This residence in Chau Doc, a town in Southern Vietnam by the Cambodian border, was designed to provide a shared home for three couples and their children. The project was constructed by Nishizawa Architects, a Saigon-based architectural studio founded by Shunri Nishizawa.
NISHIZAWAARCHITECTS is a Saigon-based architectural practice founded by Shunri Nishizawa. One of the latest project realized is a residence for three couples and their children in Chau Doc, a town in Southern Vietnam, near the Cambodian border.
Due to local regulation, the budget was tightened and the home was built with thin corrugated metal panels. NISHIZAWAARCHITECTS decided to celebrate these requirements, using the natural ventilation that this structure enables in the shared living space. The residence is in a dialogue with the surroundings, metal-frame windows face views of the nearby lake and rural landscape and the movable partitions establish a space that is always half outdoors. The home is filled with sunlight and natural breeze and it features its own micro forest of plants and trees. Locally-sourced timber and traditional carpentry techniques were implemented in the construction, which integrates regional customs into the contemporary build.
Architects: NISHIZAWAARCHITECTS
Area : 340 m²
Year : 2017
Photographs :Hiroyuki Oki
Manufacturers : Acor, American Standard, Toto
Contractor : Local carpenters
Located in a suburb of ChauDoc town in AnGiang province, Southern Vietnam, this house is a sharing residence of 3 nuclear families who are kin. Although this project budget was tightened with local standards, which only allowed us to build a house with thin corrugated metal panels, we have tried to satisfy not only the regional spirits but also the rich lifestyle in which is fulfilled by sunlight, greenery and natural ventilation, as it were, living in a half-outdoor gardens.
Around 7 hours travelling from HoChiMinh city by long-distance bus and ferry, ChauDoc, a border town closed to Cambodian boundary, has been developed along a branch of Mekong River. Wandering around the neighboring site, what we could easily recognize is the several layers of the regional environment.
The first layer is depicted by hundreds of floating houses on the river, and secondly, there are embanked roads along two sides of the river banks which turn into the main traffic for the local society, while the third layer is scattered with a plenty of pilotis houses extended from the roads by private small bridges, and the last one is painted in green by beautiful rice-field as far as our eyes could reach.
Generally, pilotis houses in this area are mostly composed of stone or concrete columns on the ground and floating timber frames wrapped by thin corrugated metal panels.
Due to the height limitation of the column which only can lift the house over flood water and also due to the minimum dimensions of timber frames for the local daily floor-sitting lifestyle, we could feel about the human-scaled and gentle impression from these local houses.
And the more deeply we approached into their living context, the better we could understand about the harsh natural environment that they have to cope with, when all the grounds except the embanked roads used to be under the water during 4-5 months in the rainy season annually till they have completed the concrete embankments very recently. Anyone who visit this area could recognize the scent of their intelligence about how to co-exist with the large-scaled Mother Nature for such a long time.
On the other hand, ironically, we have found that their daily-life has become unstable and un-organized especially after the recent drastic changes when they compulsively eliminated floods which had given a lot of inconveniences to them. An apparent evidence is that almost all the inhabitants have abandoned their ground level with their no-use garbage or excreta from their domestic animals such as pigs, gooses and chickens.
This fact could drive their living environment into bad condition since those houses have too low ceilings without insulations and too small windows for ventilations. Formerly, flood in the rainy-season would wash away all excreta accumulated in the dry-season, and the covering water would be helpful to lower the surrounding temperature as well.
The project was constructed by Nishizawa Architects, a Saigon-based architectural studio founded by Shunri Nishizawa. Following local regulation, the budget was tightened and the home was to be built with thin corrugated metal panels.
Nishizawa Architects celebrated these requirements and invited them into the home’s modern architecture, uutilizing the natural ventilation that this structure enables in the shared living space. The residence initiates a dialogue with the surroundings, welcoming views of the nearby lake and rural landscape through rotating metal-frame windows and movable partitions, which establish a space that is always half outdoors. The home is flooded with sunlight, a natural breeze and features its own micro forest of plants and trees.
Locally-sourced timber and traditional carpentry techniques were implemented in the construction, which integrates regional customs into the contemporary build.
These 3 architectural principles are clearly intended to realize a half-outdoor and contemporary spaces with full of natural elements such as sunlight, wind, water, soil and plantings. However, at the same time, it is also an important theme for us to preserve the regional customs and spirits inside the house which can be listed as floor-sitting lifestyle, human-scaled dimensions and floating timber frames on the concrete columns. This theme is also consistent with its exterior design, which is to blend with the surrounding environment but to outstand by modern design languages.
Nowadays in Vietnam, urban and stateless housing style starts spreading even into the rural areas and changing their unique cultures, landscapes and lifestyles of their own regions. (In fact, 5 story building is under construction on the adjacent plot). It would be one of emergent subjects for us, Vietnamese architects, to propose alternative and contemporary way of living by inheriting their cultures, not by fading out their regional spirits.
Nishizawa Architects has replaced the facade and interior walls of this residence in Vietnam’s An Giang province with moveable corrugated metal panels to create a “half-outdoors” dwelling for three families.
is close to the Mekong river and raised on pilotis above flood-prone grounds. It is shared by three separate families, who asked the Ho Chi Minh City-based practice if it could improve living alongside each other.
To begin, the practice integrated corrugated metal shutters into the facade of the residence, permitting open views of the surrounding rice fields.
, is close to the Mekong river and raised on pilotis above flood-prone grounds. It is shared by three separate families, who asked the Ho Chi Minh City-based practice if it could improve living alongside each other.
To begin, the practice integrated corrugated metal shutters into the facade of the residence, permitting open views of the surrounding rice fields.
“We felt this ambition was attractive to collaborate with,” practice founder Shunri Nishizawa told Dezeen, “even though we realised this was a challenging project when we visited their original house”.
“We tried to satisfy the rich lifestyle which is fulfilled by sunlight, greenery and natural ventilation.”
The internal walls of House in Chau Doc have been swapped for moveable metal partitions, opening up the layout and allowing the inhabitants to move freely from room to room, creating a “melting and ambiguous” space.
A self-contained apartment occupies the lower floor, while a duplex is set across a portion of the first and second level, where there is also a studio.
The frame of the house is configured by a network of timber beams that are left exposed.
The roof has been inverted so that it forms a butterfly-like structure when the metal panels are pushed open .
Keen to use local materials, the practice built the columns of the house from a Vietnamese hardwood called Shorea Obtusa, and sourced the timber for the flooring from a second-hand market nearby.
The outer walls have been made from concrete and then embossed with the pattern of woven bamboo to emulate regional craft techniques.”
It was an important theme for us to preserve the regional customs and spirits inside the house,” said Nishizawa.
source : archdaily _ ignant _ wevux _ dezeen
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