A COMPARISON OF SPATIAL ORGANIZATION AND HIERARCHICAL ORDER OF PLACE BETWEEN TRADITIONAL CAVE DWELLINGS (YAO-DONG) AND DWELLINGS ABOVE GROUND (FANG-WU) : Spatial organization and hierarchical order of place in Yao-Dong settlement dwellings of Chinese Loess Land Part I

Abstract

Recently, many people have been resettling from traditional cave dwellings (Yao-Dong) to dwellings above ground (Fang-Wu) in Yao-Dong settlements of Chinese Loess Land. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the difference between Yao-Dong and Fang-Wu with respect to spatial organization and hierarchical order of place. In conclusion, no difference in functional planning or usage was found between Yao-Dong and Fang-Wu. However, the hierarchical order of the two types of .dwelling was found to be dissimilar in that the structure of a Yao-Dong is strongly influenced by its orientation, whereas a Fang-wu's order is mainly determined by the position of its gate.