Milkbar | 2015
Location: Saigon, Vietnam
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We spend the last days of the year to tell you the story of this project, as a peaceful ending for a chain of rough days. Familk was a dream, fortunate enough to come true, and we are lucky enough to be a part of it.
I have always adored Dalat, this highland city holds more peaceful memory of my life than any other places. That was why when T. came and said that she would love to bring a highland house to Saigon, I was drawn to the vision of a rustic wooden house with a triangle roof, harmonizing with the wood and the sky.
Back in my childhood, I would take the book “Little house on the prairie” out to the patio, then sitting under the shadow of the tree reading slowly. I always fancied the way that those pioneer farmers manage to build up a home from wood, stone, clay, even with animal’s pelt and dwell in it throughout severe winters of a nineteenth-century in America. The story was such a vivid image that from time to time, I find myself dreaming about such a place: a wooden house with a stone fireplace, a lovely patio where lays a rocking chair, facing to the welcoming woods.
Milkbar is placed on a lovely yard, half full of sun ray, half in the cool shadow of an old tree. This perfect yard cost a half-year search. Six months before that, T came and expressed her wish of building a house on highland to provide milk and dairy products. Not a coffee shop but a small lovely house, the farmhouse kind. Also, our friend required to have a rope swing hung from the tree. I nodded at her, told her to keep looking for the suitable location, the rush was no needed, and she would have our promise to engage in the project. We were left with no other choice but to take it. How could we refuse such a lovely request, how could we ever going to find such a client in this hectic city ?
One fine day, my phone rang and it was T., she asked me to come and see the yard she fell in love with. I immediately realized how perfect this place would be for our house: the small yard with a tree, lying a little high above the street. We would build the wooden house on the other side and the rope swing, of course the rope swing could not be forgotten.
Familk owns a unique business model in Saigon. They provide clean, especially fresh milk, which is harvested from their own farm. At the beginning time of Milkbar construction, the productivity was approximately 60 liters a day. As the day came by, the productivity seemed to raise a little bit. The performance is quite humble comparing to the need of fresh milk of Saigon’s people, so if you visit in the late evening, the milk must be sold out. This also means that Milkbar team doesn’t aim to meet the huge quantity demand of customers with other unhealthy or unidentified sources of milk.
I always appreciate the people who work by their own standard of goodness and rightness, and constantly find ways to raise that standard instead of compromising. I appreciate those people who dream.
Living in a hectic city holding almost 10 million people, you have to be dreamy, or else you will never be able to bring a little house on highland back under the cool shadow of a tree, making it a place to provide fresh milk made from love. I bet few of us would ever be daring enough to dream of that, let alone actually build that dream. But somehow, they made it.
Seeing them dare to hold that magical ideas, we agreed to help out, just to become part of the dream.
Milkbar takes its form, sitting there: a wooden house resting under the tree, and as time elapses, the house become a tiny part of Saigon. A dream that reminds highland.
Thank you, Familk, for being brave enough to treasure one of the most beautiful, cozy dream in this city.
Thank you, Familk, for being brave enough to treasure one of the most beautiful, cozy dream in this city.
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| House on Tree design studio |
www.nhatrencay.com
