model, the project is executed in five incremental phases. The initial phases focus on the upgrading of road and walkway infrastructure, followed by a sensitive insertion of villas on the agricultural fields and aquaculture water bodies. The villas host artist residencies and cultural tourists.

Year 2017 Location Hainan, China Client JY Village Committee Area 0.4 sqkm Status Completed