Nam Binh Ship - Huong River - Hue City

Design office:    NH VILLAGE ARCHITECTS

Principal architect: Tran Dai Nghia

Team: Tran Dai Nghia, Nguyen Cong Nguyen, Pham Tung Lam, Nguyen Quang Tuan Vu

Project location: Hue City, Vietnam

Floor area: 105 m2

Completion year: 2019

Photographer: Hiroyuki Oki

 The context 

The Perfume river ( In Vietnamese: Huong River) is a beautiful and poetic river flowing quietly through Hue city in central Vietnam. Hue is a world heritage site –recognised by UNESCO with its citadel and many other cultural remains located throughout the city. The source of the river is a mountainous area with traditional, sustainable and peaceful local folk houses. The village landscape and folk houses can be seen from the river. The end of river connect to Tam Giang lagoon, just near the sea, a place people can enjoy a panorama of the sunset as a backdrop to the fishing villages.  At night, tourists can board up a tourist boats to enjoy  Hue songs, folk music from Hue region.

Design task and challenge

With such potential tourist resources, NAM BINH cruise ship is a prototype addressing the challenge to create a new service for the region. During the daytime, the ship serves tourists sightseeing from  the river, while in the evening, it serves as a dining experience with traditional folk songs, that are popular on the Perfume River. The design of the ship needed to be in harmony with nature and surrounding culture context.

The design concept 

The design of the ship aims to be simple . It look like a leaf on the river, in harmony with the surrounding landscape while the roof form and colour brings to mind the Hue traditional garden house. The plan of the ship makes a loop that the guests can walk around to enjoy sightseeing. The structure of the cabin is made of wood and the ceiling is finished with woven bamboo, a traditional Vietnamese material making the space warm and friendly. The window frame is designed to be open with slender columns so the view from the ship to the outside reflects the movement of a “ Sansui Ga” – an old style of painting of the East,  reflecting Hue’s beautiful landscape place by place, especially at the points where the river changes its direction. The layout of tables and chairs inside can be arranged flexibly and the table is foldable so  it can serve not only for  individual guests but also large groups of people or for orginized events on the ship.

Vision of the work and next steps in this field, Vietnam case.

Vietnam is a country with a high density of river networks. Many rivers play a key role in the historical development of a city. There are rivers such as the Perfume River in this case or Mekong delta,where there are many villages on the river and people spend their life by them. There is a need for finding solutions and new types of ship that can serve not only for tourists but also for other aspects of  life, such as  housing, tbroughout the country. We think the work of architects is not limited as building work on the ground, but also should expand to this field to contribute to the development of society in general.

The work has been introduced in prestigious international and Vietnamese magazines:
https://www.designboom.com/design/nh-village-architects-nambinh-ship-cultural-experience-vietnam-01-03-2020/
https://kienviet.net/2020/02/13/thuyen-nam-binh-nh-village-architects/