Ho Chi Minh City: Rising Star
"I’ve observed this city transform over the past 15 years. In this story I wanted to couple my own musings with powerful local voices."
Going Places (Malaysia Airlines)
•
1st February 2024
Cover Story: Saigon Steps Up to The Plate
"Most travellers' perception of [food in] Vietnam is stuck in the Bourdain era." So what's changed?
Going Places (Malaysia Airlines)
•
6th December 2023
Fabric Reborn
With the help of a Ho Chi Minh City-based brand, an exquisite, all-but-extinct Vietnamese silk fabric enjoys a revival.
MICHELIN Guide
•
14th September 2023
Refugee Turned Banker Turned Chef
Few chefs have a backstory as colourful as Peter Cuong Franklin’s. Born in a war-ravaged Vietnam, Franklin fled the country as a child in 1975, resettled in the United States, and graduated from Yale. He then launched himself into investment banking, a career path that took him across the world.
MICHELIN Guide
•
24th July 2023
Who Invented Vietnam’s National Dish?
It's complicated, it turns out.
The Economist
•
27th June 2022
Vietnamese Modernism Was Ahead of Its Time
Despite official neglect, architects are reviving the buildings and ideas of the post-independence era.
Chao Hanoi
•
18th September 2020
Heritage Repurposed
A blast of thunder detonates over the Hanoi Old Quarter, declaring the imminent arrival of an autumn shower. Specks of water fall like pin pricks as I squeeze through Trung Yen Alley, a narrow ribbon of road linking Hang Be Market with Dinh Liet Street.
Vietcetera
•
20th October 2021
Meet The Architects Using Creative Design To Tackle The Climate Crisis
Furious typhoons hammer the land, triggering torrential downpours and earth-shaking winds. In coastal settlements, some communities sit submerged while others wash away entirely. In the highlands, devastating landslides sever roads and bury farms.
This isn’t an eschatological prophecy, but the reality central Vietnam faced in 2020, an abnormally calamitous year. The press reported that natural disasters – probably exacerbated by the climate crisis – caused $1.6 billion worth of damage, five tim
Travelfish
•
30th December 2020
Vietnam: Beyond the Stereotype
Vietnam is awash with antiquated and orientalist fantasies. Travel media outlets manufacture nostalgia for a colonial heirloom with crowded street kitchens and conical hat-wearing hawkers. Foreign travel companies overrepresent Vietnam’s beaches as if the country exists to serve sun-starved Northeast Asians and Europeans. And although Vietnam has been at peace for over four decades, American films continue to portray a perilous place reeling from war.
FRAME
•
18th March 2021
Are Mashrabiya Facades Making a Comeback in Hanoi?
Looking at Hanoi’s aspirations for the future is like examining the mistakes of its counterparts in the present. Rather than forge a new cityscape and avoid the mishaps of Bangkok and Manila, Hanoi seems set to emulate these traffic-clogged, glass-obsessed and heat-choked dystopias.
The Economist
•
3rd July 2020
Your Loss, My Grain
As covid-19 saps Vietnam’s economy, private charity is blossoming.
That is unusual for a workers’ paradise. Despite the mid-morning heat, residents of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, swarm around the dispenser filling their brown paper bags.
Wallpaper*
•
15th July 2021
Green List
On a sizzling April afternoon, a rainstorm pummels Ho Chi Minh City. Despite the deafening downpour, temperatures stay miserably high in the megacity’s concrete and glass-laden central districts. Urbanites remain sheltered in offices and cafés, which are sealed and air-conditioned. After the outburst, which lasts for an hour or so, the clouds crack and the sun resumes its offensive, turning the city’s soggy centre into a steam bath.
The Independent
•
21st May 2021
How Architects Are Greening Vietnam’s Hotel Scene
On a diamond-shaped island in southern Vietnam sits a collection of small lagoons enveloped by leafy vines. Adding to the hanging greenery are flourishing frangipani trees blooming with butter yellow champa flowers and bunches of bamboo stalks supporting a lime green canopy. Verdant though it is, this forest isn’t wild. And despite the botanic setting, the lagoons are actually secluded swimming pools.
CNN - DBS
•
15th July 2021
Feeding and Healing Cities
A social enterprise is making Singapore’s ambitious food security goal about something more than just self-reliance. Edible Garden City believes urban farming cultivates a greener and more inclusive environment that also nourishes the minds and health of citizens.
In 2019, Singapore announced its ambitious “30 by 30” target: to produce 30 percent of the country’s nutritional needs domestically by 2030. This mission has never seemed more important than after more than a year of trade disruptions
Interior Design Magazine
•
5th May 2021
Creative Voices: Vo Trong Nghia
2020 saw Vo Trong Nghia’s green architecture propagate throughout Vietnam. He boosted his “House for Trees” collection – residential projects that are home to both plants and people – including the award-winning Bat Trang House in Hanoi. He embarked on Dong Na Villas, a residential masterplan replete with roads and restaurants outside of Hoi An. But perhaps most arresting are Vo’s three ambitious new bamboo structures: The Huong An Vien Visiting Center in Hue, the Vedana Restaurant in Ninh Binh and an events hall in Phu Quoc.
Wallpaper*
•
7th April 2020
Vietnam’s New Biophilic Architecture Is Going Wild
Picture architecture in Vietnam and you might imagine ancient temples buried down countryside lanes or faded colonial buildings lining the city streets. But spurred by unprecedented economic growth, this Southeast Asian country of almost 100 million is revamping its traditional image – and architecture is part of the overhaul. After decades spent trying to keep Vietnam’s unrelenting jungles out of the cities, visionary architects now harness th
1843
•
8th May 2020
All The Rage: What the Vietnamese Are Eating
Vietnam is the world’s leading exporter of dragon fruit, most of which goes to China. The spread of covid-19 has impeded this trade, leaving hard-hit farmers with mounds of unsold produce.
CNN - Hitachi
•
21st January 2021
Empowering Cities
Southeast Asia is experiencing unprecedented change, and nowhere is this more evident than in its cities. In 2018, the United Nations (UN) identified 33 megacities – cities with more than 10 million inhabitants – and three were in Southeast Asia (Jakarta, Indonesia; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangkok, Thailand).
Wired UK
•
22nd March 2021
Bamboo Buildings Are the Future
Flexible, quick to grow, and cheap, the charismatic plant has sprouted a whole new style. Around 130km southwest of Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, sits Cuc Phuong National Park.
CNN - DBS
•
28th August 2020
Waste Not, Want Yes
Social enterprises – empowered by financial institutions – are pushing innovative solutions for zero food waste. A third of the world’s food is lost or wasted, and yet one in nine people go hungry. The environmental impact compounds this problem.
Load More Articles
