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A Vietnamese architect, Vo Trong Nghia is one of my best friends from Ishikawa NCT in Japan. Since 1997, He was also studying architecture in INCT. He finished his master study in Tokyo University, and came back to Vietnam. After 3 years, I got a chance to visit him and his works.
He is a promising young architect based on Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and known as “a bamboo architect”. He has designed several buildings with bamboo, and the structure is quite unique and beautiful.
Nghia told me that it was so difficult to build such buildings with bamboo, because there was no example and technic for that. He spent time at the construction site and developed his design method with collaborators. Nghia was saying, although there are a lot of projects in Vietnam, it is important for an architect to make “one” nice architecture. It seems really difficult to build nice buildings, because all the developments in Vietnam are incredibly fast. Nghia made a lot of efforts to realize the “one”, and it impressed many people with his creativity.
Vo Trong Nghia http://www.votrongnghia.com/
Trung Nguyen Cafe, Hanoi



Bamboo dome, Binh Duong



WIND AND WATER CAFE, Binh Duong

Space Block Hanoi Model was designed by Kazuhiro Kojima + Kojima lab. and Magaribuchi lab., it has quite intelligent scheme of space blocks. The combination of the space blocks makes attractive spaces inside. These are the photos from 2002, what I was expecting…


(C)C+A Coelacanth and associates
These are in 2009. After 7 years, the big fruit of the collaboration between Japanese architects and Vietnamese culture was getting old, already. I was quite shocked…








It’s quite sad that the building looks like 50 years old, but actually it’s just 7 years old. Japanese people might say the problem is Vietnamese construction quality, but I believe, that is not true. The problem is a lack of communication. Architects are maybe tired to talk to Vietnamese workers, Vietnamese users are maybe get bored with asking advices. The idea of the building is still alive, but the building is alone without any help.

I took the long flight from Zurich via Milan, Tokyo and Ho Chi Minh City, I’m coming to Hanoi, Vietnam to visit my friend Ha Nguyen, who was studying at ETH Zurich with me. She is now a partner of arb east, the office has a partnership with arb architects in Switzerland.

This is Ha’s Office, located in the north part of Hanoi, just next to the West lake. The office building was designed by arb east.

In the office, currently 7-8 architects and 5 interns are working with her. They are really nice guys!

Downtown of Hanoi. It’s quite amazing that so much motor bikes are existing in the city. I could say 60-70% of the traffics is motorbike, 25% cars, and quite few buses.

This culture of motor bike makes interesting phenomena. There was an stage event in the middle of the street, people coming by motor bike stop in the middle of the street and suddenly big event space appear. Of course it disturbs other traffics, but nobody cares. You don’t have to prepare any chairs for the events.

a big market place in Hanoi.

There are a lot of people inside. You can find nice products. But… most of them are women. The market is the place for women, that I could understand.

Pedestrian streets are basically occupied by people who sit and talk, play games, eat lunch, etc.

The electric lines are nicely organized. I don’t know how to maintain them…

People are playing game at a touristic place. They are good at occupying every public spaces.

Tan My Design shop, located in the center of Hanoi, designed by arb east. The buiding has a narrow facade, and deep space behind. Actually the buiding on the right is the same building as well, but they had to keep existing facade because it’s conserved. It’s really well done!