Low-impact greenfield university campus

A new campus for an architectural university in the middle of the Mekong River delta aspires to achieve harmony with all elements of the surrounding ecosystem: the waters of the river and the flooding of the rice fields, the mangroves, the winds and their patterns as well as with the seasonal changes of light and shadow. The project avoids massive reclamation of land. It so also emulates traditions of Southeast Asian agricultural civilization.

The Global Holcim Awards Silver with USD 200,000 in prize money was awarded to a new campus for the University of Architecture in Ho Chi Minh City, designed by architect Kazuhiro Kojima (Japan). Further contributors to the project were Daisuke Sanuki (Japan) and Trong Nghia Vo (Vietnam). The project avoids massive land reclamation on an island in the Mekong Delta and aims for harmony with all elements of the surrounding ecosystem: flooding rice fields, mangroves, winds and seasonal changes.

Electricity consumption is cleverly reduced through the inclusion of solar lighting and extensive use of photo-voltaic cells to meet energy requirements. Natural ventilation and solar shading mean that most locations on campus will need no air conditioning, and rainwater is harvested for gray water use and cooling through vaporization. A time-honored local construction method – brick-filled concrete frames finished with a façade of porous bamboo or mangrove timber – is used to enhance ventilation.

Intriguing with its intertwined shapes, the project received the Holcim Awards Silver 2008 Asia Pacific, and now convinced the global jury: “The gently bended ovals characterize the layout of the buildings – their intersections create a diversity of large halls and small rooms. This allows the university to organically configure itself along changing ideas and needs to come”, explained the jury report.

The Holcim Awards Silver was presented to a project to build a new 40ha university campus in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam designed by Japanese architect Kazuhiro Kojima. The campus design proposal blends with its natural environment and uses prevalent winds for natural ventilation of buildings and open circulation areas to reduce air-conditioning use. The striking design strategy creates a robust system that is adaptable to the changing needs of the university community.

The crucial starting point of this new campus situated on an island in the Mekong Delta was the question of how space and education could coexist and how connectivity and separation between the different university departments could be realized. Further challenges were the seasonal climatic variation with high temperatures, strong winds and heavy rainfalls as well as the large variation of the surrounding sea level.

In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, a new Low-impact greenfield university campus is being built. The project acknowledges the needs of both people and the environment. The design of this unique complex was informed by computer analyses of wind and activity flows. Rather than an imposing structure, the architecture merges seamlessly with the landscape.