项目位于越南AnGiang省ChauDoc市，该公寓居住者为同族的三户小家庭。由于项目受到资金的限制，设计中不得不采用薄波纹金属板作为建造材料。尽管如此，设计师仍旧努力在满足当地建造标准的前提下，尽量将阳光，绿植，自然通风等健康富足的生活元素引入住宅中，打造出一栋半室外的花园居住环境。

Located in a suburb of ChauDoc town in AnGiang province, Southern Vietnam, this house is a sharing residence of 3 nuclear families who are kin. Although this project budget was tightened with local standards, which only allowed us to build a house with thin corrugated metal panels, we have tried to satisfy not only the regional spirits but also the rich lifestyle in which is fulfilled by sunlight, greenery and natural ventilation, as it were, living in a half-outdoor gardens.

▼在入口的休息角落，你可以看到屋内的植被，behind the small sitting corner at the entrance can see the inside plantings and backside trees  ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

ChauDoc坐落于柬埔寨边界，距离胡志明市有7小时的车程，整座城镇依赖于湄公河的支流而生存。游荡在城镇社区，你可以清晰的辨认出这里独特的层次化地域环境。第一层你可以辨认出的是一片河上小屋；第二层是河岸两端的堤坝道路，也是当地人出行的主要道路；第三层形成于许多分散的小桥延伸到道路上的私人小屋，最后一层是美丽的稻田，直达我们视线的尽头。

Around 7 hours travelling from HoChiMinh city by long-distance bus and ferry, ChauDoc, a border town closed to Cambodian boundary, has been developed along a branch of Mekong River. Wandering around the neighboring site, what we could easily recognize is the several layers of the regional environment. The first layer is depicted by hundreds of floating houses on the river, and secondly, there are embanked roads along two sides of the river banks which turn into the main traffic for the local society, while the third layer is scattered with a plenty of pilotis houses extended from the roads by private small bridges, and the last one is painted in green by beautiful rice-field as far as our eyes could reach.

▼当地环境，situation

▼场地图，site plan

通常来说，当地小屋大多由石头和混凝土柱子支撑底层，搭在上层的木质框架由褶皱的金属板围合。底层柱子的高度仅能用来防御河水上涨，木质住宅框架仅能满足日常生活所需要的空间，在这样的空间里，居住者能更直观的感受到人的尺度，以及当地居住环境所带给人的平和感。越接近当地的真实生活，设计师就越能体会到当地居民所面临的严峻的自然环境。每年有四到五个月的雨季，除了通向住宅的小路，整个小镇都淹没在水中。而这一切最近才在新建成的河岸堤坝项目中得到缓解。每一个到访这里的人都惊讶并赞叹于当地居民的智慧，他们与养育自己的母亲河在如此糟糕的环境中共存至今。

Generally, pilotis houses in this area are mostly composed of stone or concrete columns on the ground and floating timber frames wrapped by thin corrugated metal panels. Due to the height limitation of the column which only can lift the house over flood water and also due to the minimum dimensions of timber frames for the local daily floor-sitting lifestyle, we could feel about the human-scaled and gentle impression from these local houses. And the more deeply we approached into their living context, the better we could understand about the harsh natural environment that they have to cope with, when all the grounds except the embanked roads used to be under the water during 4-5 months in the rainy season annually till they have completed the concrete embankments very recently. Anyone who visit this area could recognize the scent of their intelligence about how to co-exist with the large-scaled Mother Nature for such a long time.

▼建筑立面尽量归隐于周围环境，the backside façade, which we aimed not to outstand from surrounding environment ©nishizawaarchitects photos / ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

另一方面，让设计师感到惊讶和啼笑皆非的是，自从当地人有效控制了洪水，解决了日常不便之后，他们的生活反而开始变得毫无组织，漫无目的。他们开始在水涨期间不曾用过的底层空间堆放各种垃圾及家禽家畜的排泄物。这无疑将给他们的生活带来极大的危害，因为他们的住宅小，开窗少，通风条件也不良好。虽然他们曾遭遇洪水侵袭，但洪水可以冲刷掉他们的排泄物，并在涨水期间降低室内温度。

On the other hand, ironically, we have found that their daily-life has become unstable and un-organized especially after the recent drastic changes when they compulsivelysubjects floods which had given a lot of inconveniences to them. An apparent evidence is that almost all the inhabitants have abandoned their ground level with their no-use garbage or excreta from their domestic animals such as pigs, gooses and chickens. This fact could drive their living environment into bad condition since those houses have too low ceilings without insulations and too small windows for ventilations. Formerly, flood in the rainy-season would wash away all excreta accumulated in the dry-season, and the covering water would be helpful to lower the surrounding temperature as well.

▼立面由褶皱金属板铺面既省钱又迎合了周围环境，the façade is wrapped by thin corrugated metal, which contributes not only to save the construction cost but also to blend with surrounding houses. ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

基于上述种种因素，设计师希望尽可能遵循当地建造传统，并采用当地建造材料和建造原则，并采取以下三点措施：

1.将序数屋顶改为蝶形屋顶来与周围环境相通，并同时用三块不同高度的蝶形屋顶覆盖整个住宅场地。 2.将选装窗户依次悬挂在整个立面开口上来接受充足的日光和自然风。 3.用隔墙代替内部实墙来打造连续的空间环境。

Based on these conditions mentioned above, what we aimed is to adopt regional customs such as local materials, carpenters’ techniques and their construction methods as much as possible except 3 new architectural intentions below.

1. To invert the roof shape from ordinal-roof into butterfly-roof in order to open the interior space to surrounding environment, and then cover all the site by 3 butterfly-roofs in different heights.2. To hang up rotating metal windows from end to end at the big openings between each roofs and façades to adjust the amount of sunlight and natural wind.3. To replace all the internal solid walls into movable partitions to create one big continuous space.

▼木质框架围合的私人空间于地面抬高架在混凝土柱子上并，形成公共生活空间，private spaces made by timber frames are floating on the concrete columns which are raised up from the ground – the Public living space. ©nishizawaarchitects photos

©Hiroyuki Oki photos

▼尽管没有实墙围合，木质框架仍能创造舒适私人空间，timber frames help to give somehow relaxed and safe ambience to private spaces, even though they don’t have a surrounding solid walls. ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

©nishizawaarchitects photos

©Hiroyuki Oki photos

▼褶皱金属版旋转窗面帮助围合厨房空间，thin corrugated metal is adopted to the rotating windows, kitchen furniture as well as the neighbor’s exterior walls. ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

©nishizawaarchitects photos

▼打开旋转窗户便能一览室内外风光，the surrounding environment flows into the interior space, when we open the rotating metal windows  ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

▼通过调节旋转窗户控制室内光照及温度，the rotating metal windows soften the tropical harsh climate by adjusting the amount of sunlight and natural wind. ©Hiroyuki Oki photos

©nishizawaarchitects photos

▼ 旋转金属窗户帮助抵挡户外直射光线，rotating metal windows help to bring subtle and indirect sunlight into the house.©nishizawaarchitects photos

以上三点建造原则打造出充满阳光，自然风，水，土及绿植的当代半室外居住空间。此外，这种方式也帮助设计师维持传统建造形式，打造混凝土基底，木质框架和人居尺度的当地住宅。而建筑外貌的设计也帮助与周围环境相统一，同时又展现其现代化的独特之处。如今在越南，城市及无定式住宅风格开始席卷乡村地区并影响当地的文化，景观和传统生活方式。（事实上五层公寓建筑正在该项目相邻的地方建造）。这对于越南建筑设计师来说是一项全新的挑战，他们需要提出通过继承文化来找到符合当代的生活方式，而不是淡化他们的区域精神。

These 3 architectural principles are clearly intended to realize a half-outdoor and contemporary spaces with full of natural elements such as sunlight, wind, water, soil and plantings. However, at the same time, it is also an important theme for us to preserve the regional customs and spirits inside the house which can be listed as floor-sitting lifestyle, human-scaled dimensions and floating timber frames on the concrete columns. This theme is also consistent with its exterior design, which is to blend with the surrounding environment but to outstand by modern design languages. Nowadays in Vietnam, urban and stateless housing style starts spreading even into the rural areas and changing their unique cultures, landscapes and lifestyles of their own regions. (In fact, 5 story building is under construction on the adjacent plot). It would be one of emergent subjects for us, Vietnamese architects, to propose alternative and contemporary way of living by inheriting their cultures, not by fading out their regional spirits.

▼平面图，plan

▼剖面图，section

▼结构分析，structure

Region: Asia

Project name: House in Chau Doc

Architects: NISHIZAWAARCHITECTS

Completion year: 2017

Location: Chau Doc – An Giang province – Viet Nam

Budget: $60.000

Floor area: 340sqm

Photographer: Hiroyuki Oki, NISHIZAWAARCHITECTS

Architects in charge: Shunri Nishizawa, Nguyen Do Hong Quan, Luong Thanh Tung

Contractor: Local carpenters

Manufacturers / Products: American Standard, Toto, Philips

English text: NISHIZAWAARCHITECTS