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Most of the old rural houses in Beijing are single-layer buildings with double-sloping roofs. Under an earthquake, the gable is prone to an outward tilt, and the structure is prone to collapse as a whole. In view of the structural characteristics of the existing rural houses in Beijing, a reinforcement technology is proposed, in which the embedded steel frame reinforcement is mainly used, supplemented by a steel plate strip reinforcement. A 1/4 masonry structure model is designed for a shaking table test. A full-scale model is established in a finite element simulation analysis. The results show that the longitudinal wall is seriously damaged, and the gable has a considerable outward inclination under earthquakes. However, owing to the reinforcement effect of the steel frame, the overall collapse of the structure is avoided. The steel strip can effectively restrain the outward inclination of the gable and ensure safety of personnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inside Beijing are hundreds of urban villages. Originally farming villages, now engulfed by urban expansion, they persist due to China's segregated urban-rural property system. Inhabitants are often still classed as peasants, despite being inside the city. Since most have had their agricultural land requisitioned for urban construction, they instead build multiple extensions to their houses to rent to rural migrants seeking cheap accommodation. In some cases, village populations have increased tenfold as migrants have flooded in, causing cramped conditions and overloading village infrastructure. Urban villages have in recent years emerged as key sites of ideological and political contestation. For local officials and planners envisioning gleaming world cities brimming with advanced technology and highly skilled workers, these are dirty and backward "urban cancers," enclaves of the "low-end population," and obstacles to their visions of the city as embodiment of global modernity. An opposing set of scholars and policy makers view these villages as essential to city life, channels for low-cost labor to service urban elites, and gateways to modernity for those formerly excluded. Within the urban villages, groups of migrant-activists defy the statist vision of the city. Through cultural performances and visual representations, they struggle to promote an urban modernity in which they are included as active participants. This article explores how Beijing's urban villages constitute a key site of ideological contestation over what the city should be, and whom urban life is for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land normally serves as the carrier of urban and suburban districts in the spatial planning and development strategies. There is a great impact of land use structure on the habitat quality of urban suburbs in recent years. Taking the suburb of Wuqing District, Tianjin, China, as the research area, this study aims to evaluate the sustainable development of land use and habitat quality at the metropolis suburb. The data of land use was collected from 1980-2018. An InVEST model was used to determine the measure level of the habitat quality module. A numerical analysis was made in the habitat quality module to explore the change of land use transfer and land use dynamic degree in the key timeline. An attempt was made to clarify the integrated habitat degradation degree with land use and the evolution of habitat quality structure at the Beijing-Tianjin metropolitan suburb. A relationship model was established for the habitat quality and the spatiotemporal evolution of land use. The results showed that: (1) The type of land use in Wuqing District was dominated by the cultivated land during 1980-2018. Specifically, the area of farmland and unused land decreased significantly, whereas, the area of urban land and rural settlements increased rapidly. There was a relatively small proportion of woodland and grassland. (2) In land-use type transfer, there was the largest transfer area of cultivated land, followed by that of urban and rural residential land. The woodland and grassland shifted to the urban and rural residential land, whereas, the water area to the cultivated land. The unused land changed most. (3) In comprehensive land use dynamic degree (CLUDD), there was an increase in the change rate of land use for the urban land, rural residential land, and water areas, as well as a decrease in that of cultivated land. (4) There was a trend of "urban expansion and farmland contraction", and "human advancing and grass retreating", but in some years there was also a transition of "grass and water advancing". The habitat quality in Wuqing District was in the middle grade, but the area of the middle grade tended to decrease. There was an increase in the area of the low-grade habitat quality, whereas, a downward trend in that of lower grade, while that of the higher and the highest grade tended to expand. The finding can contribute to the precise implementation of the protection strategy of habitat quality and of "ecological civilization", especially for land planning in trans-regional metropolitan areas,further promoting new urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, household heating systems in rural China primarily use coal. This low-efficiency heating method not only results in poor indoor comfort, but also contributes to indoor and regional air pollution. Split-type, low temperature air-to-air heat pumps (AAHPs) have been proposed to be a clean heating alternative to replace coal-burning stoves. This study performed field measurements of a AAHP product in two representative rural households in suburban Beijing, China, focusing on three goals: 1) to observe, analyze, and validate occupant control patterns of low temperature AAHPs in rural households; 2) to explore comfort indoor temperature levels in rural households and demonstrate the thermal comfort achieved as per the individual requirements of residents and space use; and 3) to learn the heating energy saving potentials achieved by considering occupant control patterns. Room temperatures and time-varying electricity consumption from February 6 to March 15 were monitored. Three occupant control patterns were observed and verified from the field measurements: 1) continuous daily operation of heat pumps, 2) intermittent operation, and 3) irregular operation. In addition, the observed indoor temperatures of both households ranged from 10 °C to 23.5 °C. By considering varied occupant control behaviors, the heating energy consumption reduction can be significant. This study indicated that using the low temperature AAHPs met individual thermal comfort requirements and had a great potential to reduce the heating energy consumption when considering different occupant control patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Diversity, complexity and change have become the hallmarks of contemporary Chinese rural settlements. However, the literature so far has paid insufficient attention to this phenomenon from the standpoint of functional transition and related land-use change. To fill in this gap, this paper explores the functional transition of rural settlement through analyzing land-use differentiation in a transect of Beijing. Land-use changes are presented along the differentiation of land-use structure and use change of rural housing. The results indicate that there is an obvious differentiation of land-use structure from near-urban countryside to the rural hinterland. Besides that, the use change of rural housing also has regional characteristics. They are different responses to the urban sprawl, respectively from the collective economic organization and single rural resident. The regional differentiation implies a functional transition in some rural settlements, including increases of non-agricultural function and urban servicing function. Quantitative evaluation of the functional intensity and its rules on spatial–temporal evolution still need to be approached in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Six LTAAHPs are installed in six rooms as the sole heating equipment for a family. • Usage of remote control for 75 days is considered as occupant control behavior. • Difference in heating control behavior of occupants in six rooms is studied. • Only power on/off, temperature set, and fan speed are frequently used by occupants. • The proposed method helps to further understand real-life heating demand. The traditional design principle of household heating is based on full-space and continuous heating, which does not match the true heating demands of different functional spaces and thus leads to energy wastage. In this study, we used low-temperature air-to-air heat pumps (LTAAHPs) for space heating and studied the heating demands of six different rooms by testing the control behavior of occupants using heating equipment in a rural house in Beijing, China. The diverse heating demands of the six rooms were observed for 75 days (from January 12 to March 27, 2017) and verified using field measurements: (1) the utilization rates of the LTAAHPs differ; the mean rates range from 6.0% to 58.7%, indicating that heating is not required 41.3%–94.0% of the time; (2) the desired temperature settings differ, with average temperatures ranging from 20.3 to 25.7℃; (3) the power inputs per unit heating area differ, with average inputs ranging from 34.2 to 97.4 W/m2; and (4) the energy consumption per unit heating area differs, ranging from 6.7 to 37.3 kWh/m2. These results indicate that different rooms have different heating demands, although they belong to the same household. This study helps to understand actual heating demands while saving energy based on the proper control of individual heating equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]