Huaihua Xupu Beidou Stream

Beidouxi in Xupu County, Huaihua, Hunan is a rural tourism project set in the Xuefeng Mountains, home to the Hua Yao ethnic minority. The Shanghai-Kunming high-speed railway passes through, and visitors arrive at Xupu South Station before following a stream into Beidouxi. The design philosophy is restraint, learning from the native landscape rather than imposing upon it. The team searched the village for native stones, stone walls and wishing trees, using local materials to build the homestead courtyards: retaining walls, paving and bank reinforcement all follow traditional forms. Spring water from the mountains is channeled into courtyards, winding around them or cascading as waterfalls. The Hua Yao flower-picking embroidery motif is applied to roofs, ground and walls, evoking the ethnic tradition. The project promotes industry as much as landscape: study tourism, cultural tourism and ecotourism are linked, with study tourism as the focus, supported by primitive agriculture as base, tourism as channel, intangible cultural heritage as attraction and handicrafts plus agricultural products as revenue. The company-plus-farmer model involves local residents in operations. Visitors learn flower picking, attend Hua Yao festivals, watch Chenhe Mulyan opera, appreciate dragon lanterns and Yao song and dance, and participate in farming, enriching their experience while sustaining rural livelihoods and national intangible cultural heritage.