[Photo provided to China Daily]

In a traditional rural village there has generally been no community center, and ancestral temples have acted as a kind of public space. However, as people embrace modern lifestyles, villages have increasingly needed such public space, Xu says. Thus most of the rural buildings she has designed have a communications function, she says.

In contrast to Xu devoting herself to public buildings in Songyang, another architect, Shen Junming, specializes in converting village houses into homestay hotels and running them himself.

He quit his job in Hangzhou in 2015 and went to Xikeng, 250 kilometers away, to build his own hotel. Xikeng is a small village on a hill facing a big valley known for its picturesque scenery. However, most villagers have left Xikeng because of its poor transport, leaving the village almost empty. Even now there are fewer than 30 regular residents though tourism is thriving.

Most houses were built out of rammed earth in the 1940s, and many are on the verge of collapse.

Shen says that when he came across Xikeng two years ago he rented a house whose owner planned to demolish it. Shen kept the walls of the house so that it harmonized with other cottages in the village and redesigned it into a modern homestay hotel with several rooms.

"If you want to see clouds floating in the valley, it is the perfect place," Shen says. "More and more visitors are coming here, and many people, including locals, are getting into the hospitality business."