Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Nguyen Hoang Manh and his design team at MIA Design Studio together with LLA have designed a romantic and evocative venue fabricated from wood, metal, and straw for Ashui.com as a special place for architectural events in Ho Chi Minh City.
When one first enters the site, one immediately feels the presence of nature of various plants and greenery and the need starts to assert something special throughout a design.
The architects decided to create a structure that can blend itself into its surrounding environment with the special features that mix the lightness, the hiding, and the penetration.
The result is an organic structure just like a straw sitting the garden.
Straw is an image of memory—one that belongs to the Vietnamese countryside.
Once the architect attaches a consciousness to arouse memories, it touches the heart of the people who see it.
Straw is an also entity that is able to completely blend itself into the natural context.
By not parading around shapes as well as materials, the design hopes to appear and disappear with time slightly and with no direct interaction to the garden itself.
In the most perspicuous way, this is a structure that does not damage the existing senses of the place, but blends in smoothly.
“Every garden has its own character and presence. This presence cannot be felt through images but only through experience. We want to approach design as a way to preserve and enhance what is present. Adding layers of characters and sensations without altering the true essence of the site,” state the architects.
MIA Design Studio ‘The Straw’
Project: The Straw
Architects: MIA Design Studio
Design Team: Nguyen Hoang Manh, Truong Nguyen Quoc Trung, and Le Thanh Thuong
Landscape Architects: LAA (Landscape Architecture Association)
Client: Organization Committee: Ashui.com
Photographers: Trieu Chien
