"Green House" wins world architecture award

After winning the World Press Photo award, Vietnam received another good news at the beginning of the year, the "Green House" project by architect Vo Trong Nghia was just awarded the Building of the Year award by the prestigious American architecture magazine - ArchDaily.

Vo Trong Nghia was born in 1976, graduated as valedictorian from Nagoya Institute of Technology (Japan) in 2002, and received a master's degree with honors from the University of Tokyo in 2004.

His work “Green House” won the International Architecture Award, the award for environmentally friendly designs - Green Good Design, won the gold medal at the world architecture festival and appeared in the list of 10 unique architectural works voted by the website ArchDaily...

Architect Vo Trong Nghia himself was also voted as one of the 10 outstanding architects of 2012 by Architectural Record magazine.

Introducing the “Green House”, the website ArchDaily wrote:

Tourists visiting Ho Chi Minh City will find this a bustling city day and night with one of the highest population densities in the world. Here and there flower pots are placed on the sidewalks, decorating the beauty of this vibrant city.

Saigonese love the hustle and bustle of life and they also love their diverse tropical plants. They often take advantage of planting flower pots and small plants on their balconies, in the small front yard or take advantage of a little bit of sidewalk space if their house is right on the street.

The “Green House” designed by Vo Trong Nghia also reflects the Saigonese’s love of trees. The house is for a small family to live in. The house is designed in a tube shape on a plot of land 4m wide and 20m long.

The front and back of the house are characterized by levels of cement planters that protrude like balconies.

The distance between the levels of flower pots is adjusted depending on the height of the plant species to be planted, with a spacing of 25 - 40 cm. This "garden" uses an automatic watering pipe system placed right in the flower pots.

The “Green House” is a tropical country-specific design that is extremely unique and environmentally friendly. The two sides of the house are covered in a vibrant green color, containing an attractive beauty.

Inside the house, running from the front to the back, there are very few dividing walls. Thus, the space inside the house will be airy, spacious and from every corner of the house you can see the green balcony running along both sides of the house.

During the day, the house receives a lot of natural light but it will not be too harsh because the green trees filter the light, creating cool, lovely shadows on the granite floor.

Green balconies and rooftop gardens help protect residents from the harsh sunlight and high temperatures, while reducing street noise and pollution. Furthermore, the house’s natural ventilation system keeps the interior cool, helping the owner save energy on cooling equipment.

Visiting residential architecture in Ho Chi Minh City, ArchDaily's judging panel found that although city residents pay attention to indoor green space, the way they handle it is too stereotypical.

When awarding the project “Green House” by architect Vo Trong Nghia, ArchDaily hopes that it will inspire architects and people in Ho Chi Minh City, hoping that they will have new perspectives on green and environmentally friendly housing architecture.

The “Green House” is just a small house, but its design is a smart solution, very harmonious with Saigon's climate and surrounding space.

ArchDaily hopes that the “Green House” will help Saigon’s architecture become more diverse, unique and beautiful with many green buildings with tropical climate characteristics built here in the future.

According to VTC-M