Villa HH

Villa HH - a modern tropical house in the city

• Architects

Introducing the house’s owners
The house belongs to aged owners who have a son working as an architect abroad. We were received a detailed brief which was comprehnesive from the owners’ son.

Owner’s desire
The owners lived in many houses, eventually, they found an approriate site of their dream houses. Having a thoughtful idea about the house, they wanted their house would be a place which was conformable the conventionl lifestyle in the coutryside accompanying the modern convenience and sustainability. Despite being in a hustle city, the design should ensure area for green coverage. However, they did not want a carefully designed garden, they expected spaces where they can grow plants by themselves.

photo_credit Nguyen Tuan Nghia — Nguyen Tuan Nghia

Architectural style
Tropical modernism was considered in the idea generating process.

Idea
The house is divided into 2 blocks connected by central circulation and garden. A part of living block and common room were planed for the aged owners, while, the left space was for their children who sometimes would come back from foreign countries.

Besides, The interlace voids in the house’s structure associates with the advantageous size of the site allowing nature ventilation, solar light as well as the diversity in viewpoints. Additionally, the design ought to have various open spaces, meanwhile, the privacy must be ensured.

Materials
Natural rubble stone, wood, concrete and wind cotton tiles were applied and reconstructed to adapt the modern design language, at the meantime, utilizing materials strength and characteristics. Furthermore, natural materials were the significant factors representing tropical features in the project and poising the temperature between wood and stone. In addition, concrete’s stability acted as the foundation for the development of the space frames. Especially, making the stone wall worked as the base of the house, while, ensuring the aesthetics was the largest challenge of the project. In the term of transporting materials, it was a excellent cooperation between architects and the craftmen in the process of shaping and trucking nature rubble stone from BinhDinh province to Hanoi. Modern design language was expressed by associating solid wood with rusty iron in interior design created the contrast to the traditional method of contructing stone.

Overall
In an overview, the project’s base was made of rubble stone with the careful calculation to keep the aesthetics and structural strength. Meanwhile, project’s core was formed by 2 stone walls running along the house’s depth. In the core, the close, open and semi-open gardens were added as the connection with the other functions. Simultaneously, the gardens played the key role of softening the rough of concrete and stone.

The eaves and transitional spaces in front of the functional rooms provided the balance in light and temperation that tropical modernism aimed. Moreover, the elevation which faced the street and other houses was tiled by wind cotton tiles. This method not only optimized the ablitity of natural ventilation and heat insulation but also assured the privacy. Thanks to the outstanding design strategy and solution in using materials, the project was constructed with the modern appearance came along with tropical features.