<p>This home in Vietnam resembles a contemporary art installation. The home has been designed very creatively, but what is more important is that it caters to the ecologically conscious, writes Mike Ives </p>.<p>In 2008, Hoang Thi Thu Ha decided to leave Toronto, even though she had recently met her future husband, Jung-Chin Shen. Her father had died two years before, and she felt she should return to Ho Chi Minh City to live with her mother. But the family’s narrow, dimly lit tube house, a common residential design in Vietnam, was uncomfortable. <br /><br />Open windows let in too much dust, but the house was too stuffy when they were closed. Local architects say the skinny, tubular design is what inspired the popular Vietnamese name “nha ong,” or “tube house,” more than two centuries ago. Early versions had interior courtyards and light shafts, but as Vietnamese cities grew more crowded, the houses became smaller and their interiors dim. Ha’s 70-year-old mother, Tong Thi Thuoc, longed for the tube house she had lived in as a child in a village outside Hanoi: a spacious, airy structure where her extended family socialised around an outdoor kitchen and courtyard pond.<br /><br />Ha and Shen, who was born in Taipei, dreamed of married life in an urban oasis, cooled by natural breezes and filled with native plants. So Ha, now 32, began talking with her friend Vo Trong Nghia, a celebrated Vietnamese architect who honed his minimalist aesthetic in Japan and shares her appreciation for sustainable design.<br /><br />In 2010, Ha and Shen commissioned what Nghia calls Stacking Green House, a four-level tube house of about 2,368 square feet. “In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, you feel terrible because of the traffic and hot weather,” said Nghia, 35. “I want to reduce that pressure and offer green to these cities. ”He built the house in an eight-month period last year for the equivalent of $150,000. (Many purchases in Vietnam are valued in US dollars rather than the local Vietnamese dong.)<br /><br />The new building stands between two empty building lots in a residential area near a busy highway in an eastern district of the city. White concrete slabs form the front and back facades. They are positioned to deflect direct sunlight while still allowing natural breezes to flow inside and nurture the native ferns and flowers planted along the tops of the slabs. On the ground level, the main entryway features a staircase to the upper floors and the entry to Thuoc’s narrow bedroom, which opens onto a small courtyard. The three upper floors contain a living area and kitchen, a master bedroom and, at the top of the house, their son’s bedroom and a rooftop garden. A central shaft capped with a skylight brings light into the house – and allows the couple in the master bedroom to either look down into the kitchen or up, smog permitting, to gaze at the moon.<br /><br />Interconnected spaces<br /><br />While the house looks hip – its quirky shape resembles a contemporary art installation – the interconnected rooms remind Thuoc of her spacious childhood home. “I’m traditional and my daughter is modern, but that’s not a problem,” she said. “Green is our common interest. ”Nghia, who used bamboo as the main design element of Vietnam’s country pavilion for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, said he wanted Stacking Green House to recapture the spirit of the traditional tube house but in a way that made sense for an ecologically conscious modern lifestyle. <br /><br />But achieving that goal on a 13-foot-by-65-foot plot required some creativity – like lining the interior walls with thin gray stones and installing full-length glass windows near the plant-lined exterior walls to make the narrow rooms appear larger. He placed the kitchen upstairs to retain enough space on the ground level for the outdoor courtyard, where the family plans to plant a large tree. <br /><br />Ha, who works for a branch of PetroVietnam, the state-owned oil and gas company, said she is considering an arboreal candidate worth the equivalent of $2,000. <br /><br />The elegantly spare aesthetic of the house resembles work by an architect who has inspired Nghia: Tadao Ando, the Japanese designer whose modernist buildings celebrate natural light and reference his country’s traditional architecture. As for its name, which Nghia said he created by using a Vietnamese-English translation dictionary, Stacking Green House correctly suggests a union of industrial efficiency and environmental sensitivity.<br /><br />While the house is not certified according to Vietnam’s green building code, introduced just last year, it is clear that Nghia has a sharp eye for environmentally savvy design, said Melissa Merryweather, general director at Green Consult Asia, an architectural consulting firm in Ho Chi Minh City. Sitting in it is like “being inside a nest in a jungle,” she said. <br /><br />Nghia hopes to build more residences like Stacking Green House and already nine are under construction in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, all with price tags of less than $200,000. One selling point is that, despite Vietnam’s sweltering climate, the family spends just $25 per month on electricity and rarely uses the lone air conditioner. <br /><br />On a recent spring afternoon, just one floor fan buzzed in the kitchen while Thuoc sauteed some cabbage. Ha said it would be nice if the city’s streets were lined with stacked homes and greenery, but she said she thought Nghia’s designs blended luxury and simplicity in a way that many wealthy and middle class Vietnamese don’t yet understand or appreciate. Some neighbours ask Ha if watering the plants takes too much time, while others say the house looks a bit closed in. Ha says that she takes pleasure in her daily gardening routine and that the house allows for more family interaction than any of her previous homes.<br /><br />Transfer of green ideas<br /><br />For example, in February she gave birth to Darren, the couple’s first child. Now when she nurses him in the master bedroom, she can chat with her mother in the kitchen below via the light shaft.When Darren eventually moves into his own bedroom on the fourth level, he will sleep near the leafy rear facade and grass-lined roof garden. <br /><br />Ha and her 42-year-old husband, a professor of strategic management and international business studies who now divides his time between Ho Chi Minh City and Toronto, say they hope the ecological ambience will help the boy to develop a strong environmental conscience. “My mom was born with a love for nature,” Ha said as she peered into Darren’s future room.Tiny yellow butterflies were idling beyond a window as the scent of jasmine floated in from the garden. “Green ideas transfer from generation to generation,” Ha said.</p>
<p>This home in Vietnam resembles a contemporary art installation. The home has been designed very creatively, but what is more important is that it caters to the ecologically conscious, writes Mike Ives </p>.<p>In 2008, Hoang Thi Thu Ha decided to leave Toronto, even though she had recently met her future husband, Jung-Chin Shen. Her father had died two years before, and she felt she should return to Ho Chi Minh City to live with her mother. But the family’s narrow, dimly lit tube house, a common residential design in Vietnam, was uncomfortable. <br /><br />Open windows let in too much dust, but the house was too stuffy when they were closed. Local architects say the skinny, tubular design is what inspired the popular Vietnamese name “nha ong,” or “tube house,” more than two centuries ago. Early versions had interior courtyards and light shafts, but as Vietnamese cities grew more crowded, the houses became smaller and their interiors dim. Ha’s 70-year-old mother, Tong Thi Thuoc, longed for the tube house she had lived in as a child in a village outside Hanoi: a spacious, airy structure where her extended family socialised around an outdoor kitchen and courtyard pond.<br /><br />Ha and Shen, who was born in Taipei, dreamed of married life in an urban oasis, cooled by natural breezes and filled with native plants. So Ha, now 32, began talking with her friend Vo Trong Nghia, a celebrated Vietnamese architect who honed his minimalist aesthetic in Japan and shares her appreciation for sustainable design.<br /><br />In 2010, Ha and Shen commissioned what Nghia calls Stacking Green House, a four-level tube house of about 2,368 square feet. “In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, you feel terrible because of the traffic and hot weather,” said Nghia, 35. “I want to reduce that pressure and offer green to these cities. ”He built the house in an eight-month period last year for the equivalent of $150,000. (Many purchases in Vietnam are valued in US dollars rather than the local Vietnamese dong.)<br /><br />The new building stands between two empty building lots in a residential area near a busy highway in an eastern district of the city. White concrete slabs form the front and back facades. They are positioned to deflect direct sunlight while still allowing natural breezes to flow inside and nurture the native ferns and flowers planted along the tops of the slabs. On the ground level, the main entryway features a staircase to the upper floors and the entry to Thuoc’s narrow bedroom, which opens onto a small courtyard. The three upper floors contain a living area and kitchen, a master bedroom and, at the top of the house, their son’s bedroom and a rooftop garden. A central shaft capped with a skylight brings light into the house – and allows the couple in the master bedroom to either look down into the kitchen or up, smog permitting, to gaze at the moon.<br /><br />Interconnected spaces<br /><br />While the house looks hip – its quirky shape resembles a contemporary art installation – the interconnected rooms remind Thuoc of her spacious childhood home. “I’m traditional and my daughter is modern, but that’s not a problem,” she said. “Green is our common interest. ”Nghia, who used bamboo as the main design element of Vietnam’s country pavilion for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, said he wanted Stacking Green House to recapture the spirit of the traditional tube house but in a way that made sense for an ecologically conscious modern lifestyle. <br /><br />But achieving that goal on a 13-foot-by-65-foot plot required some creativity – like lining the interior walls with thin gray stones and installing full-length glass windows near the plant-lined exterior walls to make the narrow rooms appear larger. He placed the kitchen upstairs to retain enough space on the ground level for the outdoor courtyard, where the family plans to plant a large tree. <br /><br />Ha, who works for a branch of PetroVietnam, the state-owned oil and gas company, said she is considering an arboreal candidate worth the equivalent of $2,000. <br /><br />The elegantly spare aesthetic of the house resembles work by an architect who has inspired Nghia: Tadao Ando, the Japanese designer whose modernist buildings celebrate natural light and reference his country’s traditional architecture. As for its name, which Nghia said he created by using a Vietnamese-English translation dictionary, Stacking Green House correctly suggests a union of industrial efficiency and environmental sensitivity.<br /><br />While the house is not certified according to Vietnam’s green building code, introduced just last year, it is clear that Nghia has a sharp eye for environmentally savvy design, said Melissa Merryweather, general director at Green Consult Asia, an architectural consulting firm in Ho Chi Minh City. Sitting in it is like “being inside a nest in a jungle,” she said. <br /><br />Nghia hopes to build more residences like Stacking Green House and already nine are under construction in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, all with price tags of less than $200,000. One selling point is that, despite Vietnam’s sweltering climate, the family spends just $25 per month on electricity and rarely uses the lone air conditioner. <br /><br />On a recent spring afternoon, just one floor fan buzzed in the kitchen while Thuoc sauteed some cabbage. Ha said it would be nice if the city’s streets were lined with stacked homes and greenery, but she said she thought Nghia’s designs blended luxury and simplicity in a way that many wealthy and middle class Vietnamese don’t yet understand or appreciate. Some neighbours ask Ha if watering the plants takes too much time, while others say the house looks a bit closed in. Ha says that she takes pleasure in her daily gardening routine and that the house allows for more family interaction than any of her previous homes.<br /><br />Transfer of green ideas<br /><br />For example, in February she gave birth to Darren, the couple’s first child. Now when she nurses him in the master bedroom, she can chat with her mother in the kitchen below via the light shaft.When Darren eventually moves into his own bedroom on the fourth level, he will sleep near the leafy rear facade and grass-lined roof garden. <br /><br />Ha and her 42-year-old husband, a professor of strategic management and international business studies who now divides his time between Ho Chi Minh City and Toronto, say they hope the ecological ambience will help the boy to develop a strong environmental conscience. “My mom was born with a love for nature,” Ha said as she peered into Darren’s future room.Tiny yellow butterflies were idling beyond a window as the scent of jasmine floated in from the garden. “Green ideas transfer from generation to generation,” Ha said.</p>