SEOUL BIENNALE: GLOBAL CITIES EXHIBITION
HOT AIR: THE EQUATORIAL CITY AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF AGGREGATION HO CHI MINH, VIETNAM
The project defines the idea of the collective as an accumulation of the informal that are happening in present Ho Chi Minh city. The act of addition and subtraction, as seen and defined throughout the city becomes an important tool of aggregation that forms up what the city is today. It is this informal that sums up the city and its peoplewhich is an unknown that perpetuates throughout buildings in the city without one specific function.
With this unknown in mind, our proposal reacts to the urban fabric by adopting the existing form of the site, an acknowledgement of the past. The artifact is responded by having a mirror courtyard that acts as a continuation of the existing courtyard. By adopting the maximum site boundary and having a courtyard, the design takes on the idea of layering of spaces whereby spaces are now generated towards the middle part of the courtyard. This allows a differential change in spatial hierarchy terms, creating a gesture of change from public to private as the layering translates from the outermost part of the site boundary towards the inner part of the boundary. The ground floor is then freed up through the introduction of openings which corresponds to each and every existing tube houses that were part of the site before, this acts as an acknowledgement of the existing besides being a methodology of generating vistas and physical connection between the two extreme parts of the building. The ground floor was also slanted inwards as a way to disrupt the street alignment, allowing pedestrians to take notice of the architecture on street level.
By acknowledging the humidity known as ‘thick air’, the architecture adopts the climate by basing its attention towards designing the ‘air’ (void space). The void now functions as the main envelope; envelope as structure, performative tool and space for aggregation. The brie soleil thus, becomes a secondary envelope. The circulation within drives the various moment of experiencing the void; one has to pass through the void in order to access other parts of the building, allowing a rich spatial experience at various points within the building. The void is designed to ‘grow’ and ‘age’ with time, being a space of the ‘informal’ which is seen as an inevitable phenomena in the city. Together with the thick walls and surfaces that bounds the entire architecture, the building expresses itself as a tectonic and heavy object on site; and yet a light and free interior as one can imagine with its various openings of different scales which creates different pockets of light and shadow within, giving both a sense of public and private to its occupants at different parts of the building.
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism - Global Studio 2019
Heart of Buildings
Oswald Hogen Halim Huang, Melvin Lim Chung WeiAt the Heart of Buildings is an exploration in reclaiming space from the collectivecity, by taking the lifeblood of Saigon, its ever busy streets, and grafting it into a building through a selfstanding system of courtyards bridged vertically by a circulatory belt.
Like an organ, the structure pumps vibrancy and vitality as a robust building grows out of its modernist scaffolding. The belt encapsulated within the structure exists as a blank canvas to which aggregation of paraphernalia, experiences and moments flow into and become embedded. Where traces of objects accumulate and treasure troves of experiences are stored, the belt becomes a place where metaphorically gold dust settles.
As a guiding frame, the structure becomes a platform which batches of future tenants may build onto. Over time, this collective becomes an archive where the scabs and scars from demolition and construction of the enveloping building gather, adding layers of texture and narratives. The whole structure becomes a sort of memorabilia; an important artifact for its users, but also for the city.
In a speculative scenario, the Heart of Buildings occurs as a prevalent model all over the city of Saigon as carriers of memory and live experiences in the midst of a city continuously encountering urban renewal, where the strategy we have proposed is applied nationwide. The notion of building around a loosely defined framework is explored, and ultimately one begins to question the role of public spaces in the collective city.
The object like characteristics already present in the adjacent precedent was something that caught our attention and hence further explored in the design. Thus, the aim of the project was to have the architecture be perceived as one singular object with the artefact while taking an urban position for the site.
In a bid to emphasise the object-like quality, a wider road was created from an existing alleyway behind the plot. This further isolated the architecture and allowed it to be read as one. Numerous architectural languages were adhered to and sampled from the artefact such as the chamfered corners, the offset of the roof to create a crown, and the geometric quality of the interior courtyard. The granularity of the rooms extends into the new design, getting progressively larger towards the rear. This leads to the continuation of the programme from the precedent, which is largely residential, with a commercial ground floor. Additionally, the towers on both street corners serve as commercial blocks with double volume spaces to allow tenants to further modify the rooms.
The introduction of vertical fins adds a tropical element to the precedent that contains hints of colonial architecture in a Vietnamese context. The fins not only retain the volume of the architectural massing but also serve a structural purpose at every alternating fin. Furthermore, it can be seen as a ventilation response to Ho Chi Minh’s tropical climate.
The strong horizontal elements present in the artefact were sampled and combed throughout the design. The difference in the two elevations of the artefact created a transition from plane and volume, to edge and flatness. Ultimately, the project seeks to zip up the two differing elevations. The application of colour on the underside of the horizontal elements (sunshading) aims to further emphasise our urban position as well as cement the project on its position in contemporary times as opposed to its modernist sibling that it initially sought to be. The transition from yellow-orange to greenteal from each elevation, starting from the artefact, was to serve a reflective purpose onto the elevation of the architecture due to the sun rays. The idea was to have the project be viewed as a singular object from afar but to the pedestrians at ground level looking up, the colours inform an entirely different interpretation of the building.
The project was envisioned to have the strong formal structures be in contrast with the informalities of life by having them spilling out of the exterior façade, lining the edge and emphasising the horizontality to a greater extent. Both temporary and permanent modifications would be welcomed to further allow for a more dynamic elevation to be conceived over time, just like what is currently present throughout Ho Chi Minh, as opposed to the static and rigid horizontal forms present in both buildings.
Fragments
The group aspires to explore a comfortable in-between typology between the monolithic precedent building and its granular surrounding as a response to the site.
We approached this by volumetrically mirroring the apartment block as well as through numerous iterations of fragmentation. Fragmentation is achieved through the method of rotation and subtraction where the volumes are further granulated into blocks of smaller footprint with varying height. This not only results in the creation of different variations of blocks with intimate pocket spaces in between but also creates a better quality urban space allowing better ventilation and sunlight to infiltrate. The set massing breaks the linear characteristics of the site and allows the blocks to intrude into any open spaces available, emulating the characteristics of the existing row houses surrounding the site.
Smaller block footprints inevitably means limited floor area. Therefore, to maximise the interior spaces, the structural elements and vertical circulation are pushed out to the periphery, forming the facade. The vertical circulation serves a naturally ventilated envelope of stairways and balconies that connect the interior with the exterior while the frames of 0.3m x 0.3m columns set at 3m centre to centre, serves as scaffolding for the blocks. The clearing of the internal space of any structures allows the flexible use of the interior spaces.
Programme-wise, the first 2 floors of each blocks, dedicated for commercial use, serves to assimilate the existing surroundings while the upper floors are for flexible use. Although largely allocated to residential, it can be interposed with commercial units. Access to the upper floors are via the central spaces with lifts provided only for taller buildings.
In order to make the development more “playful” with the exploration on the the granularity of in-habitation, each group member takes on 2-3 buildings so that it can be developed differently while keeping control over the scaffolding, envelope and color as a constant for the project to be seen as a whole. As a result, the different development of the buildings allows varying degree of aggregations to happen, adding greater dynamic to the project.
Bold, vibrant colours are adopted for the horizontal structures; the floors and ceilings, to not only emphasise on the playfulness of the development but to also allow the absorption of UV light causing it to fade and become a more pastel-ish palette over time. The colours spill off onto the ground and meld into each other, creating a large plaza space where a variety of street life happens.
HCM City is currently under immense demographic pressures with rapid urbanization and economic development, these pressures often inspire government to produce large-scale development programs designated to integrate infrastructure regionally. In district 2, HCM, the pressure has manifested into a regional cluster plan to develop the costal area.
Meanwhile, most districts in HCM appear absence of a large scale city cluster plan and housing units tends to grow in a haphazard manner, the commercial capital is also falling short on some commonly used metric. The proposal site is identified within this narrative where immense growth of population has filled up the ground, causing a lack of space for daily interaction and trading. The proposal returns the ground to the people. It responds to the urban footprint of the neighbour apartment block, continues the street life and created a courtyard resonate to the existing one. A more internalised courtyard, yet designated to local use, this inverted trapezoidal form allow for a chaos of a street market and free vendors. The residential units encircle the market, forming the outer ring of the building. The facade adopts traditional HCM facade treatment, a deep structural components allow for informal aggregation happens on the facade. The structural - facade consists of two separate construction systems that formulate its form.
The internal core hosting the market has a cross structure, to maximise the porosity of the market space, the peripheral residential units are supported by diagonal structural system, the exterior envelope, as an extension of the diagonal grid, consists of three elements - balestrate, scaffolder and tilted guardrail panels. The deep vertical fins shelled the facade strategically shield strong afternoon sun.
Unlike the existing building, which exposes the aggregates along the street surface, the proposal allows the life to happen on the thick envelope of the internal courtyard. Around the internal courtyard, residents’ balconies, retail vendors, cafe, motorcycle parking sheds make noise here. On the contrary, life on the external surface is hidden inside the deep skin under the shelter of the vines and plants.
Chamfers at the corners allows the facades of the building into a continuous surface. The staircases are located at the open corner of the building, it accommodates the surrounding urban landscape as it rises vertically. Black and red are applied to show the contrast between the inside and outside of the building. The external envelope is cool black to maintain a clean and pure appearance, while the interior skin is warm red to create the lively market atmosphere.
