Kien A’s 22-storey office tower, Ho Chi Minh City (proposal)

SA Atelier has unveiled their proposal for a 22-storey office tower in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.The primary concept for the tower comes inspired by the surrounding area of the site: the context of villas. Hence the form of the tower is erected by heaping up a number of 3-4 storey blocks on together, pushing and twisting them so that they create a chain of green spaces vertically every 3-4 floors. The green spaces that form a kind of vertical gardens can be seen as a continuation of the lush vegetation found in the surrounding area.
The tower is designed with high respect to the area: its appearance works equally to all directions, creating a consistent view from the surrounding area toward its “vertical villas” with human-scaled blocks and vertical gardens. This relates the building to its context and helps it sit naturally in the city skyline.

“Vertical villas”: Identity out of simplicity and originality

Human-scaled and neighborhood-friendly approach
To add more respect to the area, the podium is designed to have 4 floors including the mezzanine floor and the entrance is not too high. This creates a human-scaled ambiance to the people accessing the building. Moreover, the podium, though intended for retail shops, is oriented to high-class boutique shops so that the appearance is not colorful but discreet. This spirit fits the building nicely in such an area.

Human-scaled podium levels and entrance.

Texture and pure technical elegance
The skin of the tower is inspired by a very common image in Vietnamese traditional houses: the bamboo screen. For centuries in Vietnam, bamboo screens or blinds are widely used to control the amount of sunlight penetrating into the house, or simply to provide shading to the spaces. The use of such screening as the outer skin of the building is not only technically pure, but also a subtle elegance to its simplicity. Whereas, in the podium, the texture of tree branches are transferred into the envelope.
The use of texture to create depth to facades and to provide sun screening is seen as contemporary expression in world architecture today. More fundamentally, it reflects the sensitivity of the building to its climate and its surrounding.

View at the main retail entrance, with zen water at the underground restaurant.

Double-skinned architecture (together with rooftop gardens) ensures sustainability by an energy-saving scheme.