bamboo club + cafe by VTN architects takes center stage in the heart of vietnam

vinh, in central vietnam, has been a battleground for multiple wars resulting in a massive amount of destruction to the city and the surrounding region. renovation for vietnam’s biggest city in the central region of the country has steered toward european design with colonial style façades, providing VTN architects with its latest challenge.

the project, titled ‘nocenco cafe,’ focused on morphing a middle-rise concrete building located in the city center of vinh. this scheme sees a renovated a cafe on the last floor and rooftop of a 7th floor turned into a neighborhood and city icon, with an emphasis on using a unique local material to create a new structure.

after a study period, VTN architects decided to use bamboo; an easily accessible material in the tropical climate reducing construction time and budget, but one that is also light and structurally sound.

the end product was a large dome structure on the roof with a club/lounge recognizable from any part of the city and a redesigned cafe on the floor below with an interior built using bamboo. this project equips a city that was once ravaged by war with a gathering place that has ‘a great view over the surrounding low-rise houses, towards the river, magnificent forest scape and various aged buildings.‘

the vietnam-based architecture firm used ten bamboo columns to hide the existing structure and four additional columns to elegantly divide the space into different private areas, thus creating a cave-like space but juxtaposed with an open view of the surrounding city.