The house is located in Vinh Ngoc commune (Dong Anh) which has a close connection with the water surface of Phuong Trach lake, Hai Boi lake and the Red river. This location generates the idea of creating a House from the Flow – an expression of commonly found residential agglomerations along rivers (horizontally) or along waterfalls (vertically).
Named as Tropical Flow, this house is multifunctional (housing, office) for many generations to live together. The flow serves as a connection between spaces for use and interspersed vegetation to create the entire house with a diagonal view of an "air and light waterfall" from the core inside to the corrugated "tile waterfall and brick waterfall" outside.
Although bricks and tiles are two traditional materials widely used by the Vietnamese people, they are, in this case, exposed to the direct vision and contact of the users, giving the architecture senses of emotion and meaning, new but still familiar. The suspended layer made of tiles in the front of the house and the perforated layer made of bricks at the back act as "large screens" that help regulate the air and light in and out of the house while still preserving the necessary privacy inside. The used space on each floor is arranged to change continuously and flexibly to create attractive views and vivid experiences. On the roof is a garden for growing vegetables and fruit trees.
Dong Anh is a suburban district of Hanoi which has seen rapid urbanization. The vegetable gardens in villages and the orchards in town are turning into terraced houses. Traditional brick walls and tiled roofs are disappearing and being replaced by concrete boxes, glass walls and stuffy corrugated iron roofs. In that context, Tropical Flow is a solution that contributes to raising social awareness about the need to preserve “uninterrupted, smooth flows” which are large enough with green surfaces to “compensate” for Mother Nature through the invaluable spaces that the Architecture “borrows” to exist.
Tropical Flow is the realization of a close relationship between humans and the natural environment through a nature-based architectural perspective: Architecture is the “second nature” created by humans!
