VTN Architects design island getaway in Vietnamese archipelago

Cat Ba Archipelago, Vietnam

The following description is courtesy of VTN Architects.

Castaway Island Resort is located in a tiny beautiful island in Cat Ba Archipelago, a well-known tourist destination in Vietnam. It can accommodate up to 160 guests, mainly international tourists. The site is only accessible by boat, which takes about 2hours from Hai Phong port. The resort’s aim is to provide a memorable stay at the island which is surrounded by tropical nature.

In a private beach of 3,000 m2, engulfed on one side by a beautiful mountain range and on the other by an expansive shore of white sand, the resort consists of five huts, a restaurant, and a pavilion, which are designed to immerse the guests in nature. For the project, we use bamboo, an environmental-friendly material that can integrate in and be easily removed afterward without affecting the natural beautiful gulf at the site where the project is built. The resort sits gently on the white-sand shore, caressing the nature and being a natural part of it. The bamboo structure is covered with a thatched roof, offering authentic Vietnamese cultural experience as well as reducing environmental impact. The thin bamboo (Tam Vong), measured only 40-50 mm in diameter, are assembled by bamboo dowel nail and then tightened by rope. The bamboo is treated with a natural traditional method developed at a Vietnamese craft village, which involves soaking the bamboo in mud and smoking afterward.

Next, the restaurant features a hyperbolic-parabolic shell structure, which forms a semi-outdoor space for social gathering and interaction. Each of the 13 bamboo shell units is composed of 80 straight bamboos, creating a wavy ceiling and rhythmical roof landscape.

For accommodation, five huts are built by bamboo frame modules which offer cozy bed space for each guest. These frames are assembled on the ground to shorten construction period and improve workmanship. Recycled timber shutters which are typically used in traditional Vietnamese colonial villas form the huts façade.

These bamboo structures not only enhance guests experience on the island but also become a landmark of this popular tourist destination, where many boats cruise through the Cat Ba Archipelago. Despite the construction of the project, the site is left intact, the nature preserved thanks to using such an environmental-friendly bamboo structure. This is this environmentally-conscious aspect that we want to approach for this project.

Project Details

Architect Firm: VTN Architects (Vo Trong Nghia Architects)

Principal Architects: Vo Trong Nghia, Takashi Niwa

Design team: Nguyen Duc Trung, Nguyen Minh Khuong, Koji Yamamoto

Status: 01.01.2019

Program: Resort

Location: Lan Ha gulf, Cat Ba, Hai Phong, Vietnam

Client: Tung Long trade Joint Stock Company

GFA: 1,100m2

Bamboo Construction: VTN Architects (Vo Trong Nghia Architects)

Photos: Hiroyuki Oki