Not very far from the project WesT, this complex of housing and services happened on the riverside close to the administrative center of Hanoi city, Vietnam. The area of Red river, the biggest river in Vietnam, is the fertile land for agriculture with its rich alluvium but simultaneously dangerous because of spontaneous rising of water level. Clearly on the aerial map, the artery draws the boundary where urban region starts and where development is forbidden. Hanoi is getting more crowded every years that brings to us the consciousness about sprawling or developing in between urban vacancy. Accept the challenge, digging to find a solution for this kind of area, the project Red complex was designed as the interaction between the dike and the rising water issue. The dyke where vehicles are moving on top of it every day is considered as the urbanism performance and the building complex would play a role as the audience who should no more reject the importance of urbanized infrastructure and be positive about it. This proposal tends to raise its whole hierarchies of housing and other facilities up on top of two stories of basement which contains solely indoor parking. This is also solution for the rising water problem because when water level starts getting higher, all the vehicles inside could be easily evacuated and leave this basement empty.

The vertically high rise buildings are used to be criticized as the machine killing social life and the basis was the lack of spontaneous contacts which would generate adequate safety and liveliness. Following this discourse, the project was developed in a different way that change the hierarchy and the orientation compared to conventional tenement, that makes It face some obstacles about vertical transportation and inner infrastructure but eventually still begins a new way to develop a vertical housing development while keeping necessary mingling of spontaneous social contact. Continuing tendency of generating a common neighborhood in form of vertical tenement, almost apartments (except studio apartment) are planned with two stories and assembled into a block. where all bedrooms of every units are gathered into one floor and leave other kind of dynamic activities into other floor. This alternate arrangement leaves one free from movement in every couple of floors, resolve problem of natural ventilation in general tenement and still ensure necessary privacy.

Employing the idea of semi public space (Jane Gehl, 1936), every apartments is equipped with a small green yard apting to the main fluid of movement which is refered as terraces here. This small yard gives chance for residents to participate in the street but still feel safe because of its proximity with their private apartment. This social participation is pushed a bit more by the idea of sharing garden where people can spend their little spare time to take care of their own small garden in a place that all other’s gardens are gathered. This garden give people reason to meet and therefore strengthen the social knot. Translating from ground level to top level, from outdoor to indoor, this project puts serving its residents to top priority by inserting those activities vertically and also horizontally among its housing part. Again, Changed hierarchy and orientation were the key for this development.

The building itself and the ground are the continuity of a single piece of landscape combining works of infrastructure, architecture and landscape desinging. This project replicates the image of terrace field which is artificial but considered as the part of natural landscape and became very popular on the mountain in some region of Vietnam. This hybridized form brought to this project opportunity to multiply the useful surfaces and transfer them into morphological arrangement which allow people to truly see each other and bond their social network.

Title: Red Complex
Catalogue: Academic project - Architectural design
Institution: Hanoi Architectural University (HAU, Hanoi, Vietnam)
Evaluation: 9/10 (by professors)
Function: Housing
Project area: 83000 m2
Project year: 2012