Stepped Garden Beautifies Hoan House in Central Vietnam

Vo Trong Nghia from VTN Architects, Vietnam and Masaaki Iwamoto from ICADA, Tokyo collaborated on the design of House in Nha Trang, with the goal of providing inhabitants with as much outdoor area as feasible.

Nha Trang is a city in central Vietnam surrounded by stunning mountains and the sea. The customer desired a huge house with a large garden. In response to this request, a single roof is created as a hanging garden on which to put a variety of trees and plants.

The municipal construction regulation, on the other hand, demands that about half of the roof area be covered with grey or orange tilings and sloping. To comply with this restriction while maximizing the amount of green space on top, the roof is divided into parallel bands of greened roofs and tiled roofs that alternate in sequence.

This system of parallel bands structures the house's internal areas. The living, eating, and sleeping rooms are positioned under the tiled roof, while service areas such as restrooms, storage, and circulation spaces are located under the greened roof, where ceiling height is limited due to the deep soil layers for trees aloft.

Within the band system, a void and three patios are planned to provide natural lighting and ventilation.

The large single roof is departing the scale of private house. It is more like an infrastructure or a pocket park open to the neighbors. Gently sloped, this roof-landscape is visually connected to the surrounded mountains. In the shadow of trees, the residents can enjoy the views and spend their life with full of greenery.

The entry on the ground floor leads through to a large lobby.

In the shade of trees, inhabitants may enjoy the vistas and spend their days surrounded by vegetation.

There is also a tiny roof terrace that stretches over the driveway from the first-floor bedroom.

This property was made up of five concrete boxes, each of which was topped with plants and trees.

The house is one of the latest variations of the serial house project called ‘House for Trees’.

Ground floor plan

First floor plan

Roof Plan

Photograph by Hiroyuki Oki.