Architect: H&P Architects
Location: Hai Ba Trung Street, Bac Ninh City, Vietnam
Team: Doan Thanh Ha ,Tran Ngoc Phuong, Nguyen Hai Hue, Trinh Thi Thanh Huyen, Nguyen Duc Anh, Ho Manh Cuong, Nguyen Van Thinh, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Mai.
Land area: 160 m2 (9,7m X 16,5m)
Total floor area: 700 m2
Manufacturers: Viglacera brick
Completed: Jan. 2019
Photographer: Nguyen Tien Thanh
Located in the center of BacNinh city, the house can accommodate an extended family of 4 generations. Its design is inspired by light and space effects, which resembles the “cave” style in a humid subtropical climate to bring about positive and vivid experiences to users’ senses: low (at the entrance), wide and high (inside), narrow (nooks and crannies), open outwardly (door system); even light distribution (outside), gradual darkening (inward), streams of light (from above), alternating vegetation, etc.
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Named Tropical Cave, the project employs void space as a catalyst to create the structure of the house with multiple layers of walls for shielding and connecting spaces forwind catching. The house levels for specific purposes are randomly connected at different staircase positions so as to create and maintain a “fresh journey of experience” with interesting views and non-repeatable images. A multi-dimensional transition space is also made from being shared to semi-private to private, alternated by vegetation (plants, vegetables).
The front facade has two large door systems (each with 10 doors of 6.6m high) and can be opened and closed (breathing) by hand easily via a steering wheel and power-assisted steering. Skylight, door system and vegetation help regulate microclimate (sunny, rainy, windy, smoggy, noisy), thus giving usersa customized view and blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, architecture and landscape.
In the ongoing unplanned urbanization, urban houses are gradually suffocating, isolating, and cutting off themselves from friendly relationships with the surrounding environment, making users insecure even when they are in their own accommodations. Tropical Cave is introduced as a solution to help awaken to the facing problem, thereby creating a haven for homeownersto again stay in a safeplace and take the same breath with the contemporary house,from the perspective of living harmoniously with the environment.