Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
The project aims to propose a new typology for an office building in a tropical urban environment. Despite a hot and moist climate, the majority of office buildings in Vietnam are built using glass façades more appropriate for milder climate regions. The commonly used single-layered glass facade has three major disadvantages in Vietnamese cities: an enormous amount of heat gain increases energy consumption due to the need for air conditioning; flat glass details have a great risk of rainwater leakage; a thin glass partition offers poor acoustic resistance against noise pollution from the street. On the other hand, double glazed façades are rarely seen in Vietnamese cities partly due to a lack of need for high thermal insulation in winter. In this context, a “tropical double skin” is an appropriate alternative solution for building façade design. An inner layer of a glass and an outer layer of greenery define this system. Greenery, which is easy to maintain in a tropical environment, moderates heat gain and water penetration as well as reducing noise through the façade.
This façade design came from an idea of placing various plants and trees in random positions on the building’s elevation. A three-dimensional steel lattice covers the entire building volume to hold the planters. Each lattice unit consists of six steel rings, and forms a module with a cubic dimension of 400mm. The depth of the steel lattice casts formless shadows inside the building, occasionally punctuated by the stronger shadows of the scattered plants.