Kind of Project:

Architecture, Hospitality

Location:

Hue, Vietnam

Site Area:

7,000 m2

GFA:

30,000 m2

Budget:

USD 40,000,000

Period:

2009

ICE Design Team:

Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger

Hugo Ma, Tim Mao Yiqing, Amy Wang

The project is located in the city center of Hue, a UNESCO world heritage site. As the inner areas of the city have to obey to a strict building code, which requires integration and harmony with the 'french colonial' character of the urbanized areas, we tried to create a dialogue between a contemporary formal language of architecture and the traditional crafting of techtonics by introducing a gradient pattern to the window sizes. The constraints for the window sizes lie in the program, where the lower floors are public an commercial areas with large windows which gradually shrink throughout the lower, standard floors to increase in the upper floors for maisonette suites.