To fully know a city's architectural heritage, one must look beyond its designated sites and iconic buildings. For many, understanding a city's urban fabric and what makes it tick also means discovering the smaller-scale, locally appreciated, conserved buildings and popular gathering spaces. This is especially true when considering bustling Vietnamese cities, with their peculiar architectural characteristics, which can only be appreciated when learning about their many inspirations and historic layers, combining traditional Vietnamese motifs, modernism, local materiality, and climatic design solutions, but mostly by learning about the site constraints that are addressed through the implementation of the narrow tube houses and low-rise buildings.

These key styles and architectural movements are often maintained and even highlighted, as architects give a second life to many rundown or abandoned buildings, transforming them into popular coffee joints. They are reviving smaller heritage sites by pushing for their restoration and regular use by the community, encouraging visitors to acknowledge the historic relevance of the space, as they covet it. 

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There is not enough that can be said about the benefits of incorporating plants in interiors or Plantscaping. Integrating vegetation indoors serves many purposes, whether practical, aesthetic, or psychological. Although there are basic requirements for incorporating greenery into Homes, well-thought-out plant selections and placements are characteristically different across the world. By going over recent interior works, a few recurrent plantscaping design patterns arose, each reflective of distinctive climates, building styles, and traditional building techniques.

While the type of the chosen plants varies depending on favorable conditions for growth and local availability, the main distinctions are related to the direct environment and display method in which the vegetation is set, as well as its intended purpose. While plants are there to offer mental wellness to some, they are essential for cooling to others, or could even be meant for small-scale farming.

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Outdoor terraces occupy a familiar threshold in cities around the world, operating as social rooms that sit between interior space and open air to host rituals of daily life. People meet to share a drink, watch the street's movement, or pause before returning to their routines. These places serve as cultural settings as much as commercial ones, revealing how hospitality and public life intersect to shape the city's character.

Climate influences these spaces more directly than almost any other design force, shaping how terraces function and how people inhabit them. Sun, wind, rain, and humidity guide decisions about orientation, shading, openness, and material selection. Each terrace becomes a negotiated space between human comfort and environmental pressure, and this negotiation can be read in every enclosure, surface, and spatial boundary.

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In Vietnam, the tube house has almost become a vernacular form in densely populated cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This typology originated from ancient façade taxes and as a strategic response to urban land scarcity and optimization of street frontage for commerce. Their traditional structure typically relies on the front façade for daylight and ventilation. People living there often face the challenge of designing in a space defined by the deep plots, limited street frontage, and close neighboring buildings, restricting natural light and airflow. To counter this fundamental lack of perimeter exposure, Vietnamese architects usually employ several strategies oriented towards internal environmental manipulation. This curated collection explores tube houses under 100 m2, where their small size increased the need for absolute spatial economy and the verticalization of function, which directly influenced design decisions across all projects.

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Behind facades lie vibrant lives, where the exterior melds with the interior, transforming neglected urban spaces into captivating residences. In cities around the world, architects, engineers and designers face the challenge of integrating new buildings into existing urban landscapes with limited space. Many architects are now embracing this concept, expanding their designs beyond conventional boundaries and transforming small city lots into layered and interconnected living spaces.

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