Cua’s House

Hue is the ancient capital of Vietnam; this city still has an ancient appearance and stores many heritages. The downtown area is really narrow, plus the harsh humid tropical climate—extremely hot in summer and rainy in winter. Therefore, most of the residential architecture here is still a tube house with a rather boring, old, and safe architectural form.

Only 10 minutes’ drive from the city center, the owner has a quite large piece of land and wants to build a different house where they can really relax after a busy working day—not live in “a box.” The land has a total area of nearly 450 m², but we only built the house with a modest footprint of 180 m² (the ground floor is only 80 m²). The rest is dedicated to landscaping, a swimming pool, and planted gardens.

The problem here is that the house must be fully connected to the surrounding large landscape space, not be incoherent. Therefore, we designed the master plan in two directions. The ground floor is conceived in the simplest form possible: it is a horizontal continuation from the fence wall, stretching across the length of the land and dividing the garden into two parts. The front area contains the entrance with the parking lot, swimming pool, and outdoor party area; behind is a garden with vegetables and fruit trees.

The first floor is arranged perpendicular to the ground floor, stretching along the land to offer views of both the front and back gardens mentioned above. With the cantilevered structure reaching out 2.5 m, the upper bedroom block becomes a large eave to cover the ground floor area. These eaves are an extremely important element in tropical architecture, as they help block the hot sun in summer and rain in winter from directly entering the house.

We planted a large tree whose canopy shades the ground floor and penetrates the upstairs balcony to cool the area in summer. In addition, we also use a solid–hollow contrast technique: the ground floor is designed to be as open as possible, connecting the front and back landscapes and promoting natural ventilation; the first floor is a solid block with purpose-designed windows.

In today’s modern world, the living space for trees is getting smaller and smaller. As an architect—a person who has the ability to direct other people’s living habits—we want to guide people toward nature, coexistence, and respect for nature. “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere,” said Vincent