Located at the foot of Ba Den Mountain in Tay Ninh, south-east Vietnam, the café occupies part of a 70,000-square-metre agricultural site surrounded by rice paddies, cassava fields, peanut farms and rubber plantations.
Designed by Vietnamese practice SILAA, the project forms the first phase of a wider hospitality development envisioned as a collection of homestays, wellness spaces and food-and-beverage facilities embedded within the rural landscape at the base of the mountain.
In response to the site’s expansive scenery and existing agricultural patterns, the masterplan was conceived as a series of “fruit-tree islands” dispersed across an “ocean” of rice fields. Commissioned in March 2025, the café establishes the architectural language for the broader development.
Positioned beside a large water-lily pond and oriented towards uninterrupted views of Ba Den Mountain, the building was designed as an open and permeable structure that blurs the threshold between interior and exterior. Constructed primarily from reclaimed timber with polished concrete flooring, the café relies on passive ventilation and natural daylight to create a subdued atmosphere attuned to the tropical climate.
“The architecture was conceived as a quiet framework for experiencing the landscape,” said SILAA founder Nguyen Huu Son Duong. “Rather than becoming an object within the site, the building recedes into the background and allows nature to take precedence.”
Organised as a long linear volume, the café is structured around a continuous circulation corridor that guides visitors through a sequence of spatial conditions. Along the route, communal seating areas overlooking the rice fields alternate with smaller enclosed rooms, shaded verandas and narrow interstitial courtyards inserted between volumes. A children’s play area is integrated alongside the corridor, reinforcing the project’s flexible character.
The entire structure is elevated slightly above the ground, creating the sensation of hovering over the surrounding landscape. Running parallel to the building, the water-lily pond acts as both a climatic buffer and a reflective foreground, extending views across the water towards the rice fields, distant tree lines and the mountain beyond.
Visitors approach the café via a narrow timber walkway that cuts through the paddies before crossing a small wooden bridge above the pond. Conceived as a gradual transition from landscape to architecture, the arrival sequence foregrounds sensory experiences such as the scent of rice fields, shifting reflections on water and changing views towards the mountain.
Sheltering the building is a large sloping roof clad in terracotta tiles, designed to protect the interiors from intense solar heat and seasonal monsoon rains. Above the main communal area, a portion of the roof is lifted to frame elevated views towards the peak of Ba Den Mountain while drawing additional daylight and air into the space.
With its restrained material palette and open spatial arrangement, the project reflects SILAA’s broader interest in architecture that responds quietly to climate, landscape and everyday rural life in Vietnam.
