ABSTRACT
The chapter introduces the reader to a typical water village to the south of Foshan. In history, the village of Dadun functioned as a market town at the crossing of two major canals. An international design competition had resulted in a master plan for the extension of Foshan’s central business district into the dike and pond landscape surrounding Dadun and four nearby villages, which were slated for demolition. The chapter reports on a workshop between the South China University of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley that produced design guidelines for the integration of the village rather than its demolition. The work focused on water management and the management of incremental renewal of the village under the control of the village council. The political background is explained that gives village councils autonomy over collective ownership of the village and its agricultural land. An important contribution to our work was the collection of water samples from ponds, canals and wells within the village. The official planning of Foshan had compromised water quality at Dadun by blocking the flow of water along essential segments of the canal system The analysis of the water samples revealed that village water from the various sources was unfit for human contact. Detailed designs show how conditions could be improved by restoring the connectivity of the canal system to the river system and by laying a local sewer system alongside the margins of the canals. The work also addressed the modernization of the villages’ former agricultural buildings to improve the quality of life for villagers and for the migrant workers who had settled in Dadun near Foshan’s growing industrial workplaces.
