Beijing's hutong's have a history of more than 700 years. But many houses inside the maze-like alleys are old, worn-out, and lack many basic facilities for daily use. But now efforts are being made to bring the hutongs into the 21st century while maintaining the history and generations old communities.

62-year- old Dong Xuemei has lived in a Hutong all her life. Her family’s house is small and dilapidated, but they are used to this way of living.

"In my old house, the dust is always coming down from the roof. I have to wash my hair once every three days using the shampoo twice each time. The houses is over 100 years old, and is too shabby and dusty," Dong said.

A distinctive feature of ancient Beijing, Hutong is a Mongolian word meaning water well.
Hutongs or alleys lined by courtyard houses were first constructed during the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th to 14th centuries. Back then, people built their homes around water wells as a living necessity.

For hundreds of years these neighbourhoods stood the test of time, reflecting their deep cultural legacy. But with Beijing’s rapid urbanization, ancient hutongs now face a wealth of challenges.

Crumbling rooftops, cracked walls and broken windows. Renovating is a challenge, especially if it involves old historical houses. But this man offers a solution.

James Chen is a Chinese-American born and raised in California. He and his partners are trying to help local residents live in a modern way while keeping the old houses fully intact in Dashilar, one of the oldest Hutongs in Beijing.

Reporter: What is going to happen to the entire courtyard? Different space, different function?

James: This side will be offices and over here will be exception space. Will be showing information on our plug in system also explaining this whole project. And then next to this is a space of a one of the local residences. He grows up here and he lives here for 15 years. And he wants to stay here. We are happy with that. But we are especially excited that he is interested in using the plug in for his space.

And he is hoping the plug in can help him with a…you know change his life?

Absolutely. He wouldn’t agree if he thinks that doesn’t worth it. I mean these are people with not a lot of money. And I think they are very careful with anything that they do. So the fact that they are willingly to take part of this pilot. I think it is a very positive thing.

Bathing and toilet is a big problem here and you can’t tear down all the houses and rebuild them.

So for now Plugin is the best way they can think of.

The Plugin is a prefabricated panel made of a composite that incorporates structure, insulation, wiring, plumbing, windows, doors, interior and exterior finishes into one molded part.

The panels are light, easy to handle, and cheap to ship. They snap and lock together with the use of a single tool, a hex wrench. The entire structure can be assembled by a few people in one day, and requires no skill or special training.

"The reason why we’ve approached this way, not tearing anything down is also because we value a lot of the history. As too much of this stuff has been taken down and you have no idea what happened in the past. So even when things don’t look so elegant, so perfect, in fact there is a lot of important history there. That’s another reason why we wanted to approach this project this way. I think the most important thing is the people in this area they are the ones that made the environment attractive. You can have really nice good looking buildings but if you don’t have the kind of life that you have in the hutongs, then there is pointless. The people selling things on the street, the kids playing around, all that kind of stuff. You need these families to stay here," Chen said.

"After the renovation, the house won’t be that damp. Our house can’t get any sunshine, it is too damp sometime. And it will be clean. Our neighbors are saying that I am living in a box," Dong said.
 
Liang Ying works for a company that invites designers and students to put their skills to good use in renovating Hutongs.

"Dashilar Hutong has a history of over 600 years. It was used to be a very popular place and it was the birthplace of Beijing Opera. But for now, Dashilar got less and less attention. It’s becoming a shabby area near the city center. People are not willing to come to this place," Liang said.

This part of project provides a temporary solution that has the potential to become a long term one. But getting everybody on board isn’t that easy. Many people we spoke to who have lived here 4 generations are more reluctant to change. They say everything is fine the way it is.

"We have squished our original wall thickness down to 15 millimeters now. there is less space will be wasted. And also the wall itself. The sickness of the wall itself. Like a typical wall is pretty sick. Like if you look the brick wall, right. Say it is this sick. Or a concrete wall. our wall is 50 millimeters sick. It is very thin. You are rarely see that, really anywhere. But the functions just as well as five times of its sickness. It is a type of sandwich. You can only do that with a newer technology and in the factory. In that way we reduced a lot of construction onside. We have worked very hard to try to find ways of getting people to come on board and say ok yeah, this does make my space much better than before," Chen said.

"It’s only take one or two days to finish the installation without disturbing the neighbors. The cost is relatively low. And we can make full use of the space. Actually it is very cold when winter comes, but inside the Plugin, it’s really warm. Some neighbors come inside the Plugin and said they also want to do this," Liang said.

But it’s not all perfect. James says they are working to make the project more efficient and are trying to provide more design choices for different types of courtyards.

"The dashilar project and us together, we were interested in having this be something that is really mass produced and large quantities. We have developed an online system where you can design your own space and you can add a toilet, add a kitchen to see how this space will be organized. You can also calculate how much will it cost, how much energy will you be saving. And this will be something that anyone could be able to use. This is a system that can be applied to any space. Our aim is to have it be as broad as possible. So not just Dashilar this area, possibly all of Beijing, and potentially elsewhere,"  Chen said.

James also admits that hutong residents need more time to fully embrace his group’s ideas.

“The one we did last year was the very first one. so…that’s very important to have. People are very skeptical of this whole idea. So once we have that all the people around here know about that project. Most have visited and people from all over Beijing have come from quite a way to come and take a look at it.”

So what brought you here James? What’s your personal interest in this project?

“Our office is also in a courtyard house. It’s next to the Forbidden City. So a bit north of here. Originally people thought it was really strange that a designers’ office want to be a courtyard house in a residential area. For us, this is where we get a lot of inspirations from. Just come from the everyday life and how people solve their everyday problems. That actually helps us a lot with how we decide to approach our designs. So that’s why we want to be in these neighborhoods. We find it is a lot more rich than being in like Guomao or something like that. So that one of the reasons.”

Liang Ying, who brought this project to Dashilar, believes it could inspire more ideas.

"I don’t think Plugin is the final solution, it’s just work for now. It can provide the residents better living condition in a short of time. But it can’t solve all the problems. Why we want to introduce this project to the residents is that we want them to know we are trying to renovate the whole Dashilar area. So in this way, if they have better ideas, they can just tell us. And then we will try to realize it. That’s why we want to do this project, not just want to build several free Plugins for the residents," Liang said.

Despite some residents’ skepticism and resistance to change. People like James are determined to bring a new look and feel to Beijing’s old neighborhoods while preserving their culture.