Engineering Practice, Dialect Application and Environmental Experience: Three Verification on the Interpretation of Yuan Ye

In the academic circle of landscape architecture, there still exist disputes or misunderstandings as to the interpretation of the following three sentences in Yuan Ye: “When laying foundation for a building, if the construction of the foundation is interfered by an old tree nearby, the construction materials concerned need to be set back so as not to damage the roots of the old tree, and superfluous branches of the old tree need to be cut down as appropriate so as not to hinder the capping of the building”; “One can see part of the landscape in a garden simply through a gap in a rockery therein, with rockery roads being full of twists and turns, and ups and downs bringing the sight effect like children playing hide and seek”; “In summer when birds begin to sing in the dark woods, the singing of a woodcutter suddenly comes from a faraway winding mountain path”. Based on the architectural textuality of Yuan Ye, this research, through comprehensive verification and analysis, considers that “Li Gen” (“foundation laying”) and “Feng Ding” (“capping”) in the first sentence respectively refer to the construction process of the foundation and top of a building, rockery or any other similar artifact; “Zhang” (“looking like”) in the second sentence has a specific meaning of “looking”, which is used to convey the visual effect and spatial experience of rockery roads; “Lin Yin” (“dark woods”) in the third sentence cannot be translated into “shadeway”, as “Yin” should be understood as “darkness” to fit the transition of visual and auditory experience in line with the logic embodied in the text. The three sentences respectively represent specific engineering practice, pragmatic features of Wu dialect and sensitive environmental experience. This research shows that in order to really master the value of the design philosophy reflected in Yuan Ye, it is necessary to consciously combine str