Pinal A. Desai

M.Sc Year 2. TU Delft.

4 weeks

Assignment: This studio was divided into 2 parts: 4 weeks of site study as a group and 4 weeks of individual elaboration on the problems identified. The group consisted of a total of 4 students from TU Delft and 3 students from Hanoi Architecture University, Vietnam. In this portfolio, only the solution developed individually is elaborated.

The site is based in silk Village, 10 kilometers from the Hanoi city center. During the study and by talking to the locals, it was realized that the river was causing health problems. At the same time, the Public space was reducing. These two problems are focused on this project.

Design: The solution developed was of wet-land pods: that was made of bio-composite and could be used for urban farming.

The first step of the design incorporated growing reed on the river banks to clean the pollution. A reed fully matures to its fill height of about 1.2 meters in approximately one year. After processing for about 3-4 weeks, it can be further used. The reed fibers can be used in the natural fibers reinforcement in the bio composites. However, as reed is susceptible to weather decomposition over long time as compared to metal and glass reinforcements, to improve the durability of the bio-composites an additional layer of resin must be used.

It was observed that the drain from village is directly let out into the river. While one idea would take some of the drain to filtration plant, a part of the drain is made to flow though the hexagonal pods in order to achieve a clean drinking system through vertical and horizontal wet-land system. Thus the drain water is cleaned through a natural process before it enters the river, while the system offers the regeneration of the lost green space.

After the river is relatively clean, it can be used as a point of interaction for social meet and greet, even small street side cafes. Thus, the individual hexagonal pods would form a canopy, supported by stacked hexagonal pods. The space below can be used for interaction. The hollow spaces in canopy pods are covered in glass so that people can walk over them. These canopy pods can be accessible via staircase formed by pods on the outside of the canopy.