Lilong Housing

"The lanes are almost purely pedestrian and often support an array of retail and other commercial activities, including offices and small-scale manufacture. Each of these places is a little world, housing the necessities of daily life and powerfully conducing a sense of community via the inevitability of encounter with one’s neighbors in the lanes. Although densely packed, the low scale of the buildings—which face lanes both front and back—permits the penetration of light and air."
ARCH RECORD ARTICLE



"As we all confront the need to create radically more sustainable forms of urbanism and restore the morphological basis of communities worldwide, we have a lot to learn from the lilong and hutong of China."