Drawing on the image of sailing knots to create a premier cultural district in a waterfront area shaped by its boating culture, this massive, flowing shape connects two separate sites and three different venues: a museum, a theater and a performance hall.
This proposal for resort villas in Vietnam’s island paradise of Con Dao looks at the local building tradition to develop an architecture that is not only welcoming and sophisticated, but also deeply rooted into the tropical building tenets that evolved throughout the centuries. In support of this “tropical regionalism manifesto”, wooden elements are used to abolish textbook differences between interior and exterior spaces, allowing the guests to fully immerse into an authentic tropical living experience.
In a strong bid to create Sanya’s postcard culture and sightseeing district, NDA imagines a complex interplay between “anchor” and “magnet” programs. Acting as cultural “magnets”, “China Story Museum”, a “Tropical Design Center” and various “Themed Culture Clusters” attract and orchestrate visitor flows towards the main tourism anchors: “Sanya Arena” and “Window of Sanya” – set to become the city’s foremost sightseeing spot that no one can miss.
In order to create an affordable, yet unique travel experience for visitors of this island resort in Vietnam, NDA employs prefabricated room modules while designing small, but important variations in the balcony treatment. This creates different experiences for guests staying in different rooms, while at the same time generating a modern, pixelated canvas for the hotel’s façade.
Shaped like a giant sail, this iconic hotel is meant to become the premier landmark of Vietnam’s island paradise of Con Dao.
When asked to envisage a high-end condo development along the banks of a river in the world-famous resort city of Nha Trang, NDA looks for inspiration in the meandering profile of the waterway in order to expand the riparian ecosystem inside the plot itself. The curvaceous shapes of the buildings thus generated allow for the river’s landscape to penetrate deep inside the compound, while maximizing the owners’ views to the immediate waterscape and beyond: towards the estuary and the sea.
Envisaged at the pivotal center of an eco-friendly resort located in an area of staggering natural beauty – just a short boat ride from the World Heritage gem of Ha Long Bay – V Tower’s shape is modeled after the letter “V” in order to become a powerful symbol for the neighboring city of Van Don.. and for the entire Vietnam.
NDA wins second prize in this international competition to redevelop more than 300ha of outdated port infrastructure and its neighboring processing areas into a prime tourism gateway along the Maritime Silk Route.
The main feature of “Beihai Culture Pier” - envisaged to become the city’s foremost design & arts district – is Beihai’s most iconic waterfront observation deck. Aptly named “Beihai Wings”, it references the Chinese ideogram for “wings” – symbolically embodying the project’s ethos of judiciously sharing existing resources between tourists and residents in order to propel the city to the international tourism stage.
Faced with a program that required high built densities on an artificial island, NDA chooses to continue Vung Tau city’s centuries-old tradition of living in harmony with the ocean by creating a network of canals capable of consolidating the city’s premier ecologic waterfront community. The main commercial artery connects two secondary community centers with the tourism and entertainment district – an urban attraction pole where both tourists and residents can experience the latest trends in waterfront lifestyles.
After winning the competition to masterplan the entire water system area of China’s latest satellite city near the inland metropolis of Zhengzhou, NDA was tasked with designing all the water bus stations and facilities serving this innovative urban transportation system. In order to facilitate passengers’ orientation, the solution focuses on the strong symbolism of a sailboat’s mast to create instantly recognizable structures that can also become a powerful brand for the city’s tourism industry. At night, beacons of light are projected from the structural masts - orientating, attracting and inspiring tourists and denizens alike.
