Doing Good for Vietnam

Trần Thị Ngụ Ngôn (TTNN): When I was young, I didn't have any experience with architecture or how to become an architect. In my childhood, the context was very poor, and after the war, there was a lack of information about what architecture was and what a job in architecture was. In high school, before the junior university examination, I needed to choose one subject or something I would like to study and then do. Architecture was fixed in my thinking at that time, because it combined two factors: art and science. My father was a painter when I was young, so I got a sensitivity about art from him. And the other side, the scientific side, was because I loved the scientific model and subjects. 

JH: The name of your firm, Tropical Space, almost alludes to a manifesto, a way of designing in a certain place, of designing for a particular climate. Can you speak about the name?
TTNN: After graduation and going into practice, I had the ambition to do something good for Vietnam. But when I went into that working environment, I became aware that the reality was not like that. At that time, Vietnam was developing very fast, and people were building a lot of buildings all across the country. But they were not thinking about vernacular or indigenous features, like culture and how buildings can match climatic features and the site. After many years working in different offices, my husband and I realized we would like to start our own office with methods linking architecture to our locality and climate.

JH: A couple years ago we featured your Premier Office project on our website. Could you speak about this building relative to the larger body of work in your office, and about the brick screens, which seem to be a kind of theme in your projects?
TTNN: Popularly, when a developer plan to build an office, they usually think about a glass box, using glazing for the building envelope. In the Vietnamese climate, outside temperature is very high, around 40 or 45 degrees Celsius (104-113°F)—especially in the summer. With a hot environment like this, the view from inside a glass building is minimized, since they need to use some sort of curtains to protect the interior from solar radiation. When we started on the design of Premier Office, we thought about how the office building could deal with the disadvantages of the local climate and still allow the people inside to interact with the surrounding context. We know that when people work in a glass box, they only think about the interior and how to increase productivity. We also got high productivity, but in a different way.

The structure of the building envelope is airy and perforated brick walls, which are rotated 45 degrees to cut direct sunlight. The rotated brick panels also absorb the hot outside air, cooling it before it comes inside. The building envelope is a double layer: sliding glazed panels inside, and the perforated brick walls for the outer layer. When it is cool outside, the people inside can open the glazing panels and enjoy the real environment, but in the worst conditions, they can also close the sliding panels for certain times of the day, as it is not necessary to close them the whole day. Firstly, we wanted to make the interaction between people and nature, and, secondly, we wanted to improve the performance of the building and save energy—no need to turn on lights or AC for 24 hours per day.

For us, brick is a basic material, in Vietnam and a lot of countries around the world. But currently, many Vietnamese people do not think brick is a good material, because they suppose it is impossible to make a contemporary building with brick. We would like to do something different with brick, a material that can absorb the features of the climate. For example, when you put a brick in water, the water gets absorbed into the brick—the brick has a connection, it interacts with the surrounding climate. This is why, when we design a building, we think of the smallest piece, about how the brick absorbs the surrounding features and makes a transition between inside and outside. The building belongs to the surroundings, to the neighborhood. When the office building was completed, the neighbors did not feel a strange feeling, they thought it was familiar.

JH: It sounds like there are a lot of glass buildings in the area, but is that changing? Is your building part of something bigger, something that other architects and clients are doing?
TTNN: We do not usually measure the effects of glass buildings, but they have been featured in a lot of places, in Vietnam, but also around the world. For Premier Office, people can visit this building, actually, if they ask the manager before arriving. When inside, people do not think about bricks. They feel comfortable indoors and find a connection between them and the surrounding environment. Because of the environmental designs applied, the building also uses less energy for lighting and cooling. The Premier Office is an example for designers to consider how they can apply environmental design and the climatic responses of the office building to make buildings better for the environment of the city.

TTNN: Internally, we usually organize small activities for the designers of Tropical Space: something different from architecture but linked to it. At the moment, we are making wooden toys in the workshop for kids. They are small toys that are also appealing to older people, because we based them on traditional toys in Vietnam. For the external part, we host lectures and exhibitions, and we welcome universities and other people from outside the office to visit. We also hold an annual end-of-year event connecting designers across Vietnam, where we share our observations over the year and talk about the challenges for the future; we want to gain inspiration from people in architecture and inspire them to do something good. Another thing at the moment that we are very happy about is speaking with the younger generation studying in high school or secondary school. We have conversations with them and answer their questions, giving them an initial perspective about architecture and how to become a good architect.

TTNN: That's like a Miss Universe question! [Laughs] Actually, before coming here [to Venice], we did not think about the award. We prepared a lot for the submission, but I didn’t really think about winning the award or not. We love and respect the DIVIA Award. If we compare female and male architects, female architects have very different conditions that are not to their advantage practically—they need to spend time with their families, especially when they get married and have children. But female architects also have sensitivity to the surroundings, and they understand people a lot compared with other architects.

If I win this award, I’ll be happy, because I really respect the award, and because not a lot of people know about my country and its architecture. Winning the award would be a good moment for me, but also for all female architects in Vietnam. I hope it will inspire them to work hard and love, and have a stronger passion for this job, in this industry. Whether I win or not is not important because after this trip, we will continue with our journey, with our thinking about architecture and tropical spaces.