V4 House is a rural residence in Nghi Loc that reframes northern Vietnamese domestic archetypes through a contemporary geometric order. An elliptical canopy organizes living around four cardinal stone walls, while a front garage and rear triangular pool calibrate approach, quiet, and retreat. Deep continuous eaves, planted ground, and a walkable roof garden establish a climate-responsive precinct where daily life is closely tied to vegetation, sky, and seasonal change.
V4 House Technical Information
- Architects: TNT Architecture
- Location: Nghi Loc, Nghe An, Vietnam
- Gross Area: 900 m2 | 9,688 Sq. Ft.
- Completion Year: 2017
- Photographs: © Trieu Chien
V4 House pursues an old man – new coat spirit: a home for a return to nature and a place where people connect together.
– Bùi Quang Tiến
Cultural Continuity and Rural Setting
The project translates northern Vietnamese vernacular into a precise contemporary grammar. Deep eaves, clear cardinal orientation, and open thresholds are retained as operative devices rather than stylistic motifs. The result is a house that acknowledges the social life of the veranda, the primacy of shade, and the need for filtered boundaries between dwelling and climate.
Described as an old man-new coat approach, the design retains customary rituals while recasting them in a new tectonic language. Familiar behaviors such as sitting under the eaves, moving along the shaded perimeter, or orienting daily tasks by sun and wind are supported without literal replication of historic forms. The architecture reads as current, yet it is legible to local patterns of occupation.
The generous suburban plot is treated as a living field rather than leftover space around a building. Planting, sky views, and shifting shade conditions are intentionally foregrounded to counter the sealed routines of urban life. The house privileges outdoor transition and seasonal variation, using the site to embed daily practice within a broader rural ecology.
Spatial Organization: Elliptical Core with Auxiliary Volumes
An elliptical primary volume acts as a unifying canopy for collective life. Four thick stone walls aligned to the cardinal points subdivide this figure, establishing a robust hierarchy between public and private zones. The clarity of the walls provides a stable datum, while the curved perimeter allows eddy motion along shaded edges without abrupt terminations.
Two detached satellites calibrate the precinct. A rectangular garage to the street buffers noise and frames the entry approach, while a triangular pool at the rear consolidates water and leisure uses away from the main rooms. Separation maintains acoustic and atmospheric calm in the ellipse and clarifies a sequence from arrival to the garden without internal corridors.
Ground plane continuity binds the three bodies. Open soil, grass, and low plantings stitch across the gaps, turning interstitial space into intentional routes and outlooks. The project favors outdoor circulation that is shaded and visually porous, enabling long cross-views and reinforcing the primacy of the canopy rather than hallway-centered movement.
Thresholds, Light, and Time
A continuous eave wraps the ellipse, recasting the veranda as an inhabited climatic threshold. This shaded band mitigates glare, captures breezes, and accommodates daily activities that do not require an enclosed space. Doors and openings set back beneath the overhang blur the distinction between interior and exterior, allowing rooms to expand into the penumbra of the roofline.
The overhang reads time. As the sun tracks, the moving shadow line marks orientation and diurnal change across floors and walls, turning solar geometry into a lived register. Occupants track morning depth, noon contraction, and evening extension of shade, making environmental cycles legible in ordinary use rather than as an abstract performance claim.
Porous edges improve passive comfort. Shaded perimeters temper heat gain, while cross ventilation is strengthened by the ellipse’s open chords and the spacing between volumes. The eaves also protect openings during rainfall, extending the usability of the thresholds and reducing the need for mechanical mediation.
Landscape as Living Infrastructure
The elliptical roof is treated as an accessible planted plane that extends the domestic field upward. This elevated garden supports stargazing, seasonal gatherings, and slow horticulture, transforming the roof from a static cover into a social and ecological surface. Its presence multiplies vantage points and increases the contact area between dwelling and climate.
Within the main space, a monolithic stone anchors shared life. Positioned as a tactile and symbolic focus, it draws attention and adds weight to the otherwise airier canopy. Around and between the volumes, freely growing fruit trees knit the ensemble and register temporal change through blossom, fruiting, and leaf drop.
Water and vegetation are used as restorative infrastructure rather than afterthoughts. The triangular pool structures the rear garden and offers thermal relief, while site planting tempers the microclimate and softens transitions between built edges and open ground. Together, they consolidate a gradient from enclosure to landscape, reinforcing the house’s reliance on living systems to organize space and comfort.
About TNT Architecture
TNT Architecture is an architectural studio based in Viet Nam, founded by principal architect Bùi Quang Tiến. The firm is known for its thoughtful integration of traditional Vietnamese spatial values with contemporary architectural strategies. Emphasizing connections to nature, climate-responsive design, and the cultural life of dwelling, TNT Architecture seeks to reinterpret vernacular forms through modern geometries and materials, creating spaces that are both rooted and forward-thinking.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Private
- Construction company: Nguyen Ngoc Huyen, Nguyen Thai Thao
