Kim Liên City (Volume 1–3): Investigating critical vernacularism and inside-out transformativity in Hanoi

While dealing with the controversial subject of renovation/reconstruction of Hanoi's post-war Subsidy-era collective housing network, the project takes the Kim Liên area as a case study and demonstration prototype. Despite the thriving livelihood and liveliness of this 1962 social housing complex (the country's first of its kind), it faces the risk of being demolished and replaced with fully newly built developments whose purposes usually favor instant and short-term efficiency. "Kim Liên City" digs deep into its own context—its strategic location within the city and rich architectural legacy, and aims at exploring the neighborhood's stimulating degree of socio-economic self-efficiency, to imagine a transformative future for Hanoi's growing urbanism and ever-evolving sense of locality.

Bui Quy Son, Master's thesis, 2017
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture
3 paperback volumes of 18.7 x 24.5 cm, in 120gsm paper

Browse the featured project on designboom, in ArchDaily's 80 Best Architecture Drawings of 2017, and in Wallpaper* Graduate Directory 2018


Kim Liên City