Towards a virtuous metabolic landscape

The Tujia people who live in the Kong Hu Xi Valley in western China have exceptional know-how, customs and lifestyle related to nature. However, the development of the road network, the construction of dams modifying the modes of transport on the scale of the territory and the various and varied contributions of modernity (chemical fertilizers, electricity, Internet…) are likely to generate an irreparable deterioration of the secular landscape of the valley and the metabolism which is linked to it. A diachronic analysis of these changes raises the question of the future of this valley and leads to pragmatic proposals that deal holistically with the metabolic landscape. Three fictional scenarios are proposed. Each of them puts the priority in turn on the residential, the river transport and the nature as well under the angle of the landscape as under the angle of the metabolism. A fourth scenario, more realistic, summarizes in an architectural proposal an answer to the question of the future of the Kong Hu Xi valley and surrounding valleys.