Lane

Shikumen Lane House (SLH) - SLH is a specific type of residential building, which blends the characteristics of western construction and traditional Chinese house in the regions to the south of the Yangtze River. It originated during the period of Taiping Rebellion from 1851 to 1864, when the armed conflicts pushed the rich people living in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to move to the leased territories for shelter. The foreign developers took the opportunity to build a large number of houses, and thus designed SLH featuring a combination of both Chinese and Western styles. SLH tended to use a wooden door within a stone framework, and thus was named after it

(Baidubaike, 2020). Yet the form is variable (Figure 46).

Lane Neighborhood - The determinant and enclosed architectural arrangements for SLH were adopted to fit for the need of high-density development of residence. Initially, SLHs were built here to meet the living needs of workers from the factories along the rivers. In SMV, many lane neighborhoods remain until now, and still account for a large proportion. Lane neighborhood developed its nature of business-residence symbiosis (Zhou & Kubota, 2018a) to provide commerce in compact living spaces. This form of community commerce has met the comprehensive consumption expectations of the residents for more than one century (Figure 46).

Lane Life - The wars forced extreme high-density living here. It was common to find a family of 5 managing their daily lives in a room of 10m². The kitchen was shared. And this mode of living continues until now. It is quite difficult to speak of privacy under this circumstance. Yet everyone knows all faces, and thus helps establishing a voluntary defensive mechanism. Besides, the hustle and bustle is exactly the charm of lane life

(Figure 47).

Figure 46. SLH and Lane Neighborhood (Lou & Xue, 2014; Anonymous)

Figure 47. Lane Life (SOHU, 2018)