GROUP 3

GENERAL RESEARCHON ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGEOF FRENCH VILLA CLUSTERSURBAN DESIGN THEORIES - FINAL REPORT

1

Preserve and regenerate the value of architecture sites and urban is a major chal-

lenge to the history and culture of Vietnam. Throughout the development of histo-

ry, Vietnam has achieved a considerable architectural heritage, including heritag-

es established during French colonial period. These heritage foundation has a sig-

nificant value in terms of architecture, art and usage, and has been a part of the

social life in Vietnam for more than a century and played an important role in the

development of the country.

Every city, following its own development, often saved the marks of history. Those

marks are expressed through various cultural values, through the physical sizes

and mental. With the urban areas with more than hundred years old, historical

center is usually where old and new cultural clusters chime within a continuous

development progress. The relationship between preservation and regeneration

becomes a dialectic matter in the renovation and development of urban areas.

Ho Chi Minh city can be considered as an example with orientational planning

based on preservation, regeneration the existing central area and other develop-

ing projects aiming at expanding the central areas into a new district of the city.

The issue will be the ability to recognize the featuring urban architecture values of

the current center, and then not only determining the preservation solution, but

also bring forward solution, keeping those values into the flow of metropolitan.

3 - 4 5 - 8 9 - 18

19 - 20 21 - 22 23

ABOUT

THE GROUP

INTRODUCTION RESEARCH

OVERVIEW

EVALUATION OF

THE SITE’S

CONSERVING AND

GENERATING

EVALUATING

RESULTS

DEVELOPMENT

VISIONS AND

PROPOSED

2

Table of contents

about The group

3

DO QUOC ANH NGUYEN KHOA

DIEM

TRAN DIEU

HANH

DONG QUOC

PHONG

TON NU

VU QUYNH

DO PHUONG

THAO

4

VO THANH HIEN NGUYEN HUY

HOANG

TRAN HOAI NAM

NGUYEN THAO

TIEN

NGUYEN NGOC

THAO TRUC

TRINH NGOC

TUONG VY

INTRODUCTION

1. Research objects and scope

2. Research objectives

3. Methodologies

4. Meaning and value

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6

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Architectural and urban planning heritage value is the main objective of the re-search. Notably, villas from French colonial period are main points and the re-search focus on a part of ward 7, district 3, Ho Chi Minh city where existed many of said villas.

Define architectural and urban planning value of object area.

Propose suitable action for preservation and regeneration

Propose suitable action to improve and promote architectural heritage

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To achieve mentioned purpose, many methodologies were used in the process of the research, such as:

Collecting

Analyzing

Survey

Statisticizing and classifying

Layer overlapping

Comparison

Determining the value of urban architecture of the current Ho Chi Minh city center based on diverse data related to history and culture, characteristics of the situation of the object, not only the standalone heritage, architectural herit-ages, but also including the urban spaces combining various principle values related to function, urban shape, public area, architectural sites and intangible value.

Proposing valuation method of potential of the site and heritage area by evalua-tion scale with diverse criteria, suitable for research object

Proposing preserving and expressing the featuring values of urban architecture with various solutions, not only limited within preservation, but also through suitable regenerating solutions, renovating, constructing.

Research overview

1. Historic timeline of settlement and development

2. Existing status of urban fabric

3. Existing status of architecture

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After conquering Gia Dinh Citadel (1859), the French had started outlining Saigon based on European planning critical. Nevertheless, until 1878-1897, the project site had just started to form the main circulation system and there was merely any resi-dent living at the area by then. Afterward, in 1897-1945 when it was the heyday of Saigon, both local economy and society, especially regarding to culture significantly reached their peaks. The period had witnessed the very first formation of villas which were strongly influenced by French architecture and soon became accommo-dation for the upper class and officers in Saigon then. From 1945-1954, this housing typology still overcame in quantity yet the area's overall building density was main-tained as low as possible. However, due to the rocketing increase in population and the political context in which the French lost their ruler-ship to the southern of Vi-etnam, during the period from 1954 to 1975, there was a gradually increase in build-ing density and many other building typologies had also started to appear.

1859-1878 1878 - 1897 1897 - 1945

1945 - 1954 1954 - 1975 Nowadays

a. Street

It is obvious that the street pattern has not changed since French planning period

with the exception of a few newly formed culs-de-sac, most of which have been used

for accessing into villas that is located far from the street in the midst of urban

blocks, which partly creates a unique sense of place when getting in.

1859—1878 1878—1897 1897—1945

1945—1975 Nowadays

Street Section

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On the other hand, the rapid rise in traffic volume has overtaken the existing quiet atmosphere and is also one of the reasons leading to changes in building function.

Setback-Semi-

Private Zone

Pedestrian Zone

Traffic Zone

Highest hierarchy street Medium hierarchy street Low hierarchy street

Section line

Direction of street

Street Direction

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b. Greenery

A noticeably abundant area of shadow is created by strips of trees which are

distributed in such a harmonious way. Besides, the diversity in types and sizes of

greenery is also witnessed within the project site. Some of the trees which had been

planted approximately 50 years ago have been well conserved and is still in good

condition nowadays, remarkably on Tu Xuong St.

c. Public—Private Gradient

The characteristic of private space in the past has still had influence on today's

private spaces' features. For instance, apart from some semi-public spaces around

commercial buildings, there is merely any official public space except for the

sidewalk and carriageway areas (although there is a rather large park for children

located right next to the site).

DIPTEROCATPACEAE

SWIETENIA MAHOGANI

KHAYA SENEGALENSIS

CASSIA HEBECARPA

TELOSMA CORDATA

TREES - OVER 50 AGE

Public zone

Semi—public zone

Semi—private zone

Private zone

Public zone

Semi—private zone

d. Social Interactions

A large percentage of social activities take place at on-street cafés serving

officers and passerby's. The area becomes even quieter when it comes to

night-time and barely any social interactions among residents are recorded.

The one and only reason for this is the lack of public open spaces that are not

diversified at all.

Daytime Nighttime

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• Blocks and plots

Being formed since the early stage of the settlement process, the housing plots

here have been witnessed a lot of changes. From the original plot, its size had

been reduced by time to be adaptive to social context where there was an increase

in population at a certain period of time and finally a plot in the past was divided

into 4 or 6 smaller pieces nowadays, which lead to the raise of building density of

the area.

e. Buildings

1859—1878 1878—1897 1897—1945

1945—1954 Nowadays 1954—1975

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• Building height

The most common building height varies from 2 to 4 storeys. Nevertheless, the

recent appearance of some modern high-rise buildings has broken the area's

overall harmonious skyline.

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• Building function

The changing in building function has been a considerable issue of the area. There

are around half of the number of villas still remain residential, whereas the others

have been functioned as education, commerce, office and services etc. As a result,

the original architecture has been modified to be adaptive to the buildings' new

using purpose.

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The image of antique brick-roofed French villas which acts an aerial identity has been conserved at a few specific areas despite the rapid formation of modern build-ings.

Such valuable architectural details like balcony, pilasters, windows and doors etc. which should have positively contributed to the urban streetscape are usually hid-den by high screening, fences and large canopies of trees. This is not only a hin-drance to the urban landscape but also a big obstacle to the research process.

Evaluation of the site’s conserving and generating potentialsin terms of architectural heritage

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Strong– contains special values, need conserving

Average – contains certain values, need considering

Weak – no noticeable values

13pts. → 14pts.

10pts. → 12pts.

< 9pts.

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The evaluating system is formed based on the analysis results and is an early prem-

ise for defining potentials in conserving local elements consists of historical, archi-

tectural, urban planning, originality and intangible values.

• Historical value: Historical value of the area is showed by the existence of

buildings especially villas there. This value includes chronological value and the

connection with history event.

• Architectural value: Architectural value of the site including architecture ty-

pologies, aesthetic value, façade and architectural details that express architecture

style of French colonial period.

• Urban planning value: this value is showed by evaluating plots and blocks’ bound-

aries, the interrelationship between building shapes and urban spaces. Urban space

is a important aspect that need to be concerned in order to give the most accurate

evaluation on the area.

• Originality value: Throughout the development of the area, many building

shapes were changed.

• Intangible value: intangible value expresses the value of local community

and how they use urban spaces. Also, activities of people and community value is

included in the evaluation.

Regarding to the stage after researching, an orientating system referring to conser-

vation and regeneration process is considerably established with the effort of pro-

moting local architectural heritage in the modern developing context of HCMC.

s conserving and generating potentials in terms of architectural heritage

EVALUATING RESULTS

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On the scale of 3 (1- Weak; 2- Average; 3- Strong), every blocks and plots of the

sites is carefully evaluated. By combining layers of evaluation scoring, the results

show the average value of the plot which contribute an important role when consid-

er planning conservation and regeneration to the site.

HISTORICAL

VALUE

ARCHITECTURAL

VALUE

URBAN PLANNING

VALUE

ORIGINALITY

VALUE

INTANGIBLE

VALUE

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This map demonstrates final result of the evaluating section. The color of each zone

represents for its general value. The lighter the color is, the less considerable. The

map generally shows where planners need to concern the most for the preservation

and regeneration.

The white colored area on Tu Xuong street was scored as the most considerable ar-

ea when planning preservation project. As a deduction, suitable planning will be

given out in order to preserve the heritage value of the area.

Weak – no

noticeable values

Average - contains

certain values, need

considering

Strong– contains

special values, need

conserving

Development visions

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And proposed actions

From last section, object site is divided into zones with different value that need

different orientation for its development.

Proposal for the site is not only about preserving but also promoting its heritage.

On the other hand, economic value is also included in future proposal for the site.

In the future, buildings along Dien Bien Phu street will be the complex of commer-

cial and residence.

Other zones in the area will be developed as residential area but its building typolo-

gies and architectural style will be strictly managed in order to keep the façade in

same style with existing one. Architecture details such as window, doors, roof

styles, materials and decoration will be included in building and constructing

standard of that area. Main purpose of this action is to maintain the look of old val-

uable heritage of the site.

For the most considerable area on Tu Xuong street, preservation planning are used

to keep the most value of the area.

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Preservation and regeneration planning is now an urgent need for urban especially

an urban with long history like Ho Chi Minh city. Historical value and architectural

heritage of one area is the soul of the city. Keeping those value is important not only

for today but also for the future.

Define those value and understand them is the most important part in the process

of preservation. For that, this evaluating standard and scoring systems is hoped to

be the guide for further understanding and research of the site.

NOVEMBER, 2015