A siheyuan is a historical type of residence that was commonly found throughout China, most famously in Beijing. The name literally means a courtyard surrounded by four buildings.
In ancient times, a spacious siheyuan would be occupied by a single family. Today, many remaining siheyuan are still used as dwellings, but occupied by many families.
A siheyuan sometimes occupied by dozens of families.there are less than 10 square meters per family.Almost every family needs to build more rooms in the yard which will be turned into a narrow channel.
A family of four people may live in a room of 10 square meters, they made place for kitchen and eating themselves, the original room change into a bedroom which have a double bed , a bunk beds, two tables and a small sofa. After dinner table will be folded aside.