Around 5000 seaweed bungalows have been renovated and 200 traditional villages have gotten effective upgrades in Rongcheng, east China's Shandong Province.

A seaweed bungalow is also called sea-moss house or kelp house. It gets its name from the seaweed that grows along the coast of Shandong Peninsula, which is used to cover rooftops of houses.

This indigenous bungalow is cool in summer and warm in winter thanks to its design of rooftops, which are composed of piled-up dried seaweed layered with wheat straw on slanted sleepers.

Building a seaweed bungalow is not that easy. It requires skilled artisans to finish construction processes of preparing the material, building the wall and piling up the roof.

The origin of Rongcheng's seaweed bungalows can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), and they later became common shelters in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).

In 2006, architecture of the seaweed house in Rongcheng was listed as provincial intangible cultural heritage in Shandong.

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