Urban or village residents? A case study of the spontaneous space transformation of the forced upstairs farmers' community in Beijing

•Forced upstairs farmers transform space in the resettlement places for functions which were in their previous village houses.•Summarizes the types of spontaneous space transformation by the forced upstairs farmers.•Uncovers the motivations for the space transformation behavior.•Reveals that the other residents in the community have complex attitudes toward space transformation.

During the urbanization process of China, landless farmers have appeared at the urban-rural fringe in many cities as a result of land acquisition. The so-called forced upstairs farmers have been relocated to contemporary urban multi-story residential buildings, coming from traditional rural single family houses with large courtyards. Deeply affected by traditional rural lifestyle, these villagers' psychological status and living habits cannot naturally be adapted to a completely different living environment. With their inadaptation to the urban living environment, villagers spontaneously begin to transform new community spaces to create functions with which they were familiar in their traditional village houses. Taking Xinyuan Community, in which villagers from Fengcun Village in Beijing have been living for ten years, as a case study, this research employs observations and interviews to summarize the types of spontaneous space transformation by the forced upstairs farmers. Based on the questionnaire survey, it is determined that the rigid design of the existing urban community leads to spontaneous transformation behavior by these forced upstairs farmers, who long for rural culture.