Research on the Strategies of Living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings—Taking Five Vernacular Dwellings in China’s Northern Jiangsu as an Example

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Many thanks to the author for his serious reply. I think there are still the following problems that must be solved.

1. The introduction and current status of the sample are basically absent. This study selected five typical dwellings for the research, could the authors add to the current status of the sample, which would also help the reader understand the importance of this study. For example, the structural form, construction age, wall material, population living in the house, architectural decoration, etc. It would be better to have pictures for visual illustration.

2. In the traditional surveying and drawing part, this paper first carried out a back ground investigation of the research cases, including genealogy, homeowner’s background, heritage filing, management status, and other basic information。

What are the findings of this part of the study? Is it possible to add, even in the appendix?

3. How the authors' interview research was selected to be representative of the subjects of the study. The results of the interviews in this study were not analyzed statistically, but can the authors explain how the interviewees were selected to ensure that the results were scientific and representative.

4.   3.3 Date Collection

What is the main content of the research? Is it possible to use a table for a brief description?

5.  Figure 6 should be the sample introduction section, and also, all Chinese should be translated into English.

6. The existing research review needs to be summarized and the current status of the study subjects needs to be added.

7.  5.2 Surveying and Drawing Result Analysis

In the previous section, the author describes the method of mapping, but no mapping figures appear. The results of the mapping of the five types of dwellings can be added or not. At the same time, this section describes the dwellings as having extremely high architectural structure and architectural decoration, and Figure 6 alone cannot prove this conclusion.

8.  This study also has many formatting problems, such as missing spaces in front of line323 Summarization and missing spaces in line325 Table 2. Such similar cases exist in the article in many ways.

9. Line 35 Line 66 Additional citations

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on the Strategies of Living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings – Taking Five Vernacular Dwellings in Northern Jiangsu of China as an Example” (ID 1739634). We are sorry for the delay in replying to the letter because of our trip. And we have studied the comments carefully as soon as we got back and we also have made corrections which we hope meet with approval. Those constructive comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising the paper, and of great guiding significance to our research. And “Track Changes” function and highlighting function are both used for all corrections in the manuscript. For a more accurate answer, we separated the report into four comments, and replied each comment respectively.

Comment 1: The introduction and current status of the sample are basically absent. This study selected five typical dwellings for the research, could the authors add to the current status of the sample, which would also help the reader understand the importance of this study. For example, the structural form, construction age, wall material, population living in the house, architectural decoration, etc. It would be better to have pictures for visual illustration. In the traditional surveying and drawing part, this paper first carried out a back ground investigation of the research cases, including genealogy, homeowner’s background, heritage filing, management status, and other basic information。What are the findings of this part of the study? Is it possible to add, even in the appendix?

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. We quite agree with your comments, which are very important to the improvement of our paper. In the Table 1, we added these factors, including the structural form, construction age, wall material, residential population, architectural decoration and we also added some pictures as a visual illustration.

On the one hand, the results of the background investigation served as the cultural background of the in-depth interviews, to understand the historical context of these architectural cases and the status of their protection and utilization. On the other hand, good case files can also be established for subsequent protection and activation work, and these files are also required by the local government and related documents in the protection and activation process.

 

Comment 2: How the authors' interview research was selected to be representative of the subjects of the study. The results of the interviews in this study were not analyzed statistically, but can the authors explain how the interviewees were selected to ensure that the results were scientific and representative. And about the data collection, What is the main content of the research? Is it possible to use a table for a brief description?

Author’s Response:

According to the comments, we have revised this part from Line 314 to Line 333 and about the data collection, we added the Interview Open Questions as the Appendix A in the end of this manuscript.

 

 

Comment 3: Figure 6 should be the sample introduction section, and also, all Chinese should be translated into English. In the previous section, the author describes the method of mapping, but no mapping figures appear. The results of the mapping of the five types of dwellings can be added or not. At the same time, this section describes the dwellings as having extremely high architectural structure and architectural decoration, and Figure 6 alone cannot prove this conclusion.

Author’s Response:

We are sorry because we ignored this problem, and in the revision of the article, we have revised the relevant pictures, added some details of the surveying and mapping and the decorative photos of the scene.

 

Comment 4: This study also has many formatting problems, such as missing spaces in front of line323 Summarization and missing spaces in line325 Table 2. Such similar cases exist in the article in many ways. Line 35 Line 66 Additional citations. The existing research review needs to be summarized and the current status of the study subjects needs to be added.

Author’s Response:

According to the comments, we searched and revised similar formatting issues in the full text, added citations in Line 35 and Line 66, and revised the original summary in the research review section from Line 196 to Line 205.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

I made a careful revision to the article.

There is an increasing corpus of recent papers that discuss the issue of vernacular heritage conservation. The argument per se is valuable, especially concerning contexts such as the Chinese one which is characterized by particular socio-economic backgrounds. A paper of this kind is welcome given the importance of the selected case study areas in the development of thinking and practice in the management of historic vernacular buildings over an extended period of time and in an area which was underestimated in previous studies to some extents. There is potential here; I thought the interesting part of the paper was about the ideas of applying the grounded theory method in investigating the recurrent issues of selected case studies/sites.

However, overall, I feel this paper will need considerably re-elaboration before it could be published in Sustainability.

- A relevant literature to underpin this paper upon is briefly cited early on – so clearly the author(s) are aware of at least some of the key works – but I was surprised how little elaboration there was of this. For instance, more references are absolutely needed for INTRODUCTION part. Line 42-53 did cite some works but those works are not sound articles published on international journals. Line 59-62 lack of supportive data and appropriate reference…there is so many self-evident phrases without references, for instance line 70-72, what do you mean by the wording “regional style”…is it true that there exist a UNIFIED stylistic preference in the research area?

Line 202-205; and for line 208-210 the reference to make such claim is not convincing. Line 357-359 lack of reference. Moreover, the authors say “China’s urban and rural planning, architectural design, heritage protection, and other industries have typically focused on the vernacular dwellings themselves, opting for their protection, design, and repair on the material level, while ignoring the humanistic and social aspects,” This claim per se is problematic and is not true. There are some works and regulations on the material level of vernacular buildings, for instance the regulations on the conservation of labeled traditional villages. I suppose that the authors want to say that these regulations are not properly implemented and further instruments for monitoring are missing.

Again, this kind of simple self-evident claims emerge throughout the paper. Here I suggest to read the following works that talk about this issue (Guo, Zhanfeng, and Li Sun. "The planning, development and management of tourism: The case of Dangjia, an ancient village in China." Tourism Management 56 (2016): 52-62.; Ferretto, Peter W., and Ling Cai. "Village prototypes: a survival strategy for Chinese minority rural villages." The Journal of Architecture 25.1 (2020): 1-23.)

 

- This work needs careful wording and terminologies. For instance, in line 169, the word “reconstruction” do you mean the demolition and reconstruction of some vernacular buildings? The issue of reconstruction, has been debated through the works of Martínez, P.G. The ‘preservation by relocation’ of Huizhou vernacular architecture: Shifting notions on the authenticity of rural heritage in China. Int. J. Herit. Stud. 2021, 28, 200–215. ) and Mu, Q. (2022) Understanding Heritage-Led Development of the Historic Villages of China: A Multi-case Study Analysis of Tongren, The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice, 13:2, 216-241, and the one of Yang, J.K. et al. "Land ownership, rent-seeking, and rural gentrification: Reconstructing villages for sustainable urbanization in China." Sustainability 10.6 (2018): 1997.

….and many others..such as the one of Oakes (2013, 2016), Svesson (2006)…

-        In line 309, the authors say “a total of 71 people 309 participated in the interviews, which were recorded, among which 64 interviews…” Is it true that all 71 interviews are valuable? In the research in rural areas it is quite often that some interviews and respondents are not able to understand or respond to the questions so not valid.

-         Supporting information and data(for instance the interviews in Chinese and English should be uploaded together with the manuscript so that the reviewers can check the reliability of data.)

-        The table 4, what are the differences between these two core categories LIVING CONSERVATION and CULTURAL HERITAGE? for readers, the culture and innovation can also be a part of living conservation...thus the rigid division on these concepts is inappropriate. please reconsider.

-        Mistaken in wording in line 117. Hunan of, China.

-        Line 386 the sub-title is too long in fact this is a phrase, not a title. And again for this part too many self-evident claims need reference, e.g., line 394-396; line 401-402; 411-414. And also for line 436-439, The author always make comparison between Norther Jiangsu and Southern Jiangsu, but the argumentation has been weak and without supportive data.

-        Figure 1 is lacking sources..where did the authors get those photos ? by themselves or from other sources? Should be clarified. Same problem in figure 5.

-        For the section 5.2, it seems that only sample 1 has been surveyed and inserted in the article? It is not enough. At least the raw data(additional photos and drawings should be uploaded as supplementary data)

-        For figure 6, notes on drawings should be translated. It not acceptable all notes are in Chinese.  I understand the difficulties in translating technical terms from Chinese to Western languages due to the complexity in interpreting elements of traditional rural architecture. However as far as I know there are some works/researches on this topic that authors should definitely know. e.g., the recent works of translation on traditional Chinese architecture conducted by the school of architecture of Southeast University in Nanjing...

 

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on the Strategies of Living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings – Taking Five Vernacular Dwellings in Northern Jiangsu of China as an Example” (ID 1739634). We are sorry for the delay in replying to the letter because of our trip. And we have studied the comments carefully as soon as we came back and we also have made corrections which we hope meet with approval. Those constructive comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising the paper, and of great guiding significance to our research. And “Track Changes” function and highlighting function are both used for all corrections in the manuscript. For a more accurate answer, we separated the report into four comments, and replied each comment respectively.

Comment 1: A relevant literature to underpin this paper upon is briefly cited early on – so clearly the author(s) are aware of at least some of the key works – but I was surprised how little elaboration there was of this. For instance, more references are absolutely needed for INTRODUCTION part. Line 42-53 did cite some works but those works are not sound articles published on international journals. Line 59-62 lack of supportive data and appropriate reference…there is so many self-evident phrases without references, for instance line 70-72, what do you mean by the wording “regional style”…is it true that there exist a UNIFIED stylistic preference in the research area?

Author’s Response:

According to the reviewer’s comments, we have added some citations to support the paper. And the regional style of vernacular dwellings in Northern Jiangsu has been confirmed by academic circles. This style is represented by Dachashou Wooden Frame, and this was published in Architect journal in 2005.

 

Comment 2: Line 202-205; and for line 208-210 the reference to make such claim is not convincing. Line 357-359 lack of reference. Moreover, the authors say “China’s urban and rural planning, architectural design, heritage protection, and other industries have typically focused on the vernacular dwellings themselves, opting for their protection, design, and repair on the material level, while ignoring the humanistic and social aspects,” This claim per se is problematic and is not true. There are some works and regulations on the material level of vernacular buildings, for instance the regulations on the conservation of labeled traditional villages. I suppose that the authors want to say that these regulations are not properly implemented and further instruments for monitoring are missing.

Author’s Response:

According to the comments, we agree the reviewer’s opinion, that is these regulations are not properly implemented and further instruments for monitoring are missing. Meanwhile, in the long-term conservation practice, we have also found that after some vernacular dwellings have been repaired, their utilization rate is not high, and sometimes the dwellings were left vacant, causing secondary damage. It is also one of the purposes of this paper to carry out preliminary planning and exploration of its post-repair protection and utilization modes.

And about the Line202-205, 208-210 and 357-359. Some of these are real situations. The number of documents on southern Jiangsu dwellings and western minority dwellings is much larger than that on northern Jiangsu dwellings, which also reflects the view of this paper from a certain aspect. In addition, this paper also puts forward some suggestions on the combination of investment promotion, Taobao village and fruit and vegetable village in Northern Jiangsu.

 

Comment 3: This work needs careful wording and terminologies. For instance, in line 169, the word “reconstruction” do you mean the demolition and reconstruction of some vernacular buildings? The issue of reconstruction, has been debated through the works of Martínez, P.G. The ‘preservation by relocation’ of Huizhou vernacular architecture: Shifting notions on the authenticity of rural heritage in China. Int. J. Herit. Stud. 2021, 28, 200–215. ) and Mu, Q. (2022) Understanding Heritage-Led Development of the Historic Villages of China: A Multi-case Study Analysis of Tongren, The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice, 13:2, 216-241, and the one of Yang, J.K. et al. "Land ownership, rent-seeking, and rural gentrification: Reconstructing villages for sustainable urbanization in China." Sustainability 10.6 (2018): 1997.

Author’s Response:

We are very sorry because we think it’s really a big problem, and we should give thanks to the reviewer. In Line 169, the word reconstruction actually means demolition and reconstruction, and there is indeed a big problem with the word here.

 

Comment 4: In line 309, the authors say “a total of 71 people 309 participated in the interviews, which were recorded, among which 64 interviews…” Is it true that all 71 interviews are valuable? In the research in rural areas it is quite often that some interviews and respondents are not able to understand or respond to the questions so not valid. Supporting information and data(for instance the interviews in Chinese and English should be uploaded together with the manuscript so that the reviewers can check the reliability of data.)

Author’s Response:

According to the comments, the relevant interview records have been scanned and electronically formed into a PDF file, which is attached to the system. However, since the interviews are all written by hand, we are sorry not to have enough time to translate them into English. The work is relatively large and it’s difficult to complete them in a short time.

In my opinion, the grounded theory research is based on basic interviews, targeting people at the grassroots level. Although these people’s education level is not very high, they could still understand with the simple interview outline. At present, grounded theory is widely used, including on front-line workers, farmers, ethnic minorities and other interviewees. These people are generally not well educated, but I still think these interviews are also very valuable, because they are all at the grass-roots level and they live and work in the relevant environment).

 

Comment 5: The table 4, what are the differences between these two core categories LIVING CONSERVATION and CULTURAL HERITAGE? for readers, the culture and innovation can also be a part of living conservation...thus the rigid division on these concepts is inappropriate. please reconsider.

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. And in the title and the beginning of this manuscript, the relevant words on living protection and cultural inheritance are used. The carriers behind these words are vernacular dwellings. Therefore, according to the context of this paper, the connotations of the two words here will be understood.

 

Comment 6: Mistaken in wording in line 117. Hunan of, China.

Author’s Response:

We are very sorry because we ignored this problem, we revised this problem and deleted the comma.

 

Comment 7: Line 386 the sub-title is too long in fact this is a phrase, not a title. And again for this part too many self-evident claims need reference, e.g., line 394-396; line 401-402; 411-414. And also for line 436-439, The author always make comparison between Norther Jiangsu and Southern Jiangsu, but the argumentation has been weak and without supportive data.

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. This title has been revised many times and finally was determined, and we also hope to put forward the corresponding point of view concisely. We have added some citations to support the paper based on the reviewer’s comments.

 

Comment 8: Figure 1 is lacking sources. where did the authors get those photos ? by themselves or from other sources? Should be clarified. Same problem in figure 5.

Author’s Response:

We are sorry because we ignored this problem, the sources of all pictures and drawings were from the author himself, and we also added a note in the end of the paper.

 

Comment 9: For the section 5.2, it seems that only sample 1 has been surveyed and inserted in the article? It is not enough. At least the raw data(additional photos and drawings should be uploaded as supplementary data)

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. Since this paper focused on the application of grounded theory to the conservation and inheritance of vernacular dwellings, only sample 1 was used as an example of the research method in this section, and not all cases were expanded in this manuscript. Meanwhile, we also added the photos of other cases in Table. 1.

 

Comment 10: For figure 6, notes on drawings should be translated. It not acceptable all notes are in Chinese.  I understand the difficulties in translating technical terms from Chinese to Western languages due to the complexity in interpreting elements of traditional rural architecture. However as far as I know there are some works/researches on this topic that authors should definitely know. e.g., the recent works of translation on traditional Chinese architecture conducted by the school of architecture of Southeast University in Nanjing...

Author’s Response:

We are sorry because we ignored this problem, and in the revision of the article, we have revised the relevant pictures, added some details of the surveying and mapping and the decoration photos of the scene.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Most concernings were addressed well and the current manuscript
has been improved.
5.2 Surveying and Drawing Result Analysis
The content of the drawing results needs more explanation.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on the Strategies of Living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings – Taking Five Vernacular Dwellings in Northern Jiangsu of China as an Example” (ID 1833933).

Your comment about the 5.2 Surveying and Drawing Result Analysis and the content of the drawing results needs more explanation.

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. We quite agree with your comment, which is very important to the improvement of our paper. We added some words about the content of drawing results, and you can see it in the revised manuscript.

In the end, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to the reviewer because you have been a great help to us for the improvement of the manuscript during this period. Thank you very much.  

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

there are still unclear terminologies that require proper citations.

1. local traditions and national characteristics corresponding to their types, here the term national is problematic, do you mean regional? ethnic or other terms?

2. Line 66-68 require references, absolutely.

3. the argumentation from Violet- Le Duc, to Bosia, to Feng..this part lacks of coherence and logic. Difficult to understand..

4.  On this basis, vernacular dwellings have also influenced the planning and design strategy of modern architecture in many ways, such as culture and performance… what do you mean by "culture and performance"? these are not understandable...

5. "causes and performance of vernacular dwellings"... what do you mean by " causes"??

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on the Strategies of Living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings – Taking Five Vernacular Dwellings in Northern Jiangsu of China as an Example” (ID 1833933). Those constructive comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising the paper, and of great guiding significance to our research. And “Track Changes” function and highlighting function are both used for all corrections in the manuscript. For a more accurate answer, we separated the report into four comments, and replied each comment respectively.

Comment 1: local traditions and national characteristics corresponding to their types, here the term national is problematic, do you mean regional? ethnic or other terms?

Author’s Response:

Thank you for your comments. The national means ethnic here. In China, there are still many ethnic minorities living in traditional vernacular dwellings. These dwellings show different styles.

 

Comment 2: Line 66-68 require references, absolutely.

Author’s Response:

Thank you for your comments. We have inserted relevant literature citations in these lines.

 

Comment 3: the argumentation from Violet- Le Duc, to Bosia, to Feng..this part lacks of coherence and logic. Difficult to understand..  And On this basis, vernacular dwellings have also influenced the planning and design strategy of modern architecture in many ways, such as culture and performance… what do you mean by "culture and performance"? these are not understandable...

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. In response to the above comment, we have reorganized this paragraph to make it easier to understand from Line 175 to 197 in the revised PDF file.

 

Comment 4: "causes and performance of vernacular dwellings"... what do you mean by " causes"??

Author’s Response:

Thanks a lot for reminding us of this important point. The causes here means the reasons for the formation of vernacular dwellings, namely the origin, production process and final form of vernacular dwellings under the conditions of local geographical and cultural environment. And We revised the word of causes to formation in the revised file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well structured and clear. However, some adjustments would be required to make it more compelling. In the introduction, it needs to be better explained the kind of advancement the study brings not only in China but also in the international literature related to this topic.

 

The analysis is very thouroful (sometimes too much, for instance, I would avoid such quantitative statement: After being converted into text, 213,000 words of recorded text data were ob-254 tained, among which 30 interviews were used for coding and 5 interviews were used for 255 verification of theoretical saturation) but it seems that the connection with the topic, beyond China, is missed along the text.

 

Some statements needs references. For instances who says this: However, at present, the development of Southern Jiangsu has entered 182 the saturation period, and the development of Southern Jiangsu and Northern Jiangsu is 183 not balanced. Therefore, the key to the overall rise of Jiangsu province lies in the revitali-184 zation of Northern Jiangsu, and the same is true in the conservation of cultural heritage. 

 

Finally, it is highly reccomended to add some photos of vernacular dwellings adn thier fake reproductions. A map which localized the samples you used in the study will help the reader to understand the context.

Author Response

List of Responses

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on the Strategies of living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings -- Taking Northern Jiangsu of China as an Example”(ID: 1739634). Those comments are of great value to the revision and improvement of our paper and have important guiding significance to our research. We have studied the comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revisions are marked in red in the paper. The main revisions in the paper and the responses to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

Responds to the reviewer’s comments:

Reviewer #1:

1. Response to comment: (The analysis is very thouroful (sometimes too much, for instance, I would avoid such quantitative statement: After being converted into text, 213,000 words of recorded text data were ob-254 tained, among which 30 interviews were used for coding and 5 interviews were used for 255 verification of theoretical saturation) but it seems that the connection with the topic, beyond China, is missed along the text.)

Response:

According to the reviewer's suggestion, some quantitative statements have been reduced. We re-examined this paper, deleted some unnecessary content and refined some paragraphs, such as the fifth and sixth parts. Meanwhile, we also increased the number of interviewers and focused on the northern Jiangsu region.

 

2. Response to comment:(Some statements needs references. For instances who says this: However, at present, the development of Southern Jiangsu has entered 182 the saturation period, and the development of Southern Jiangsu and Northern Jiangsu is 183 not balanced. Therefore, the key to the overall rise of Jiangsu province lies in the revitali-184 zation of Northern Jiangsu, and the same is true in the conservation of cultural heritage.)

Response:

As Reviewer suggested, we have added source citations for some of the statements, such as adding government documents on Jiangsu revitalization in lines 214-215 (quote 52 in the revised file) and some GDP data in lines 208-209(quote 52 in the revised file).

 

3. Response to comment: (Finally, it is highly recommended to add some photos of vernacular dwellings and their fake reproductions. A map which localized the samples you used in the study will help the reader to understand the context.)

Response:

We have made correction according to the reviewer’s comments. In lines 57-58 of the revised paper, we added an figure with the map of Northern Jiangsu and the picture of the 5 samples. Meanwhile, we also got a figure in the lines 522 of the revised file, which showed the originals and the fake reproductions.

 

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in the revised paper.

We appreciate for the Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a study on the conservation and inheritance of vernacular houses based on interview-based data. The North Jiangsu region of China was selected as the research object. Strategies for the conservation and inheritance of vernacular dwellings in northern Jiangsu are proposed. The authors provide a detailed summary of the research related to traditional dwellings and discuss the problems faced by the vernacular dwellings in northern Jiangsu. However, this manuscript has some problems that must be added and explained. Specific suggestions are shown below.

 

1. In the introduction chapter, the discussion of the research background is not sufficient. The current situation of the dwellings in northern Jiangsu needs to be added. This helps the reader to understand the importance of this study.
2. On what basis are the southern and northern parts of Jiangsu divided. An explanation is needed here, even though it is what is quoted. It is suggested that the author could use a map for the representation. Because this way is more visual.
3. Line 47. Theft of cultural heritage elements of vernacular dwellings. What does "Theft" mean when used here. It may need to be corrected here.
4. Line 58. In this manuscript, five typical cities in northern Jiangsu were selected for the study instead of northern Jiangsu. “taking Northern Jiangsu as an example.” This expression is inaccurate.
5. Line 59. “through field research and other methods”. What the other methods are exactly, it is necessary to elaborate briefly here.
6. This manuscript uses an incorrect reference format. A detailed revision is needed in the Literature Review section. For example, line 71, A believed, line 89, Feng H, line 114, Engin, N. Analyzes, line 138 Wang Jing, C, line 145 Hamard, E, etc.
7. Line 120. “in Northern Jiangsu Of China”. “Of” should be “of”.
8. Line 127. "cause analysis-performance research-enlightenment to the design of modern dwellings". Here you need to add citations.
9. Line 137. Here the expression of the literature citation [37] needs to be modified.
10. Line 146. “COB”. The abbreviation here is the first time it appears and needs to be written in full.
11. Line 179. The difference between the south and north of Jiangsu is very big, especially in terms of economy. Is it possible to illustrate here with data, even if it is quoted.
12. Line 195. The dwellings in northern Jiangsu were built to suit the local climate, yet the same should be true of the dwellings in northern Jiangsu. In addition, this contribution does not address how the dwellings in northern Jiangsu are adapted to the local climate. Cited literature or diagrams need to be added here to illustrate this.
13. Line 213. "Stylistic Restoration Theory", "Organic Renewal Theory" and "Catalyst Theory". Line 220. "Developmental Damage". These theories need to be added to the literature for clarification.
14. 2 Sample Selection. Could the area selected for the study be supplemented with a map illustration, which would help the reader understand where the subject of the study is located.
15. Line 247. “repair status” should be “repairing status”.
16. 3 Data collection. “35 interview recordings were formed”. “among which 30 interviews were used for coding and 5 interviews were used for verification of theoretical saturation.” This manuscript deals with the views of different groups of people on traditional houses, including government officials, people returning to their hometown, local residents, etc. 30 interviews of data for the study of residential houses in 5 cities is not enough.
17. “4.1 Open coding.” The correct submission format is not used here and a space is missing.
18. “4.1 Open coding”, “4.2 Axial coding”. What is the basis for the classification of Open coding and Axial coding.
19. Table 4. Population return should not be part of the cultural heritage.
20. Rooted result analysis. The presentation of the results in the manuscript is too long, and while these results are explained in the context of the study process, they appear to yield the same results without the need for this study.
21. 1 Section. The implementation of the policy is discussed here. However, the government's policy is not described in the full text. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 and 5.4 are the same issue.
22. Countermeasures and Suggestion. This piece makes very good suggestions for residential preservation, but they are not specific and they seem to apply to all residential types.

Author Response

List of Responses

Dear Editors and Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on the Strategies of living Conservation and Cultural Inheritance of Vernacular Dwellings -- Taking Northern Jiangsu of China as an Example”(ID: 1739634). Those comments are of great value to the revision and improvement of our paper and have important guiding significance to our research. We have studied the comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revisions are marked in red in the paper. The main revisions in the paper and the responses to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

Responds to the reviewer’s comments:

1. Response to comment: (In the introduction chapter, the discussion of the research background is not sufficient. The current situation of the dwellings in northern Jiangsu needs to be added. This helps the reader to understand the importance of this study.)

Response:

It is really true as the reviewer suggested that the background was not sufficient. So we added a figure in the introduction and the picture showed the location of Northern Jiangsu and the images of 5 samples. Meanwhile, we also explained the situation of vernacular dwelling in this area in lines 52-57 and 65-67 of the revised paper.

 

2. Response to comment: (On what basis are the southern and northern parts of Jiangsu divided. An explanation is needed here, even though it is what is quoted. It is suggested that the author could use a map for the representation. Because this way is more visual.)

Response:

Thanks to your kind reminder. As shown in the first response, we have explained the basis of the the geographical distribution of Jiangsu in the paper in lines 50-52, that is according to the climate characteristics and the distribution of Huaihe River and Yangtze River, we could also see roughly three divisions from the map.

 

3. Response to comment: (Line 47. Theft of cultural heritage elements of vernacular dwellings. What does "Theft" mean when used here. It may need to be corrected here.)

Response:

Considering the reviewer’s suggestion, there are many beautiful decorative components in vernacular dwellings, so it often happens that these decorative components are lost in unattended dwellings, presumably they have been stolen, so the term Theft is used here. And we also modified the sentence in line 47 in revised paper.

 

4. Response to comment: (Line 58. In this manuscript, five typical cities in northern Jiangsu were selected for the study instead of northern Jiangsu. “taking Northern Jiangsu as an example.” This expression is inaccurate.)

Response:

We are very sorry for our negligence of the relation between typical samples and cities. Therefore we modified the content, taking the vernacular dwellings in three cities in northern Jiangsu as examples, and reducing the scope of the study from five cities to three cities, namely Xuzhou, Suqian and Lianyungang. Figure 1 also showed the specific details and locations.

 

5. Response to comment: (Line 59. “through field research and other methods”. What the other methods are exactly, it is necessary to elaborate briefly here.)

Response:

We have made correction according to the reviewer’s comments. We replaced the word “other methods” with “interview, mapping and three-dimensional scanning technology” in lines 72 in the revised paper.

 

6. Response to comment: (This manuscript uses an incorrect reference format. A detailed revision is needed in the Literature Review section. For example, line 71, A believed, line 89, Feng H, line 114, Engin, N. Analyzes, line 138 Wang Jing, C, line 145 Hamard, E, etc.)

Response:

We are very sorry for our negligence of these names and we corrected these names according to the reference format.

 

7. Response to comment: (Line 120. “in Northern Jiangsu Of China”. “Of” should be “of”)

Response:

We are very sorry for our incorrect writing of the word “Of” and we corrected this word to “of” in line 135 in the revised paper.

 

8. Response to comment: (Line 127. "cause analysis-performance research-enlightenment to the design of modern dwellings". Here you need to add citations.)

Response:

We are very sorry for our negligence of the missing citation, so we added a new citation in line 152 in the revised file.

 

9. Response to comment: (Line 137. Here the expression of the literature citation [37] needs to be modified.)

Response:

We are very sorry for that wrong location of [37] and we moved this citation ahead in line 152 in the revised file.

 

10. Response to comment: (Line 146. “COB”. The abbreviation here is the first time it appears and needs to be written in full.)

Response:

According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we checked the paper. We found that its a proper noun and COB is the simplest of all earth-building technologies. So we added a note behind the word.

 

11. Response to comment: (Line 179. The difference between the south and north of Jiangsu is very big, especially in terms of economy. Is it possible to illustrate here with data, even if it is quoted)

Response:

According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we have added some data on GDP as support for the gap between Southern Jiangsu and Northern Jiangsu in lines 206-208 in the revised paper.

 

12. Response to comment: (Line 195. The dwellings in northern Jiangsu were built to suit the local climate, yet the same should be true of the dwellings in northern Jiangsu. In addition, this contribution does not address how the dwellings in northern Jiangsu are adapted to the local climate. Cited literature or diagrams need to be added here to illustrate this.)

Response:

Considering the reviewer’s suggestion, we have added some local building technologies in this paper, including walls with raw earth inside and baked brick outside, Herringbone Beam Frame and roof truss without folding in lines 225-227 in the revised file. Meanwhile, we also cited a literature in the paper.

 

13. Response to comment: (Line 213. "Stylistic Restoration Theory", "Organic Renewal Theory" and "Catalyst Theory". Line 220. "Developmental Damage". These theories need to be added to the literature for clarification.)

Response:

We have re-written some part of 2.3 according to the reviewer’s suggestion. We explained the Organic Renewal Theory and Stylistic Restoration Theory with some reference documents. As for the urban catalyst theory, we thought it was less related to this article with our review of relevant literature. So we deleted it in the main text. Meanwhile, the developmental destruction is only a normal phenomenon rather than a theory, so we removed the quotation marks here in the revised paper.

 

14. Response to comment: (2 Sample Selection. Could the area selected for the study be supplemented with a map illustration, which would help the reader understand where the subject of the study is located.)

Response:

According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we added a Northern Jiangsu map with the locations and images of five samples in lines 58-59 in the revised paper.

 

15. Response to comment: (Line 247. “repair status” should be “repairing status”.)

Response:

We are very sorry for our incorrect writing, so we corrected the repair status to repairing status in line 277 in the revised paper.

 

16. Response to comment: (3 Data collection. “35 interview recordings were formed”. “among which 30 interviews were used for coding and 5 interviews were used for verification of theoretical saturation.” This manuscript deals with the views of different groups of people on traditional houses, including government officials, people returning to their hometown, local residents, etc. 30 interviews of data for the study of residential houses in 5 cities is not enough.)

Response:

We are very sorry for our negligence of the interviews number. As soon as comments from reviewers were received, we began to interview other people related with these five samples in three cities. In the end, we added 17 extra interviews, recoded these interviews and revised Table 2. It was a pity that the number of interviews had not been greatly increased due to the time required for the revision of the paper and the impact of the epidemic.

 

17. Response to comment: (“4.1 Open coding.” The correct submission format is not used here and a space is missing.)

Response:

We are very sorry for our negligence of the wrong format. So we added the space in line 295\300\305 in the revised paper.

 

18. Response to comment: (“4.1 Open coding”, “4.2 Axial coding”. What is the basis for the classification of Open coding and Axial coding.)

Response:

As noted by the reviewers, the process of open coding is similar to a funnel, gradually narrowing and concentrating from a relatively broad scope until it is saturated. The method used is mainly to extract words from the discourse recorded in the interview as coding. The basis for its coding is mainly derived from interview records.

Axial coding is based on open coding, examines the relationship between each sub-category and each phenomenon, constantly searches for the nature of the main concept category and the sub-concept category, and locates them reasonably.

 

19. Response to comment: (Table 4. Population return should not be part of the cultural heritage.)

Response:

As Reviewer suggested that population was not a part of the cultural heritage. Considering that the population is also a resource, we had classified population return to the category of improvement and modified it in Tables 2, 3, and 4.

 

20. Response to comment: (Rooted result analysis. The presentation of the results in the manuscript is too long, and while these results are explained in the context of the study process, they appear to yield the same results without the need for this study.)

Response:

We have re-written the part of rooted result analysis according to the reviewer’s suggestion. On the one hand, it highlights the characteristics and problems of rural dwellings in Northern Jiangsu, on the other hand we deleted and modified unnecessary parts.

 

21. Response to comment: (1 Section. The implementation of the policy is discussed here. However, the government's policy is not described in the full text. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 and 5.4 are the same issue.)

Response:

We have re-written this part including 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 according to the reviewer’s suggestion. The fifth part is mainly for the analysis of the results of the grounded theory. We had also re-written some specific measures in the sixth part in lines 536-709 in the revised paper.

 

22. Response to comment: (Countermeasures and Suggestion. This piece makes very good suggestions for residential preservation, but they are not specific and they seem to apply to all residential types.)

Response:

What the reviewer said is very reasonable. So we added some special suggestions for the residential preservation.

In Section 6.1, it was suggested to formulate management measures for the protection of vernacular dwellings and detailed rule for the conservation and utilization.

In Section 6.2, it was suggested to promote the intensive development of villages and the suitable renovation or expansion of vernacular dwellings. Meanwhile, it should be focused on the transportation, medical care, pipe network, childcare and elderly care. In the end, capital investment should be increased through various channels.

In Section 6.3, it was recommended to investigate through on-the-spot inspections, conduct training and use We Media to enhance protection awareness. Meanwhile, the training of professional talents should be strengthened by forming teams, establishing inheritance bases and establishing restoration demonstration cases.

 

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in the revised paper.

 

We appreciate for the Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

 

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Many thanks to the authors for their thorough responses to all of my questions.

Because of the epidemic, the authors' data collection was inadequate. The authors also state that the methods used in this study included field investigation, interviews, mapping, and three-dimensional scanning technology, but only two of these methods are represented in the paper: investigation and interviews. This is insufficiently rigorous. The study's data is insufficient to support the conclusion. The findings of this study are applicable to the majority of studies. The authors are missing a unique and relevant study. Furthermore, there are numerous formatting errors in this study.