This study proposes a framework to automate the evaluation of traditional village preservation status and analyze the major influential factors (MIFs) of preservation status and influencing mechanisms through YOLOv10 model and Random Forest model, taking Tibetan-Qiang region of northwest Sichuan as the study area. The framework adopts satellite maps, based on the YOLOv10 model, to comprehensively detect the preservation status of houses in the traditional villages, and calculates the preservation score of the corresponding villages as an evaluation of their preservation status. Further, through the Feature importance of Random Forest model, the MIFs of the village preservation status are filtered from the multiple environmental factors, and the SHAP value resolves the influencing intensity of the MIFs on the preservation status. Finally, for villages with poor preservation status, targeted preservation strategies are proposed. The contribution of this framework is saving the cost of traditional field research and significantly improving the efficiency and scope of the evaluations. Besides, the results also fill the gap in evaluating the preservation status and analyzing their influencing mechanisms of the traditional villages in Tibetan-Qiang region, and support the decision makers to propose more targeted optimization strategies.

As urbanization advances into its later stages, the need for critical reflection and reform in the design of urban public spaces becomes increasingly important. National squares, as symbolic examples of urban space, serve as vivid indicators of a city’s vitality and design characteristics. This research investigates the connection between the vitality representation of squares and vitality construction, aiming to identify strategies for optimizing square design. Using OpenStreetMap trajectory data, remote sensing imagery, and spatial syntax, we analyze these squares at both the urban block and square scales. Our findings reveal four distinct behavioral patterns within these national squares: pausing, interaction, traversing, and boundary crossing. We find that pausing and interaction are closely linked to various vitality construction, such as spatial centripetal force, comfort, safety, aesthetics, and functionality. In contrast, the patterns of passage and boundary crossing are influenced by the permeability of the space and the details of its design. Ultimately, this study offers valuable insights and a scientific foundation for enhancing the vitality of urban square design. By utilizing an expert evaluation system and quantitative data, we establish meaningful connections between design elements and user behaviors, facilitating informed decisions for optimizing square spaces.

Pop-up activities connecting online initiations with offline gatherings are crucial in the vibrancy of Chinese cities. However, the spatial and temporal dynamics influencing their distribution remain underexplored. This study addresses this gap by employing an artistic ecosystem model, integrating Douban activity data with built-environment metrics from Beijing’s Fifth Ring Road in 2013, 2016, and 2019. Using geographically and temporally weighted regression and geographically weighted regression, we investigate how factors such as spatial flexibility, organizer’s popularity, and urban amenities affect activity responsiveness and aggregation across three levels: core, sub-core, and associated circles. Our findings reveal notable temporal fluctuations in the spatial impacts on activity responsiveness, with high-impact zones increasingly concentrated in central areas, reflecting uneven urban development. Furthermore, spatial imbalances contribute to central-peripheral and north-south disparities, particularly influencing the patterns in the sub-core and associated circles. Despite varying influencing factors, the sub-core circle, which is mainly shaped by artistic and social ambiance, is consistently dominant. Distinct activity types are driven by different factors and display diverse spatial patterns. These findings enhance the understanding of urban pop-up geography in Chinese cities and highlight the need for adaptive urban planning strategies that emphasize the flexible, activity-based use of spaces, fostering sustainable urban development.

This paper introduces CLIPedia, an entirely local, highly scalable, multimodal search engine that integrates the structured knowledge of Wikipedia into the latent embedding space of OpenCLIP. Alongside its technical development, the paper offers a theoretical framing, positing AI not merely as a tool for information access but as an architectonic instrument for invention and discovery. Built on a two-tiered Self-Organizing Map (SOM) architecture—comprising toroidal and ring-shaped layers—CLIPedia organizes over 30 million data points for fast unimodal and cross-modal retrieval. It achieves sub-second response times on standard hardware with minimal working memory footprint, delivering local performance comparable to cloud-based vector search systems and excelling on queries that return many relevant results. Beyond queries, CLIPedia enables latent journeys—termed quests—across high-dimensional embedding space. For this, the paper introduces a set of navigational metaphors and computational mechanisms—termed Orthodromes, Diadromes, Archidromes, and Thelodromes—to trace both linear and non-linear trajectories through the latent space of digitally encoded encyclopedic knowledge. The paper is accompanied by an open-source code repository.

In recent years, the focus of tangible cultural heritage conservation has gradually shifted from static protection to the stimulation of dynamic vitality and refined guidance. Historic districts frequently encounter various challenges and uncertainties in conservation and renewal practices, including the decay of physical spaces and the adverse impacts of commercial development. Addressing whether existing conservation and renewal models can enable historic districts to sustain their capacity for resistance, adaptation, and transformation constitutes an urgent issue. This study adopts a morphological resilience framework to construct an evaluation system. It takes Xijie Historic District as a case study to identify regions of weak resilience and propose targeted optimization strategies. The findings of the study reveal that: (1) Establishing a multi-level indicator system can systematically assess the resilience level of historical districts. (2) It is possible to enhance integrated resilience and support adaptation to tourism by increasing public facilities, dividing plot series into 1500—2000 m², and upgrading buildings with low quality and value. (3) Advancing a hierarchical conservation strategy of macro-level protection and meso- and micro-level classified renewal contributes to providing a valuable reference for responding to the complex challenges of urban renewal and promoting the refined conservation of heritage.

This article takes a look at Louis I. Kahn’s volumetric light space as a clue to the unique process and construction of his volumetric light space. Specifically, the article analyzes Kahn’s early travels and teaching process, as well as the influence of his paintings and quotes on the formation of volumetric light spaces. Through a chronological analysis of Kahn’s built and unbuilt works in his 50-year architectural career, the article identifies representative examples of volumetric light spaces and summarizes the three core elements of volumetric light spaces: volumetric frames, apertures, and light conditioning structures. After that, the graphic analysis of the volumetric light space of key cases (Exeter Library and Kimbell Art Museum) is used to reveal the design connection between spatial layout, interface organization and structural relationship. By emphasizing the formation of Kahn’s particular light space, the article attempts to integrate Kahn’s philosophical perspectives, interpret this unique personal label, and demonstrate the design rules and logic of the formation of this space.

Rural dwelling is a significant part of rural architecture, serving not only as a place for residents to live and conduct a variety of activities, such as agricultural work and gathering, but also as a representation of local history and culture. However, rural residents usually lack professional guidance when constructing houses, and their requirements for dwellings are not fully consistent with local policies. In this paper, a systematic design method based on modularization and customization was proposed, which can satisfy the residential needs within the constraints of the policy, and protect the continuity of the architectural culture while enhancing the living comfort. With the current situation of the settlement analyzed and the residents being researched, the modularization and customization designing approach was adopted to develop a flexible atlas of house types that can fulfill various demands of the residents. This method was initially applied to the Longchi area in Nanjing, China, which was highly recognized by local residents, providing a new strategy for future rural settlement planning and dwelling design.

This paper introduces a pioneering 2D analytical framework for unveiling unique “malice houses” (1561—1788)—low-rise, ugly, and uneven in appearance—in Madrid’s historic city. The research focuses on how the main floor was either cleverly or awkwardly concealed, circumventing the imposed lodgement. “Malice” geometry must be uncovered, as no records or preserved examples exist.

Critical findings regarding two-storey houses and a primary approach to the non-existent “Malice” archives established essential parameters. Strategies developed include facade height regulations, traditional carpentry roof design (1636), cross-section agreement methodology, and hidden floor possibilities. The necessary structural coherence between elevation components, load-bearing wall spans, and roof design revealed crucial adjustments to explore in a basic two-span model.

The relationship between proportion, uneven elevations, and symmetrical (1—4) and asymmetrical (5—6) cross-section models is highlighted. Breakthroughs are achieved by unveiling two enlarged malice houses leading to Model 7, an incomplete cross-section with a symmetrical gable (1759) and an uneven high-rise facade with a low-rise floor (1777).

Reversing construction in later enlargement by featuring ingenious roof geometry and low-rise floors opens future research opportunities for discovering preserved historic buildings, uncommon carpentry designs and 2D-to-3D modelling in complex buildings.

Improving micro-resilience in living streets enhances the daily quality of life for residents and contributes to the city’s overall resilience. However, current research on urban resilience primarily focuses on macro-scale and large cities, neglecting the unique resilience needs of small and medium-sized cities, especially in close-to-daily life scenarios. This study assessed the specific manifestations of resilience deficiencies in typical living streets within the Chinese Jiangnan region’s small and medium-sized cities and conducted an in-depth review of relevant literature across related dimensions, extracting and drafting a theoretical living streets resilience framework. A resilience assessment tool, ESO (Environment-Social-Operation), was developed based on this framework and refined through two Delphi surveys with experts and practitioners. The final actionable assessment framework included eight secondary and 37 tertiary indicators. A pilot test of the tool was conducted on 16 streets in 4 cities, yielding an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.81 (95% CI = 0.69—0.90), demonstrating the tool’s robustness and feasibility. This tool considers built-environment factors and social-function elements. It provides a systematic tool for enhancing resilience in living streets in small and medium-sized cities, offering guidance and decision-making support for urban renewal and management practices that enhance resilience at both micro and indirectly promoted macro levels.

This study examines the typological evolution and classification of self-built houses in the coastal region of Quanzhou from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. Using archaeological typology methods, the research classifies 225 residential buildings into two main categories—courtyard houses and freestanding houses—analyzing their story additions, entrance façades, spatial layouts, and material transitions. It questions previous binary classifications of traditional versus westernized styles, emphasizing a nuanced, non-linear historical development shaped by overseas connections, socio-economic contexts, and evolving construction techniques. This paper establishes a foundation for further research on residential evolution that incorporates broader social and historical analyses.

Rural tourism (RT) is gaining popularity as emerging mode of tourism, attracting a growing number of tourists. From a data-driven perspective, this study constructed and compared multiple spatial regression models, and studied the effects of destination image DI and the built environment on the spatial capacity and resident duration of rural tourism behavior (RTB) and its spatial non-stationary relationship. The findings indicate that: (1) MGWR had a high degree of fitting and a streamlined structure, which could better capture the spatial heterogeneity of rural tourism; (2) in terms of spatial capacity, cultural customs, transportation, public space, sky, intersection density (ID) and transportation service density (TS) play a positive role, while cost distance (CD), morphological compactness, cropland cover and accommodation service density (AS) have negative effects, and the influence degree of TS is relatively high; (3) regarding the resident duration, uniqueness, diversity, water coverage, AS and tourist attraction density have positive effects, while cultural customs, traffic, landmarks, uniqueness, diversity, ID and CD play a negative role. and the impact of AS is higher. These insights can provide practical implications for tourism managers to develop targeted products, planners to come up with precise optimization designs, and policymakers to implement effective financial support.

Historical buildings are indispensable for maintaining cultural continuity. Proper restoration is the only way to preserve their original character. At this stage, early and accurate diagnosis of the damage to the historical building plays a vital role in the restoration process. Traditional damage assessment methods sometimes cause erroneous diagnoses and damage to the building. For this reason, non-destructive methods should be developed by utilizing the opportunities provided by technology.

The research aims to develop an artificial intelligence-based damage detection model that can quickly and accurately detect deterioration in historical buildings. The study’s scope consists of traditional Gaziantep houses in the city’s historical center. The primary materials are high-resolution digital façade images, survey reports of these houses, and the findings obtained in the field research.

The research reveals that deterioration maps, which are prepared with traditional methods by spending intensive labor and time, can be produced with an artificial intelligence-based system. Experts first documented the damages seen on the façades of historic stone buildings, and the model trained with these data was used as a supportive method to determine the types of deterioration. Integrating the system with expert opinions, field studies, and visual documents makes creating deterioration maps more efficient.

Urban green spaces serve as key places for outdoor activities. Understanding how spatial morphology influences where and how people engage in activities is essential for landscape design and optimization. However, previous studies often neglected 3D characteristics, variability, and complexity of green spaces, limiting analytical depth and quantification. We proposed a fine-grained mapping and correlation analysis framework to explore the relationship between site-specific landscape spatial morphology and on-site healthy (physical and social) activities at a detailed scale. Using Nanjing Lovers’ Garden in China as a case, activity patterns were reflected through spatial distribution and attributes of 3191 visitors in 30 spatial units. 3D models and human eye perception simulations were constructed based on point clouds for quantitative analysis and mapping-based visualization. Regression and threshold analysis through ArcGIS linkage reveal that the influence of spatial morphology on people’s activities does not follow a single linear pattern, with complex fitting models and certain indicator ranges associated with comfort. Although based on a single representative case, this study proposes a transferable framework and demonstrates the value of applying fine-grained mapping to small-scale spaces by linking 2D and 3D spatial characteristics, contributing to predicting activity distribution and supporting spatial refinement, assessment, and renewal.

Under the context of megacity decentralization, street vitality in urban fringe commercial districts becomes a key indicator for assessing population attraction and sustainability. However, most existing studies focus on central urban areas, with limited attention to the vitality characteristics of urban fringe streets and the nonlinear relationship between the built environment and street vitality. Methods for quantifying street vitality also remain underdeveloped. This study examines streets in commercial districts located in Wuhan’s urban fringe areas. Street vitality is quantified using mobile signaling data. Based on multi-source data, a “5D” built environment indicator system is constructed. Machine learning combined with SHAP algorithms is employed to reveal the nonlinear effects and interaction mechanisms of built environment variables. Finally, hierarchical clustering is used to identify different types of street vitality. The results show that: (1) Location distance is the dominant factor influencing street vitality, with time-varying effects; (2) Built environment variables affect vitality in nonlinear ways; (3) There are interactive effects among indicators of different dimensions of built environment; (4) Streets with similar contribution patterns from built environment variables tend to have similar vitality levels. Vitality formation mechanisms vary by street type and show spatial clustering. Findings support refined urban fringe street design.

Streets constitute dynamic landscape perception essential in heritage-rich area planning. They facilitate immersive user experiences. However, urbanization intensifies infrastructure-heritage conflicts. This necessitates improved street space evaluation, management, and enhancement. This study focuses on an Inner Ring Road of West Lake in Hangzhou, developing an index system that encompasses naturalness, openness, artificiality, and traffic, suitable for the visual assessment of unique heritage areas. We used images crawled from Baidu Street View for semantic segmentation and analyzed the landscape element composition, visual quality, extreme values, and spatial distribution of the West Lake Inner Ring Road. The findings indicate that: (1) West Lake has good landscape quality, but the visibility of the water is very low. (2) West Lake can be divided into the artificial scenic area in the northeast and the natural scenic area in the southwest, but the over-dense plant planting and route planning have led to serious homogeneity of spatial continuity. (3) The existence of closed spaces such as tunnels also prevents people from experiencing it continuously. This study investigates heritage areas as spatial media, quantifying visual experience-space use relationships to provide practical visual landscape assessment, informing future heritage street management and development.

This study deals with the architectural features, typological diversity and sustainability of the historical Syriac churches in the rural areas of Mardin province in southeastern Turkey. Mardin countryside, which bears the traces of different civilisations starting from the pre-Christian period, is of great importance especially for the architectural and cultural heritage of the Syriac Orthodox community. Within the scope of the research, 61 churches and monasteries, most of which were built between the 4th and 9th centuries, were examined in detail, preserving their original structural features and survey drawings of these buildings were created. In this context, a typological classification of the churches and monasteries (monastery churches) in rural Mardin was conducted, identifying three main plan types: single nave village churches oriented along the east-west axis, multi-nave churches and monastery-type churches oriented along the north-south axis. Important architectural elements of these buildings, such as Kduskudshin, doors, windows and bell towers, were analysed in detail and their impact on the original character of the buildings was studied. The results of the study indicate that the preservation of Syriac religious buildings in rural Mardin is crucial not only for the conservation of these buildings but also for ensuring the continuity of the multi-layered cultural heritage of the region.

Architectural practice in Yunnan during the Second Sino-Japanese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression exhibits characteristics of diversity, openness, and pragmatic rationality, fundamentally representing a creative breakthrough amid multiple liminal states. This study examines the Kunming Nanping Theater during wartime through the lens of construction technology. By integrating fieldwork, historical archival research, and oral history interviews with structural analyses, the study reconstructs the decision-making chain and implementation pathway of the theater’s design and construction. It explores the modern architectural practice in Yunnan under unique historical conditions. The research aims to investigate the intrinsic mechanisms of localized transformation in contemporary architectural design and construction during exceptional periods, revealing the driving forces and operational logic behind architectural creation during the war. By expanding the perspective of construction technology in the history of modern Chinese architecture, this study further discusses the historical lessons and theoretical insights it offers for global wartime architectural practice and contemporary architectural practice.

Historical architectural images serve as vital carriers of architectural heritage, preserving visual information about structural forms. However, due to the complexity of architectural knowledge, the general public often struggles to intuitively comprehend the spatial and structural characteristics embedded in these images. With the advancement in digital technology, virtual reality serious games (VR SG) offer new opportunities to enhance user engagement and understanding. This study presents ArchiBuilder, a VR SG system developed based on architectural images in Dunhuang murals, aimed at fostering immersive learning and exploring its potential in public education. A between-subjects experiment (N = 30) using a mixed-methods approach was conducted to compare ArchiBuilder with a conventional VR image-text information mode in terms of learning performance, immersion, and cognitive load. The results indicate that ArchiBuilder significantly reduced users’ cognitive load and improved immersion, although no statistically significant difference was observed in learning performance. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of gamified VR experiences in enhancing user experience. Through narrative-driven mechanisms and staged reconstruction tasks, ArchiBuilder reshapes how users cognitively engage with architectural images. While learning out-comes remained comparable, the interactive scenario design improved learning strategies and sustained user engagement. This study offers a practical framework for the digital communication of historical architectural images and provides insights for public-oriented cultural heritage education.

In 21st-century architectural literature, Therme Vals stands out for its spatialization of theory and art. This study is based on the thesis that Therme Vals is structured under the influence of Roland Barthes’ five codes and Konstantin Stanislavski’s The Method of Physical Actions (1934—1938). In this context, Peter Zumthor’s narratives about the atmosphere chapters in Thinking Architecture are analyzed with strategies based on Barthes’ textual decoding in S/Z, and Stanislavskian perspectives in these narratives are revealed. The trilogy of space-action-text, as a diagrammatic representation of discourses, forms the theoretical foundations of the methodology. Through qualitative research within the framework of structural narrative analysis, this study deconstructs Barthes’ principles of semantic plurality and Stanislavski’s The Method of Physical Actions (1934—1938) through the architectural codes of the Therme Vals and atmosphere chapters. The analysis of 17 semantic units yielded 190 poductive terms, of which 59 are unique and 131 are repetitive, as well as principles of clustered effects. The results support Zumthor’s view in Thinking Architecture that architecture operates not as a narrative but as a text open to multiple interpretations.

The Pareto front is a collection of optimal solutions and trade-offs between objective functions without hierarchy. The challenge lies in selecting a single solution from this set for design development. This research utilizes a unique method that integrates multi-objective optimization (MOO) with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to score, rank, and sort the solutions of the Pareto front. First, a judgment matrix is created and evaluated based on the decision-maker’s (DM) preferences over objective functions. Then, weight coefficients are derived from the judgment matrix to score and rank each solution in the Pareto front, allowing the sorting. The efficiency of this method was evaluated and discussed in two case studies of a complex, lightweight, continuous concrete shell structure, considering various design criteria that encompassed structural, acoustic, and energy performance. Additionally, the proposed method is compared with the weighted sum method. Combining MOO with the AHP enhances optimization and facilitates more effective interaction between the decision-maker and the optimal solution-finding process. This method enables a trade-off among criteria to solve a complex design problem. The DM’s preferences guide the ranking process, and their active involvement ensures that the final solution aligns with the project’s requirements and preferences.