[Photos] Vo Trong Nghia Unveils Plans to Cover Saigon University in Trees

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September 7, 2015

Saigon will be getting a little bit greener, thanks to the folks at Vo Trong Nghia. The award-winning architecture firm recently revealed its plans for a new FPT University campus in the southern city, which include a tree-covered building and shaded courtyard.

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Spread across a 22,500 square meters, FPT's new southern campus will include a long, rolling building whose staggered floors will be outfitted with planters, adding greenery and shade not only to the large central courtyard within but throughout its many floors.

“This sprawling metropolis has a primarily flat landscape that is dominated by vertical straight buildings,” says the architecture firm. “To engage the city in a different way, FPT University appears as an undulating forested mountain growing out of the city of concrete and brick. This form creates more greenery than is destroyed, counteracting environmental stress and providing the city with a new icon for sustainability.”

This is Vo Trong Nghia's second project for FPT University. Its first, an administrative building for the university's Hanoi campus, turned heads in 2014 for its checkerboard design, as did the firm's award-winning Farming Kindergarten in Dong Nai earlier this year.

Schools aren't the only structures the firm takes on: Vo Trong Nghia has also gained acclaim for everything from individual houses to garment factories, all of which employ green building materials.