Vietnam house inspired by world’s largest cave

Seeing the uncontrolled urbanization in the neighborhood, the owner of a house in Tra On District, Vinh Long Province, wanted to make it as environmentally friendly as possible, and the design team at Ho Chi Minh City-based 23o5 Studio led by architect Ngo Viet Khanh Duy decided to model it on Son Doong, the world’s largest cave in Quang Binh Province in central Vietnam.

Named Long Cave, the house is 40 meters long and five meters wide. The cave’s rivers, sinkholes and vegetation are recreated in the house. It only has one floor. The various areas of the house are not separated by concrete walls and open spaces allow natural light in.

Just like in the cave, the ceiling is not at a single level but changes according to the space below. Son Doong was discovered by a local man named Ho Khanh in 1991 and was officially put on the map in 2009. It opened to visitors in 2013, four years after members of the British Cave Research Association explored it and declared it the world’s largest.

The kitchen of the house.

The restroom at the back of house.

The house is said to be built of materials that are environmentally friendly. With this project, the design team made it to the top five of the Spec Go Green International Awards in 2017, an annual awards for Vietnamese young architects.

As one takes a walk into the house, the feeling would be like going into a cave, with two bedrooms at the end.

"The different sectional shape for the same equivalent area creates different feelings for each space. The boundary between inside and outside is blurred away," ArchDaily, the world's most visited architecture website, described the house.

Photos by KingKien