An award-winning Vietnamese architect has been pursuing a project to design houses that can withstand harsh weather conditions for countryside residents, especially in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam.
Vo Trong Nghia, who garnered 11 international architecture awards of various categories in 2012, has gone a step closer toward realizing his ambition after the prototype of the special homes, dubbed the S House, attracted media attention in and outside the Southeast Asian country.
The prototype, constructed in the Mekong Delta province of Long An, consists of two 30-square-meter components built using precast concrete frames with a budget of US$4,000, according to the architect’s website, votrongnghia.com.
The first component is where the dwellers receive guests, dine, and sleep, while the other functions as a kitchen and warehouse. The restroom is located outside the house.
Precast concrete is a construction product produced by casting concrete in a reusable mold which is then cured in a controlled environment, transported to the construction site and lifted into place. In contrast, standard concrete is poured into site-specific forms and cured on site.
In 2012, when the project started, 38-year-old Nghia used steel frames for the first S House prototype. But he moved on to study the use of concrete frames for the house in pursuit of higher stability and comfort in 2013, and eventually finished the second prototype in Long An in April this year.
Nghia said the prototype house reflects the aim of his project, which is to “provide stable but lightweight, permanent but affordable homes for low-income dwellers.”
The precast concrete frame and foundation guarantee predetermined stability and accuracy for the S House, the architect said on his website.
The precast concrete foundation weighs only 60kg, which Nghia said allows transportability by small boats in the Mekong Delta, where waterways are still the dominant transportation means.
With many other parts of the house prefabricated, the architect believes prefabrication can help “control quality and cost, and future mass production.”
The house is roofed over with nipa palm leaves, which are sourced domestically and assembled by local workers and residents.
Nghia started the project to help families who are still “living in very poor conditions in the Mekong Delta.”
The architect hopes the design and material of the S House will provide stable accommodations for people in the delta, where houses face damage risks from land subsidence and the intolerably harsh tropical weather.
Rebel Architecture
Nghia and his weather-resistant home project have been featured in Rebel Architecture, a six-part documentary series produced by Qatar’s broadcaster Al Jazeera.
The series aims at profiling architects who are using design as a form of activism and resistance to tackle the world’s urban, environmental and social crises, according to Al Jazeera.
Nghia and his peers from Nigeria, Spain, Pakistan, Israel, and Brazil are described as those “who believe architecture can do more than iconic towers and luxury flats – turning away from elite ‘starchitecture’ to design for the majority.”
The episode featuring the Vietnamese architect was published on September 9.
On July 18, Nghia won the 5th AR House Awards 2014 in London for the “House for Trees” housing design, on which he worked with Masaaki Iwamoto and Kosuke Nishijima from Japan.
“House for Trees” is a two-bedroom home for a family of three, which comprises five concrete boxes serving as oversized pots to plant trees on the top.
In 2012 Nghia was named ‘the vanguard designer’ by the U.S. Architectural Record, and one of the top 21 architects of the 21st century by the World Architecture News in the same year for his unique bamboo works.
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