Architectural Continuity Assessment of Rural Settlement Houses: A Systematic Literature Review

As a significant component of rural settlements, residential architecture is a record of historical changes containing considerable research value. In the study of residential architectural continuity, the focus is on the inheritance and innovation of traditional residential architectural “genes” in contemporary new residential buildings. Based on a systematic review of the literature, the purpose of this study is to analyze the research trends, categories, and variables relating to architectural continuity in residential buildings, and to build a systematic and comprehensive framework for assessing the architectural continuity of residential buildings in rural settlements based on prior research. This study provides guidance and references for evaluating the design of new residential buildings in rural settlements and for formulating regional planning principles. Using the PRISMA guidelines as the basis for the review method, we filtered the literature from three databases: Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and EI, and studied the 40 articles selected at the end. As can be seen from the results, the literature on architectural continuity in rural settlements has focused more on functional and typological levels and less on the archetypal level of architectural continuity (user behavior). Still, the archetypal level is the most important, because the behavior of housing users directly influences the degree to which housing is continuous in terms of its function and type. The most important finding of this review is that the resident behavior of housing users has a significant influence on the assessment of the continuity of housing architecture, and thus, the continuity of housing architecture in rural settlements must be assessed in conjunction with user behavior.