Architecture Asia Special Issue - ARCASIA Awards for Architecture 2020

The project site in Trai Lang Village in Co Dong Commune,
which is in the town of Son Tay, occupies 1.7 hectares and is
bordered by a lake on its southern and south-western periphery.
It has thirty-eight jackfruit trees and thirteen pomelo
trees, which are typically found in rural areas in northern
Vietnam.
The project combines two main areas: homestay accommodation
and a service area with a restaurant and bungalows
connected to the site’s central nucleus, a community house comprising
worship, community, and meditation spaces. Residential
units radiate out from the center, naturally benefiting from the
fruits of jackfruit and pomelo trees that provide shade for common
yards.
Given the topography, house platforms are elevated to avoid
termites and ground humidity and to ensure natural surface
drainage. Each building offers an enjoyable experience, maximizing
symbiosis with the local vegetation and topography.
This project uses local, environmentally friendly materials: adobe
bricks, large expanses of thatched roofing that create shade and
efficiently control solar radiation. Each building has its own biological
five-chamber septic tank and wastewater filtration system
placed at the end of the wind direction. The use of an agriculture
model combining a vegetable garden, fruit trees, and a fish
farm ensures daily provision of organic food products. Moreover,
households in Jackfruit Village cooperatively developed a service
area offering local cuisine, a swimming pool, and an artists’ bungalow,
thus improving their incomes and living standard. This
project aims to create a simple, peaceful, and friendly ambiance
for guests, evoking a new image of Vietnamese rural life, while
stabilizing and enhancing local people's lives rooted in inherited
and promoted local cultural values.
38