TDX Ice Factory converts a 4,200 m² former ice works in central Ho Chi Minh City into a compound of showroom, offices, and event space. NU Architecture & Design retains the concrete frame. It works with the inherited industrial fabric, focusing on the entrance sequence, façade, exterior court, and support areas to establish a public realm calibrated to the city’s alley-to-courtyard spatial cadence.
TDX Ice Factory Technical Information
- Architects: NU Architecture & Design
- Location: Tran Dinh Xu Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Gross Area: 4,200 m2 | 45,208 Sq. Ft.
- Completion Year: 2024
- Photographs: © Do Sy
We kept the existing concrete frame and let second-life materials speak to craft and climate, shaping a porous courtyard compound from an industrial relic.
– Jonathan Ng Cheong Tin
Urban Context and Adaptive Reuse Framework
Set within a dense inner-city block, the project works with the grain of Ho Chi Minh City’s hẻm network. A compressed entry along the alley draws visitors into the site. It releases them into a larger compound, allowing the architecture to negotiate between the city’s fine-grained circulation and the scale of the industrial shed. The scope concentrates on public-facing components, including a new gateway, façade refinements, an exterior event court, and service elements that support exhibition and workplace functions.
Rather than replacing the building, the design retains the concrete frame as the primary armature. This decision conserves embodied energy, minimizes demolition, and provides a robust scaffold for calibrated insertions. New programs attach to and weave through the existing structure, preserving the legibility of the industrial volume while reorienting circulation and sightlines around a courtyard logic suited to contemporary use.
Material Reuse and Craft-Based Detailing
Material economy is handled as an architectural driver. Salvaged hardwoods, stored for more than a decade from an earlier workshop, return as beams, wall linings, and lighting components. Their patina and grain record prior use, and the detailing foregrounds joinery rather than surface effects. These elements are not applied finishes but working parts of the building’s spatial and environmental system.
Locally available, minimally processed materials extend this approach. Bamboo, burlap, and natural stone are selected for tactile performance and resilience in humid conditions. Bamboo drapes and screens filter light and air, burlap membranes temper glare while maintaining porosity, and stone provides durable contact surfaces. A restrained dark charcoal finish unifies disparate inherited volumes into a coherent ensemble, yet the industrial shell remains legible through texture, proportion, and the visible rhythm of the concrete frame.
Spatial Sequencing and Climatic Mediation
The organization adopts a courtyard-based diagram that binds the showroom, event, and office zones while enabling cross ventilation. The court becomes the primary distributor, allowing multiple entries and views across programs and making the building read as a series of shaded layers rather than a sealed object. This open middle ground establishes a public realm within the compound, suitable for display, gathering, and informal work.
Layered thresholds calibrate climate and privacy. Deep overhangs limit direct solar gain; bamboo ceiling drapes slow air, modulate acoustics, and cast patterned shade; burlap screens provide a breathable veil between exterior and interior. These devices yield adjustable microclimates that accommodate events and exhibitions without heavy reliance on mechanical conditioning, and they allow the industrial traces of the site to remain visible within a new spatial order.
Sustainability as Continuity of Structure and Use
The environmental strategy begins with what already exists. Preserving the concrete frame and repurposing stored timbers curtails material extraction and transport while reducing construction waste. The project avoids treating surfaces as ornament; components are sized and placed to carry structural, climatic, or programmatic duties, which anchors durability in the logic of assembly rather than in applied finishes.
Passive measures are embedded in the spatial system. The courtyard promotes cross-ventilation, and the combination of shading membranes, deep eaves, and permeable partitions limits heat gain and glare. Robust materials at touch points and reversible insertions at the envelope anticipate maintenance and future adaptation, aligning longevity with construction economy and enabling the compound to accommodate changing patterns of work and public use.
About NU Architecture & Design
Founded in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2020, NU Architecture & Design is a design studio focused on culturally grounded, craft-oriented architecture. Known for adapting existing structures and working closely with local materials, the practice emphasizes sustainability through reuse, contextual sensitivity, and refined detail that bridges the industrial and the artisanal.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: District Eight
