NONGZAO Practice • The Grain of the Countryside

Let the countryside draw its strength for the future from its own ground.

Original Text | Xu Gang • Nongzao Field Notes

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The Grain of the Countryside Is More Than Surface Texture

As more and more rural communities are drawn into a single model of modernisation, what changes is not just the architecture, the roads or the infrastructure. The way people understand the places they live in changes, too.

Old houses are demolished, stone paths are covered with concrete, and spaces that once evolved in response to the terrain, climate and habits of everyday life are replaced by new architectural forms and standardised facilities. Elsewhere, villages are repackaged in the name of renewal. Polished traditional motifs, a uniform visual language and easily replicated spatial designs make these places more appealing to visitors, but not necessarily more reflective of the lives of the people who live there.

These changes may seem to move in opposite directions, yet they point to the same problem: rural communities are gradually losing the ability to grow on their own terms, from the conditions and resources they already have.

The distinctiveness of a village does not reside only in a handful of old buildings, a traditional decorative motif or a history that can be told. It also lies in how people source materials, build houses, use everyday objects and organise their lives around the climate, terrain and rhythms of production. Accumulated over generations, this knowledge becomes embedded in local building practices, material choices and spatial habits. Together, these form the grain of the countryside.

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Grain is more than a pattern on a surface or a recognisable visual style. It can be felt in the roughness of stone, the layers of rammed earth and the marks left on an old wall by time. It can also be traced back through the life of a material: where it came from, how it was processed, who made it and the conditions of everyday life in which it was used. What we see on the surface is only the outcome. Beneath it lies a web of relationships between materials, craft, environment and people.

As these relationships disappear, a building may retain some traditional features while losing the local foundations that once gave them meaning. Conversely, a material need not retain its traditional form to remain rooted in a place. If it continues to draw on local resources and knowledge, and to serve the realities of local life, it can become part of the countryside's continuing evolution.

This raises a more concrete question for rural renewal: can we move beyond understanding modernisation as the replacement of what already exists? Can we revisit the materials and building knowledge already present in a place, and find ways for them to remain useful in response to contemporary needs?

This is not simply a matter of returning to the past or finding new decorative uses for traditional forms. What needs to be reconsidered are the material principles and building techniques that once sustained local life, and the problems they might still help us solve today.

The Grain of the Countryside emerged from this question as a NONGZAO design practice. Starting with an ancient material and the building knowledge associated with it, we sought to bring local resources, traditional craft and contemporary materials research into conversation, exploring how rural materials might find new uses under changing conditions.

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From Shell Ash to a New Traditional Composite

The Zuo Zhuan (Commentary of Zuo), in its account of events in the second year of Duke Cheng of Lu, records the use of shen tan, a material associated with ash produced by burning shells, in an elaborate burial. This reference offers a glimpse of how shell-derived materials had entered the ritual and material culture of ancient China.

Shells are natural mineral structures formed through biological processes. Molluscs produce their shells through biomineralisation, combining inorganic minerals such as calcium carbonate with an organic matrix to create complex structures. When shells are calcined, their mineral composition and structure change, producing a material that can participate in lime-based binding systems.

In some coastal regions, shells are abundant. People historically burned them to produce lime, then combined it with soil, sand and other locally available ingredients for building. Sanhetu, or traditional three-component earth composite, is one example of a composite material used in Chinese building traditions. Its composition and preparation vary according to region and purpose. Unlike standardised materials produced through modern industrial processes, such traditional composites often emerged from specific resource conditions, local processing methods and long experience of use.

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Their significance lies in a distinctly local approach to organising materials: resources are gathered from the surrounding environment, then transformed through techniques adapted to local conditions into materials that serve everyday needs.

Today, the construction industry faces multiple challenges, including resource consumption, carbon emissions from industrial production and the disposal of construction waste. At the same time, excavated earth and demolition debris, straw and other fibres left over from agricultural production, and discarded shells generated by coastal processing industries are all awaiting more appropriate ways of being used.

These materials come from different stages of production and consumption, but they share a common question: once they have outlived their original purpose, can they re-enter material production and everyday life?

In a rural context, this question opens up possibilities beyond finding substitutes for industrial materials. Material research can also offer a way to connect local resources and traditional building knowledge with contemporary construction.

We began to ask whether we could develop a new form of sanhetu, using shell ash as a starting point and combining it with locally available construction earth, demolition waste and fibres derived from agricultural and forestry by-products—a composite suited to contemporary needs.

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Bringing Traditional Materials into Contemporary Conditions

Our practice in Qingshan Village, Hangzhou, began with this question.

We used lightly calcined shell ash as the basis of the binder, introducing construction earth, demolition waste and agricultural fibres into the research process. Drawing on contemporary material-modification techniques, we explored different compositions, particle-size distributions and overall performance. Our aim was to use modern materials research to reconsider how traditional composites are organised and to investigate what they might become under new conditions of use.

Earth and demolition waste from different sources vary in particle composition and physical properties. Adding agricultural fibres opened up further possibilities for exploring crack resistance and surface character. By adjusting proportions and particle-size distributions, and investigating the effects of modifying components, we sought a more suitable balance between formability, strength, water resistance and surface texture.

Whether these components can form a stable material system depends on their individual properties, how they interact and the specific conditions under which the material is processed and used. Local sourcing does not automatically make a composite environmentally beneficial, just as using traditional materials does not remove the need to verify performance against contemporary building requirements.

Developing this new sanhetu meant putting traditional building knowledge to the test again. Which established practices still work? Which need to be adapted with modern technology? Which performance requirements must be verified through testing before the material can be used? These questions can only be answered gradually through practical research.

When shell ash, earth, demolition waste and agricultural fibres come together in a single material system, each contributes different physical properties. Together, they create variations in surface layers, granular traces and colour. The material is no longer merely a substrate for a chosen appearance. Its composition and the processes used to shape it directly influence the final form.

This gives us the opportunity to develop a design language from within the material itself. Rather than imposing a traditional aesthetic and using new materials to imitate it, we can allow the material to express the character of the resources from which it is made.

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Let the Countryside Grow from Its Own Ground

Traditional materials should not be treated as beyond change simply because they worked in the past. Nor should the established production systems of modern industrial materials lead us to regard local materials and traditional crafts as relics to be preserved behind glass.

The value of traditional building knowledge lies in its ability to help us reconsider the relationships between people, materials, the environment and everyday life. Modern technology can provide new means of putting those relationships into practice.

Such exploration must begin with the specific conditions of a place. Different regions have different geology, agricultural resources, climates and building traditions. A material that works in one location cannot simply be transferred to another and expected to perform in the same way. Local relevance cannot be achieved merely by substituting locally sourced materials. Where a material comes from, how much energy is required to process it, whether it meets actual performance needs, how it will be maintained and what happens to it at the end of its useful life are all questions that design must address.

It is sustained attention to these questions that determines whether a material merely carries the language of sustainability or can deliver meaningful results under real-world conditions.

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The Grain of the Countryside remains an ongoing exploration. Starting with shell ash and the building knowledge embodied in traditional sanhetu, we brought construction waste and agricultural and forestry by-products into materials research, looking for new roles for them in contemporary rural building. The project is an attempt to reconsider, from the material itself, how local knowledge, contemporary technology and the needs of everyday life might come together.

The future of the countryside should be neither an extension of urban development models nor a place frozen in an idealised image of tradition. Rural communities have their own resources, productive knowledge and cultural inheritance. These deserve to be understood anew and put to work in ways that matter today.

When a neglected material finds its way back into construction, when a traditional technique is adapted through new technologies, and when local resources respond to the real needs of contemporary life, the grain of the countryside becomes more than a past preserved. It becomes something capable of growing into the future.

— Practice Period: March – July 2023