Designed by VTN Architects, This renovation project includes a café on the last floor and the rooftop of a 7th-floor middle-rise concrete building located in the city center of Vinh city in the middle north of Vietnam.

From these levels, one has a great view over the surrounding low-rise houses, towards the river, magnificent forest scape and various aged buildings.

The buildings in this area were damaged by the Vietnam War. Most of them were also renovated with colonial style façades inspired by European designs. Nowadays, regardless of their height, some of the buildings still imitated this kind of the façade style.
Photography: Trieu Chien
The client required not to change the envelope of the existing building, but create a unique and attractive addition that change this building into an icon of the city.
The challenge was to create an impact on the building by inserting a new structure with a unique and local material.

After studying several local materials such as brick, stone, etc we chose bamboo to work with. Through our experience, we know bamboo is easy to access in this tropical climate which reduces construction time and budget. The essence of using bamboo in this project is ?lightness?. As bamboo which can be lifted up by a few workers and easily transport to the highest floor by a crane.
Photography: Trieu Chien
In addition, it is possible to install the bamboo structure without any additional structural support.

For the 7F (top floor), we covered the...