A French volunteer learns how to build rammed-earth outer walls from a villager in Jiulong village, Fujian province. [Photo by Luo Guangyao / China News Service]

French archaeologist Emilie Lagneau spent her first two weeks in China repairing an ancient house in a remote mountain village in the eastern province of Fujian.

She was one of 16 volunteers－three French and 13 Chinese－who arrived for a two-week architectural heritage preservation work camp in Jiulong village, Nanping, on July 16.

The volunteers carried tiles and logs up the mountain to the two-story house, which has a wooden inner structure and rammed-earth outer walls. Under the guidance of three local craftsmen, they built a rammed earth wall to replace a rotten wooden beam.

Lagneau said the manual labor was not challenging after working as an archaeologist for 10 years.

"I'm interested in the old way to build houses with wood and mud," she said. "I wanted to have a trip in another country and to learn carpentry. Then I found this work camp online."

The work camp, co-organized by Shanghai's Ruan Yisan Heritage Foundation and Rempart, a French association focused on protecting relics, has been raising public awareness of architectural heritage conservation since 2011.

For eight years, the work camp has invited Chinese and French volunteers to repair heritage sites in the two countries, such as temples, former celebrity residences and city walls.

This year's camp was the first in Jiulong, where houses made of mud have been homes for more than 1,000 years.

Ding Feng, secretary-general of Ruan Yisan, said the old houses showed the traditional residential architecture of northern Fujian.

"In recent years, young and middle-aged people have left the village to seek job opportunities, leaving about 90 percent of these old houses vacant and unprotected," Ding said. "These houses will disappear in several years if not preserved."

Zhan Zhenfen, who taught the volunteers how to make rammed earth walls using raw materials such as earth, clay, gravel and straw, said the last time he did such work was in 1986.

"Villagers used to build these houses on their own," he said. "Now, people under 50 don't know the techniques."