Structure of Hakka Houses

Tulou is a collective building built with earth as wall, which is round, semi-circular, square, quadrangular, pentagonal, chair-shaped, dustpan-shaped and so on, each with its own characteristics. The earliest earth building is square, there are palace type, house type, body shape is different, not only peculiar, but also rich in mystery, solid and firm. Building in the accumulation of food, livestock; wells, if you need to protect the enemy, just close the door, a few young adults to guard the door, the earth building is like a strong fortress, women, children, old and young as much as possible can rest easy. Due to the square earth building has a directional, darker corners, ventilation and lighting are different, so the Hakka people and designed a good ventilation and lighting, neither the beginning nor the end of the round earth building. In the existing earth building, the most notable round, the local people called round building or round cottage. Tulou belongs to the collective architecture, and its biggest feature is its big shape. Whether from a distance or walking in front of it, Tulou is shocking with its huge monolithic architecture, and its size is the biggest of the residential houses. In our visit to the most common round building in the earth building, its diameter of about more than 50 meters, three, four-story height, *** more than a hundred housing, can live in thirty, forty families, can accommodate two to three hundred people. And large round building diameter up to 70 or 80 meters, five or six stories high, there are four or five hundred housing, can live seven or eight hundred people. This kind of residential architecture from the Tulou reflects the folk customs of the Hakka people who live together in clans. From the study of history and architecture, the construction of Tulou is a kind of self-defense style of living for the safety of the community. At that time, under the situation of the Japanese invasion from outside and the civil war from inside, the Hakka people who migrated their family came to other countries from thousands of miles away, and they chose a way of building that was conducive to the family reunion as well as the defense against the war, and then it was adopted. The children and grandchildren of the same ancestors in a building to form an independent society, *** survival *** glory, *** death *** humiliation. So the Royal Outer Condensation is probably the most appropriate generalization of the Tulou. Tulou's walls, under the thick on the thin, thick, some even up to 1.5 meters. Ramming, first in the wall base dug out and deep and large wall ditch, rammed in, buried in the boulder for the base, and then with stone and mortar masonry up the wall base. Then the wall is rammed with sandwich wall panels. Earthen wall of raw materials to the local clay red clay, mixed with the appropriate amount of small stones and lime, after repeated pounding, mixing, made into what is commonly known as "cooked soil". Some key parts should also be mixed with the right amount of glutinous rice, brown sugar, in order to increase its viscosity. Ramming, to the middle of the earth wall buried cedar branches or bamboo for the "wall bone" to increase its tensile strength. In this way, after repeated tamping, the earth wall was built like steel and concrete, plus a layer of lime outside to prevent weather erosion, so it is exceptionally strong and has good windproof and earthquake-resistant ability. According to "Yongding County Records", in 1918, a major earthquake occurred, the daytime watchman's voice, lasted 20 minutes, the night continued to vibrate, but the earth building has always stood up unharmed Round building is the most characteristic of the local earth building group of buildings, it is generally a center of the circle, according to the radius of a different, layer by layer, outward expansion, as in a lake in the water waves, the ring set, very spectacular. Its most central place for the family ancestral temple, outward in turn for the ancestral hall, the corridor, the outermost ring of people. The entire Tulou room of the same size, an area of about ten square meters or so, using the **** the same staircase, each family wind almost no secret to speak of. Tulou structure has many types of types, one of which is the interior of the upper, middle and lower three halls along the central axis of the longitudinal arrangement of the three-tang system, in such a Tulou, the general lower hall for the entrance and exit, placed in the forefront; the middle of the hall is located in the center of the family gatherings, welcoming the guests of honor; on the hall in the innermost part of the hall is the place where the ancestral tablets are enshrined. In addition to structural uniqueness, the internal bay windows, doorways and eaves of the Tulou buildings are also extremely ornate and exquisite, which are really the wonders of Chinese residential architecture

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