Vietnam has a building typology known as tube housing.
It is characterized by narrow building frontages, often in the range of 3 to 4 meters, and multiple skinny levels. From what I've read, tube housing first appeared in the 17th century in cities like Hanoi. Its ubiquity over the years, however, has been aided by a myriad of factors, including Vietnam's transition from capitalism to socialism. This change meant that far fewer apartment buildings were being constructed, and so households had to take matters into their own hands and build what they could.
I've also read that this building type may have something to do with the way properties were taxed based on their frontage rather than their site area, though I haven’t been able to find a reliable source for this. Whatever the case, the end result is exactly what we discussed in this recent post — The 9-Step Rule: Why Simple, Narrow Buildings Are Good for Cities
Vietnam has a building typology known as tube housing.
It is characterized by narrow building frontages, often in the range of 3 to 4 meters, and multiple skinny levels. From what I've read, tube housing first appeared in the 17th century in cities like Hanoi. Its ubiquity over the years, however, has been aided by a myriad of factors, including Vietnam's transition from capitalism to socialism. This change meant that far fewer apartment buildings were being constructed, and so households had to take matters into their own hands and build what they could.
I've also read that this building type may have something to do with the way properties were taxed based on their frontage rather than their site area, though I haven’t been able to find a reliable source for this. Whatever the case, the end result is exactly what we discussed in this recent post — The 9-Step Rule: Why Simple, Narrow Buildings Are Good for Cities
. Except with these frontages, it wouldn’t even take nine steps if the average building width is closer to 3–4 meters.
What is equally interesting about this housing type is that it represents a ground-up intervention (as opposed to the result of top-down urban design) and it is highly adaptable. It is not uncommon for additional floors to be added to these tube houses as needs change, and for the ground floors to serve as garages, living rooms, thriving commercial spaces, or as all three at once. It is an entirely flexible space that fuels entrepreneurship and allows households to make money.
Always interesting how the bottom floor of a Vietnamese tube home can be a garage/living room or family store, sometimes a combination of all three.
Just think about how much easier it would be to open your own shop if you already owned the space. Conversely, how many of these ground-floor businesses wouldn’t exist if only there were a single line in the zoning regulations that said: “Nah, sorry, you can’t start and operate your own business here.” That is what I often worry about when it comes to land-use policy: what human potential are we quashing as a result of our decisions?
With seemingly so much happening in the world these days -- everything from COVID to climate change -- it is perhaps easy to feel a little discouraged about the current state of affairs. But I am an optimist. And as I mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago, I haven't been this excited about the future of tech and the internet in a long time.
I believe in the resiliency of cities and, as I have been arguing on this blog all throughout COVID, I think the claims about the demise of our cities have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I think this pandemic has forced us rethink a lot of things about our urban environments, including how we allocate and use our public spaces (think patios). Some of these changes have been for the better and they're not going to go away.
I think the benefits of working in close proximity to others are too great to have everyone working remotely. Yes, we have learned that decentralization is possible. But there's an overwhelming amount of research telling us that we're all more innovative and productive when we cluster together in cities and in offices.
I have been back in the office almost 100% of the time since it has been possible to do that. And I am much happier and more productive as a result. There's also research suggesting that there are
It has been over a month and so it's probably time for another edition of project profile. In this edition we are going small and looking at yet another cool infill project built on top of an impossibly tight urban site. In this case, it's a 35 square meter corner lot in Hue, Vietman.
Designed by Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates (NKAA), the entire project is about 150 square meters and was built to house both a ground floor cafe (run by the owners) and a multi-generational family of 7.
According to the drawings, the second floor is for mom and dad and their two daughters. The third floor is for the grandparents and an uncle. And the fourth floor is a "sacred space" that includes a large outdoor terrace.
Of course, in order to house all of these functions and people on such a small site, you have to really think about interior space much differently. The "bedrooms" are probably not what you might be expecting.
To put the scale of this project into some sort of context, the footprint of this site is smaller than that of the laneway house that we are currently building. And in the case of the laneway house, it has been designed to house 1-2 people, instead of 7.
Space is, perhaps, all about perspective. I just wonder what would happen if all 7 family members tried to jump on a Zoom call at the same time.
. Except with these frontages, it wouldn’t even take nine steps if the average building width is closer to 3–4 meters.
What is equally interesting about this housing type is that it represents a ground-up intervention (as opposed to the result of top-down urban design) and it is highly adaptable. It is not uncommon for additional floors to be added to these tube houses as needs change, and for the ground floors to serve as garages, living rooms, thriving commercial spaces, or as all three at once. It is an entirely flexible space that fuels entrepreneurship and allows households to make money.
Always interesting how the bottom floor of a Vietnamese tube home can be a garage/living room or family store, sometimes a combination of all three.
Just think about how much easier it would be to open your own shop if you already owned the space. Conversely, how many of these ground-floor businesses wouldn’t exist if only there were a single line in the zoning regulations that said: “Nah, sorry, you can’t start and operate your own business here.” That is what I often worry about when it comes to land-use policy: what human potential are we quashing as a result of our decisions?
With seemingly so much happening in the world these days -- everything from COVID to climate change -- it is perhaps easy to feel a little discouraged about the current state of affairs. But I am an optimist. And as I mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago, I haven't been this excited about the future of tech and the internet in a long time.
I believe in the resiliency of cities and, as I have been arguing on this blog all throughout COVID, I think the claims about the demise of our cities have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I think this pandemic has forced us rethink a lot of things about our urban environments, including how we allocate and use our public spaces (think patios). Some of these changes have been for the better and they're not going to go away.
I think the benefits of working in close proximity to others are too great to have everyone working remotely. Yes, we have learned that decentralization is possible. But there's an overwhelming amount of research telling us that we're all more innovative and productive when we cluster together in cities and in offices.
I have been back in the office almost 100% of the time since it has been possible to do that. And I am much happier and more productive as a result. There's also research suggesting that there are
It has been over a month and so it's probably time for another edition of project profile. In this edition we are going small and looking at yet another cool infill project built on top of an impossibly tight urban site. In this case, it's a 35 square meter corner lot in Hue, Vietman.
Designed by Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates (NKAA), the entire project is about 150 square meters and was built to house both a ground floor cafe (run by the owners) and a multi-generational family of 7.
According to the drawings, the second floor is for mom and dad and their two daughters. The third floor is for the grandparents and an uncle. And the fourth floor is a "sacred space" that includes a large outdoor terrace.
Of course, in order to house all of these functions and people on such a small site, you have to really think about interior space much differently. The "bedrooms" are probably not what you might be expecting.
To put the scale of this project into some sort of context, the footprint of this site is smaller than that of the laneway house that we are currently building. And in the case of the laneway house, it has been designed to house 1-2 people, instead of 7.
Space is, perhaps, all about perspective. I just wonder what would happen if all 7 family members tried to jump on a Zoom call at the same time.
. It creates a break in our day, allows us to detach from our work, and gives us time to process stuff in our mind.
I think things like digital fashion and augmented reality are going to have profound impact on the way we consume things. You could also argue that there's a sustainability angle to more digital and less physical. And of course, I am excited about the transformations that I believe cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies will continue to bring to many different industries (if not most).
This morning I was reading a Financial Times article about cryptocurrencies in the developing world. It it perhaps no surprise that many of these countries are providing to be early adopters. People are leapfrogging over to cryptocurrencies because their existing currencies and financial systems aren't effective enough. That has lead to adoption and penetration that looks something like this according to FT:
There is, of course, many other things to be optimistic and excited about. But I'll leave that for the comment section below. What are you excited about these days?
. It creates a break in our day, allows us to detach from our work, and gives us time to process stuff in our mind.
I think things like digital fashion and augmented reality are going to have profound impact on the way we consume things. You could also argue that there's a sustainability angle to more digital and less physical. And of course, I am excited about the transformations that I believe cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies will continue to bring to many different industries (if not most).
This morning I was reading a Financial Times article about cryptocurrencies in the developing world. It it perhaps no surprise that many of these countries are providing to be early adopters. People are leapfrogging over to cryptocurrencies because their existing currencies and financial systems aren't effective enough. That has lead to adoption and penetration that looks something like this according to FT:
There is, of course, many other things to be optimistic and excited about. But I'll leave that for the comment section below. What are you excited about these days?
