Vietnamese architect wins ’green’ design awards

Hanoi, May 11 (VNA) – Noted HCM City-based architect Vo Trong Nghia recently won six prizes at the Green Good Design Awards 2016 held in the United States. His award-winning works are Naman Hay Hay Restaurant (Da Nang), Community House on Kim Cuong Island (District 2, HCM City), S. House 3 (HCM City) and Naman Babylon (Da Nang), as well as Vietnam Pavilion at World Expo (Milan, Italy) and FPT University (Hanoi). The Green Good Design programme was founded in Chicago in 1950 by Eero Saarinen, Edgar Kaufmann Jr., Charles and Ray Eames to promote and foster a greater public understanding and acceptance for modern design. This year’s awards aim to bring parallel public appreciation and awareness for an equally revolutionary design approach - a new thinking led by the current generation of visionary architects, designers, urban planners and corporations, as well as governments, individuals, private and public institutions for a design and a public environment based on the ideals of energy conservation, reduction of toxic waste and greenhouse gases, diminishing dependence on fossil fuels and a sensitivity towards waste, pollution and depletion of the world’s energy resources. The goal is to bestow international recognition to those outstanding individuals, companies, organisations, governments, and institutions, together with their products, services, programmes, ideas, and concepts, that have shown exceptional thinking and inspired greater progress toward a healthier and more sustainable universe. Nghia studied architecture at the University of Tokyo before returning to Vietnam to establish his practice Vo Trong Nghia Architects in 2006. Through a series of the award-winning projects, Nghia has developed sustainable architectural design by integrating inexpensive local materials and traditional skills with contemporary aesthetics and modern methodologies. Nghia has received several international prizes and honours, including the World Architecture Festival Award, the ARCASIA Award, the WAN 21 for 21 Award and the FuturArc Green Leadership Award. He was selected Vietnam’s Architect of the Year in 2012. Vo Trong Nghia Architects is a leading architectural practice in Vietnam with offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. More than 60 international architects, engineers and staff work closely on cultural, residential and commercial projects worldwide. By experimenting with light, wind and water and by using natural and local materials, Vo Trong Nghia Architects employs contemporary design techniques to explore new ways to create green architecture for the 21st century while maintaining the essence of Asian architectural expression./.