This tricycle designed for children by Vietnamese firm a21studio has been crafted from bamboo and finished with ropes.
a21studio used bamboo to form the frame because it is a versatile, solid, and sustainable material abundantly available in Vietnam.
The tricycle has been locked together with bolts that are also fashioned from bamboo, which have then been covered by rope. It has not been exposed to chemical treatments so will weather and decay over time.
The rope securing the bamboo bolts can be loosened, encouraging children to modify or re-design the tricycle.
“By designing this bike with materials, which can be easily found everywhere, we hope not only to bring true happiness to children but also remind us about our childhood,” say the designers.
The tricycle is a long story attached to each child’s memories. It is interesting to see village children playing with bamboo bikes. The simplicity of the vehicles and happiness of children are the inspirations of this design.
Made by bamboo with wooden wheels, which are popular materials in Vietnam, the tricycle is threated with care in every detail without any chemical treatments. The bike may be decayed with time but the kids will learn showing consideration for its nature. Moreover, all the parts are linked by bamboo bolts and then covered by ropes so that kids would be excited to assemble and repair the bikes themselves or modify the design to their needs.
By designing this bike with materials, which can be easily found everywhere, we hope to not only bring true happiness to children but also remind us about our childhood.
Nine stone cabins are sheltered beneath a single thatched roof in this addition to a hotel resort in Nha Trang, Vietnam, by architecture practice a21studio (+ slideshow).
The buildings nestle into the rugged landscape of the I-Resort, forming an uneven row that wraps around a pair of staggered outdoor swimming pools and also includes a small bar and restaurant.
The architects at a21studio used indigenous techniques to construct the cabins, helped by a team of local masons and carpenters. Walls are built from locally quarried stone, while the roofing is made from timber and coconut leaves.
“The wooden roofs are constructed in a traditional way with mortise and tenon joint techniques,” explain the architects. “These joints are easy to assemble and the connections are very strong, neat and hard to wobble.”
The layout of each cabin is the same; a living room occupies one side of the space, while a toilet and washroom are tucked away at the back and a small paddling pool sits at the front.
Patterned tiles add a mixture of colours to the interior walls and floors. Windows are circular and entrances are positioned along the sides.
The bar and restaurant also shelters beneath the thatched roof and is positioned at the centre of the plan. This space is filled with reclaimed furniture and features a wall covered in old doors.
9 spa is a set of nine hotel houses with spas, mud and mineral baths together with a small bar and restaurant, located in the centre of the group. The buildings are perched in the folds of halfway terrace up to a rock mountain and looking down to the service area, which has run business from two years ago. On this side, the project is received a lot of rain but lacked of wind from the river.
Using indigenous building techniques and materials, and adopting local custom as the key to managing the project, both architecturally and otherwise, 80 village masons, carpenters and craft persons were enlisted to build the hotel in a period of 9 months. The project was designed as a combination of dry-stacked stone with wood structure, quarried right on the site. All other materials such as coconut leaves and used furniture are used on the same manner.
The houses are set up in different specific angles and placed separately by a distance to let rain water go down easily from the top of mountain. The spaces between the blocks make an entrance lobby for each house. Moreover, it helps to increase ventilation for the whole area. The wooden roofs are constructed in a traditional way with mortise and tenon joint techniques. These joints are easy to assemble and the connections are very strong, neat, and hard to be wobbled. Unlike old buildings, in which these techniques are adopted popular, 9 spa is structured with lighter and lissom looks. Above this wooden structure, the roof is divided into 3 layers, including 20 mm thick wood panels, which gives an aesthetic look to ceiling and links all beams together, water proof and 30 mm coconut leaves, respectively. Besides, the project also makes use of old furniture from nearby buildings such as doors, tables and chairs or patterned tiles, give the buildings a distinctive look, the beauty or serenity of old items that comes with age.
The bar, with less than a dozen seats and the wooden floor, faced out to a garden looking to public resort, which makes the hotel hideaway from eventful area downhill. The level of restaurant floor was above from the ground, thereby linking the outside space to the interior and offering a new viewpoint to the customers, while not touching to existing nature. On the other words, by any means necessary, nature is treated as the core value to the whole building, that its beauty can be contemplated at every corner of the project. That could be a row of mountain far away through a rounded window or a garden view is enframed as a picture by unusual opens. In conclusion, a group of nine hotel houses are linked by a continuous wooden roof, reflecting its surrounding environment and landscape. By using local materials as rock and wood together with adopting old furniture, 9 spa gives an extraordinary value to the existing project.
Client: I-resort Location: Nha Trang, Vietnam Project area: 1080 sqm Building area: 450 sqm Materials: rock, wood, coconut leaf, used furniture and tiles Completed: 2013
Climbing plants and vines shoot up over a gridded facade of metal beams and panels at this house in Binh Duong Province by Vietnamese architects a21studio (+ slideshow).
Constructed on a limited budget, the house was designed to both “look green” and fit in with its neighbours. The architects at a21studio used steel beams to construct a basic framework, then clad the exterior with lightweight mesh and corrugated panels, and encouraged plants to grow up around it.
A see-through outer facade functions as a boundary fence. Beyond it, the house has no walls on the front or rear of its ground floor, revealing a simple living room and kitchen with a small garden beyond.
Colourful ceramic tiles cover every inch of the floor and also extend out beyond the shelter of the roof. A kitchen counter runs longways through the room and more tiles clad its sides and surfaces.
A staircase leading up to the two first-floor bedrooms is made from a single sheet of folded metal and uses reinforcing rods as a banister.
To furnish the house, the architects used reclaimed items that include a set of wooden chairs.
“By making the most of abandoned items and using spaces cleverly, people can easily have a comfortable house that is fulfilled by nature and flexible for future needs,” say the architects.
The house is designed for a middle-aged newsman who has been working in years for Vietnam architectural magazines. The site is located at the outskirt of a new city in being urbanism with a variety of housing architecture styles in its surrounding. Therefore, both the architect and client came up with the idea that the new house should be looked green, but not compromise to its comfortable and specially should not much differentiated to next-door neighbours.
Within his constraint budget, a light structure as steel and metal sheets is applied instead of bricks and concrete as usual. Moreover, unused furniture, abandoned but still in good condition, is considered as an appropriate solution for most parts of the house which not only reduces construction cost but also gives the house a distinctive look, the beauty or serenity of old items that comes with age.
Without any doubt, using steel structure not only makes the foundation lighter, but also helps shorten the construction period than normal, and saving cost as well. The house-frame is made by 90×90 steel columns and 30×30 steel beams connecting to metal sheets, then covered or filled in between by plants, so from a distance look, the house is like a green box. Among these “cool-metal” bars, the nature is defined itself.
Typically, the house is structured into two vertical parts; two private bedrooms on the upper floor, while kitchen and living room on the ground floor and opened to nature without any door or window. This makes the bounder between inside and outside becomes blurry. Besides, by diminishing living space to just sufficiently fitted and leaves the rest intended uncontrolled, the architect attempts to convey the sense that the natural environment outside is larger and closer, as at any views from the house, the trees can be observed with its full beauty. In the other words, the trees are used as the building’s walls, and the house would provide a variety of links between trees and people.
Finally, the idea of the house, above the organisation of spaces and flexibility uses of structure, is about a general housing concept for low cost construction, which has been attracted the attention in Vietnam society. By making the most of abandoned items and using enough spaces for living cleverly, people can easily have a comfortable house fulfilled by nature and flexible for any future needs with a limited fund.
Client: Tho Location: Thuận An city, Bình Dương province, Vietnam Project area: 100 sqm Building area: 40 sqm Materials: Steel bar, metal sheets Completed: 2013
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