Saigon apartment’s incredible makeover

Photos courtesy of Hiroyuki Oki

This second floor apartment in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 7 has an area of 145 m2.

Its owner works as a director of marketing, a busy man who did not want to return home every night to a square concrete box, which is common in the country’s most populous city.

He approached Creative Architects (CTA) and told them to design a space completely detached from the bustling atmosphere outside so that he can immerse himself in a book or close his eyes and sleep whenever he wished to.

He wanted not just a normal residence with bedrooms, living room, kitchen, dining room, but a "fresh" space that would help him recharge his batteries after a hard day’s work.

So all the walls were knocked down and replaced with moveable partitions. Thanks to this, the apartment turned into a versatile space with a lot of functional flexibility.

To soften the space, the ceiling was covered in a stylized, wavy layer of oak, helping diminishing the rigidness of a traditional apartment.

After five months of work the owner had a unique wooden home emerging, butterfly-like, from the rough apartment.

The cost came to VND1.2-1.5 billion ($51,500 - $64,400). The wood alone cost VND900 million ($38,650), the bricks for the floors and walls cost VND100 million ($4,300), and sanitary equipment cost VND40 million ($1,700).

The apartment has made it to the nomination list in the "Furniture of the Year" category at the 2018 Ashui Awards sponsored by the Vietnam Urban Planning and Development Association.