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The Big Feet Aesthetic and the Art of Survival
Author(s) -
Yu Kongjian
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
architectural design
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.128
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1554-2769
pISSN - 0003-8504
DOI - 10.1002/ad.1497
Subject(s) - beauty , gentrification , aesthetics , identity (music) , china , foot (prosody) , function (biology) , art , history , archaeology , engineering , biology , civil engineering , literature , evolutionary biology
The ancient tradition of foot binding in China sacrificed the function of rustic ‘big feet’ in the name of gentrification and beauty. Kongjian Yu espouses an approach to landscape design that celebrates the aesthetic of high‐performing, low‐cost, healthy feet. Through his description of three projects, located in very different regions of China, he explains how working, adaptive landscapes based on farming techniques can provide an environment with a self‐sustaining identity.