## 1 Introduction  
In China, many rural area homes enduring cold or very cold weather are generally heated with simple crude equipment. In the winter, energy consumption for heating purposes accounts for approximately 80% of the total domestic energy consumption. This results in only a massive waste but also an uncomfortable indoor environment. In rural regions with hot summers and cold winters, heating equipment is seldom used. The walls and enveloping structures of rural buildings tend to have a low thermal efficiency and the average indoor temperature of rural homes in the winter is much lower than that of urban homes. In rural areas with hot summers, electric fans and air conditioners have gained popularity due to economic development and improvements of living standards. However, the poor heat-insulation performance of rural buildings results in a drastic increase in electricity consumption. Therefore, energy conservation is a significant challenge for rural residence construction. Additionally, many rural homes are built in earthquake regions. The majority are self-built using construction technologies that cannot meet the basic requirements for earthquake resistance. This results in buildings with poor earthquake-resistance. Clearly, it is a pressing matter to develop technologies for low-rise rural buildings that can meet requirements of both earthquake resistance and energy savings [1; 2]. Compared to traditional rural building structures, concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) framework structures and steel structures have distinct advantages. Steel structures have the advantages of light self-weight, high-strength, and good deformability. They, therefore, have good earthquake resistance. Additionally, steel structures can be quickly fabricated to facilitate rapid construction in a highly industrialized manner. Furthermore, steel structures are a greener solution because they do not produce construction waste when dismantled. CFST structures not only have the advantages of steel, they also improve fire-resistance and durability and extend the life cycle of building structures, which produces socio-economic benefits [3; 4]. Wall structures using heat-insulation elements can solve the issue of poor heat in rural buildings. An increasing level of industrialization in the housing industry means that there will be an increasing number of new walls with good energy-savings and heat-insulation performance. New energy-saving and heat-insulating walls, with steel structures or CFST structures, can effectively improve the heat-insulation performance of building structures. Both steel and CFST structures are already widely used in high-rise buildings. However, due to their high cost, they are seldom applied in rural buildings. The steel industry in China suffers industry-wide losses because of increased outputs with decreasing demands. Thus, it is a critical challenge to address the issue of excess capacity. The application of lightweight steel materials in rural buildings could not only improve the earthquake-resistance performance of rural buildings, it could also reduce the excess capacity of the industry. This provides an opportunity to utilize steel or CFST structures in the construction of rural buildings. In China, industrialized building construction technologies are mainly used for multi-storey and high-rise residential buildings. In contrast, there is no clear distinction between research related to urban and rural buildings in developed countries. In some developed countries, one-story and two-story buildings in rural and suburban areas are all constructed using industrialized technologies. These buildings differ from the traditional building structures of China's rural areas and do not fit the rural economic statuses of the nation. It should be noted that there is inadequate research into the improvement of human settlement and the realization of sustainable new community development and industrialized building construction in rural China.