It is crucial for the protection and sustainable development of villages in China to effectively determine the changes that have occurred in traditional villages’ architectural features and the causes of such changes in order to provide timely feedback, correct protection planning, and construction in these villages. This paper analyzed quantitative indexes at three different scales in Lingquan village, namely construction land, public infrastructure, and the form, material, and color of roofs, using remote sensing images at different time points, drone shooting, and a field survey. It was found that the rate of change of the architectural features at the village and street levels were low, with an overall trend of improvement observed. However, the residential roof features at the building level showed more changes, with a trend of deterioration observed. It was also found that the active participation of the government was the main reason for the substantial improvement observed in the village’s street-level features. Further, for residential houses, the lack of standard guidance for their protection and renovation, as well as the lack of protection awareness and participation mechanisms, were the main reasons found for the deterioration of the village’s building-level features. Finally, the study forwarded some suggestions in order to provide reference value for the timely revision of protection strategies for many villages in China similar to Lingquan village.

Rural dwellings are an important group of residential buildings in China. With the continuous development of rural construction in China, the contradiction between the pursuit of a simple material space and the villagers’ demand for living quality, especially the indoor thermal comfort of rural dwellings, has become increasingly prominent. Therefore, it is particularly important to study the optimization strategies of the indoor thermal environment in rural dwellings. Current research on optimizing the indoor thermal environment of rural dwellings mainly focuses on analyzing the impact of individual factors, such as the envelope structures, building constructions, and building technology applications, but there is a lack of strategy development based on the comprehensive evaluation. This study aims to analyze the combined effects of multiple design elements on the indoor thermal environment and propose a comprehensive optimization strategy for rural dwellings. This study selects the rural dwellings around Xi’an as an example and establishes a basic model of the rural dwellings around Xi’an through field investigation and software simulation. Then, through univariate and compound-variable simulations, we analyze the influence of changes in passive architectural design indicators on the indoor physiological equivalent temperature (PET) of rural dwellings and obtain a comprehensive design indicator optimization strategy. This strategy can improve the indoor thermal comfort in winter and summer, especially in winter, achieving an average increase of 4.17 °C in the winter PET value and an average decrease of 0.66 °C in summer. This provides a reference for the design and renovation of rural dwellings in Xi’an and other rural areas in the cold regions of China.

Residential districts account for the most common type of urban land coverage. Massive developments with high density have a huge impact on the urban climate. In this study, we explored the thermal environment optimization strategies of residential districts with different development intensities (plot ratios) from the perspective of urban renewal and residential district design in Xi’an, China. We selected residential districts with low, medium, and high plot ratios in Xi’an City for field measurements and environmental simulation according to five proposed optimization strategies. By comparing the air temperature, mean radiant temperature, and physiological equivalent temperature at the pedestrian height, 1.5 m from the ground, we explored the thermal environment optimization texture of each strategy. The results showed that the same strategy introduced different effects in different residential districts. Increasing the road reflectivity had the best effect on residential districts that had a low plot ratio, whereas planting trees was the best effect in districts with medium and high plot ratios. Planting lawns had a better effect in districts with high plot ratios. The findings of this study provide suggestions for the optimization and reconstruction of residential districts and contribute to future residential district development and design.