Bavi Heritage received double recognition in the Tourism Buildings & Holiday Resorts category at the 53rd—and final—cycle of the WA Awards, marking the conclusion of a 20-year international program.
Bavi Heritage is a small-scale resort embedded within a plantation forest of pine, oak, and native tall tree species in Ba Vi, Vietnam. Prior to its adaptive transformation, the site functioned as a large-scale stone and timber workshop complex, comprising a network of production halls and storage structures constructed from locally sourced stone and plantation wood. These structures were closely tied to generations of artisanal labor within the owner’s family. Beyond its physical condition, the site retains a layered memory of craft and a spatial logic shaped by decades of industrial production.
The project is not conceived as a new resort “inserted” into nature, but as a process of restructuring an existing heritage condition, where new architecture operates simultaneously with forest ecology, pre-existing industrial structures, and the intangible life associated with the site. The fundamental question is not what the architectural form should be, but whether architecture can be constructed without severing the continuity of place.
At its core, Bavi Heritage understands heritage as a living structure rather than an object of formal preservation. Existing foundations, rubble stone walls, circulation routes, construction materials, and the spatial logic derived from long-term craft production are treated as active design frameworks. Instead of demolition and replacement, the project adopts a strategy of minimal intervention and adaptive reuse, allowing existing structures to guide the organization of new architecture. Key functions—from reception and back-of-house to technical spaces—are built directly upon former workshop foundations, significantly reducing earthworks, conserving material resources, and maintaining topographical continuity.
The architectural language does not attempt to conceal temporal distinctions. Existing rough stone walls are preserved and reinforced, directly juxtaposed with new exposed concrete structures, establishing a spatial condition in which past and present coexist in a legible yet non-assimilated relationship. This dialogue is not nostalgic, but enables architecture to express history through its material and structural reality rather than through decorative or representational means.
One of the project’s primary challenges lies in the tension between resort development and forest ecosystem preservation. The site is characterized by high tree density, complex root systems, and a sensitive microclimate, while resort programs typically demand extensive ground coverage and hard infrastructure. Bavi Heritage accepts ecology as a design constraint, allowing the forest to determine the location, scale, and morphology of the built form. Pavilion units are positioned only within natural clearings, avoiding major trees and root systems, and are organized vertically to minimize land occupation. Circulation relies on compacted earth paths rather than hard paving, preserving permeability and natural terrain while embracing controlled inconvenience as part of the spatial experience.
This approach is not merely ecological, but architectural: the project does not compete with its environment, but is shaped by it. The ecosystem is not treated as a backdrop, but as a structural component of the design.
Four pavilion typologies are developed in direct response to variations in topography and the precise positioning of existing trees, enabling each unit to adjust its form and footprint to avoid root systems and minimize disturbance to the natural ground condition.
Parallel to the forest ecology, the project addresses the challenge of reusing a non-iconic industrial heritage. The existing workshop structures—raw, utilitarian, and visually unremarkable—could easily be perceived as obstacles to new development. Rather than aestheticizing or erasing them, the project transforms their structural value and embedded labor memory into a spatial framework. Former industrial circulation routes are reconfigured into elongated, well-lit corridors that function as primary connectors while enhancing natural ventilation and moderating the microclimate within a humid tropical context.
Sustainability in Bavi Heritage is not approached as an additive set of technical solutions, but as a direct outcome of design thinking. Reuse of existing structures significantly reduces embodied energy; open and semi-open spatial configurations decrease reliance on mechanical cooling; local materials such as stone and plantation timber are employed to minimize transportation and improve climatic responsiveness. Courtyards and gardens are designed to collect, filter, and reuse rainwater, integrated with a nearly century-old well—once the site’s hydrological center—to establish a closed-loop water system for the entire complex.
At the location of the family’s former house, the Private Zen House is introduced as a personal and spiritual architectural layer. The structure does not serve commercial purposes, but maintains a connection between human presence and place. The upper-level meditation space opens directly to the forest canopy, allowing light, wind, and natural sound to become integral components of the architectural experience.
Throughout the design process, Bavi Heritage redefines the notion of “luxury” in resort architecture. Value is not derived from material opulence or programmatic excess, but from the capacity to construct an authentic relationship with nature, memory, and restraint. Architecture here does not seek to impress, but to provide a framework through which occupants become more aware of their environment.
Bavi Heritage ultimately operates as an exploration of architecture as continuity—a condition in which heritage, ecology, and contemporary life are not separated, but coexist within a unified spatial system. The project suggests that under constrained conditions, architecture does not need to transcend context to generate value, but can achieve its highest quality by working with—and through—those very constraints.
