Scales of Design - Architecture Course Spring 2024
Tulou - Assignment
Professor Bimal Mendis - Teammate Hardy Eville B.A. Architecture '26
Er Yi Lou: Tourism and the Specters of the Past
Section drawing and model
with Hardy Eville Yale College '26
As the first Tulou under the “National Preservation Project”, Er Yi Lou is a significant tourist attraction. Today, it is still inhabited, carrying on a legacy of hundreds of years of communal living. Our section drawing shows this fragile coexistence of habitation and tourism. Tourism is necessary, incentivizing architectural preservation and providing an economic benefit to the remaining residents, but is it only superficial? The past inhabitants of Er Yi Lou are depicted in a similar color to the section itself. They blend in, like ghosts, with the built environment of their own construction. Conversely, the tourists are drawn in red, contrasting with the rest of the drawing. They are out of place, seeing the building through cameras and guidebooks rather than lived experiences.
Our model continues this investigation, once again reflecting the people of the past and present contemporaneously. Additionally, the model explores the materiality of the typology, specifically the contrast between the imposing, sturdy rammed-earth wall (fabricated from concrete) and the light wooden interior. The outer wall rises from the earth itself, a protective layer around the more fragile, interior space of daily life. We include extensions on our wedge of the Tulou that evoke some of the structural aspects of the buildings, demonstrating its careful, handmade nature that was normal to those who constructed it, but is simply a point of interest for the modern tourist.