Get the best of Domus straight to your inbox!

Saigon house

A long and narrow plot in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, gives a21studio the inspiration to built this single-family house composed by small volumes suspended on each other around a tree.

Designed by a21studio in Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam, for a family with seven children, the Saigon House references the former city of Saigon.

“Saigon has altered beyond recognition and, for us, it is hard to call it “development”: it is, actually, a sequence of destructions. A destruction of culture, architecture values and, above all, of our memories of Saigon.” Explain the architects.

Taking advantage of the long and narrow plot the architects chose to distribute the rooms into individual dwellings suspended above each other around a common courtyard where a single tree grows.

The design of the house, which establishes a dialogue between past and present, has been defined “by our love for Saigon’s alleys, which are romantic with their rain and sunshine”.