On 19 June 2026, the exhibition “Baishe Village: An Ongoing Story From On-site Fieldwork to Future Design Strategies” was inaugurated in the Milan Building.
Curated by Professors Lorenzo Ceccon and Gerardo Semprebon, the exhibition represents an opportunity for reflection and sharing within an ongoing research project promoted by the Joint Lab on Urban and Rural Heritage.
Starting in April 2025, a group of researchers from the Politecnico di Milano and XJTU, together with students from both universities, launched field research dedicated to yaodong settlements, an internationally renowned example of Chinese vernacular architecture.
The spatial logic of yaodong partly recalls the courtyard house tradition, while at the same time radically transforming it in response to the climatic, geological, and social conditions of the Loess Plateau. Domestic space takes shape through the excavation and aggregation of voids, courtyards, thresholds, and underground rooms. The ground is no longer merely a surface to be occupied, but becomes a thickness to be inhabited.
“Baishe Village: An Ongoing Story” invites visitors to pause, observe, and reflect on the role that architecture can play in revitalization processes.
The exhibition also serves as an open invitation to researchers from the two universities who are interested in taking part in this type of activity or in launching new ones in the future.
The research work is presented very effectively through a video which, with evocative images, illustrates the different phases of the project, the equipment used, the methodology adopted, and its possible future developments.
The video is available at the following link: https://youtu.be/PEyz6wRTjt8
Related articles
The following articles offer further insights into some of the fieldwork activities connected to the exhibition:
First visit of the Joint Lab to Baishe Village
Second Field Visit of the Joint Lab to Baishe Village
